Óglach Billy Carson RIP

Billy Carson, from the Cliftonville Road area, was born on 19th February 1947. Originally from the Lower Falls, Billy, the third child and eldest son in a family of 11 children, was educated at St Peter’s Primary School, Raglan Street. He played hurling and Gaelic football for the school team and was a swimming enthusiast. He always retained his love for playing hurley and even after leaving school in 1962, when he went to work as a dock labourer, he still found time to turn out regularly to play for the Sarsfields hurling team.
In 1967 he married and moved to live in the Cliftonville area. Both of Billy’s parents, Margaret and Samuel were staunch Republicans, Samuel being interned between 1942 and 1945 in Crumlin Road and Derry Jail. Billy himself joined the Republican Movement in late 1970 while the IRA were reorganising in the aftermath of ‘the Split’.
Although living in the North of the city, Billy spent a great amount of his time in the Lower Falls, where he was active in ‘D’ Company, 2nd Battalion. A courageous fighter, Billy was also scrupulously security conscious, and whilst continually remaining highly active he was one of the very few who evaded internment or even arrest on suspicion of being an IRA Volunteer right up until the time of his death.
Billy died in the early hours of Wednesday, 25th April 1979, only hours after being shot by loyalist gunmen as he entered his house in Rosevale Street off the Cliftonville Road. Two assassins had called at his house earlier that evening but when his children, Stephanie and Jim, explained that their parents had gone out, they left. One hour later, they returned and sat with the children in the house until, at 11:30pm, Billy and his wife Annie returned home. The gunmen met him at the door and shot him several times before disappearing into a nearby loyalist stronghold.

Rest In Peace, Billy