Witness History27 Jan 2025

The Milltown Cemetery attack

On 16 March 1988, loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone killed three mourners and injured 60 others attending a funeral for IRA members killed in Gibraltar.

The so-called Gibraltar Three had been shot dead by the British Army and brought home to Belfast to be buried in the city’s Catholic Milltown Cemetery.

American journalist Bill Buzenberg, who was covering the funeral for National Public Radio in the US, was knocked off his feet in the gun and grenade attack. He shares his memories with Maggie Ayre.

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(Photo: People help a wounded person in Milltown Cemetery after the attack at the funeral for three IRA members. Credit: Bernard Bisson/Sygma via Getty Images)

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