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Paper-Trailers: Supporting Research

Last year we completed research into the dire need that victims and survivors have for truth and acknowledgement. This research became the foundation of Paper-Trailers, funded by the Executive Office’s Good Relations Fund and managed by Paper Trail. After individual meetings and interviews with key stakeholders, we canvassed the anonymous views of 109 individuals using …

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Kelly's Bar Banner

Kelly’s Bar Atrocity: Foreknowledge and Preventability

British Prime Minister Files prove that the British army expected the bomb car and could have prevented attack on Kelly’s Bar on 13th May 1972. Secret files – one signed by the British Prime Minister Edward Heath – prove that the British officer in charge of an observation post overlooking Kelly’s Bar was “warned to …

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The Anniversary of the Death of Bobby Sands

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the death of Bobby Sands who was a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army. He died after 66 days on hunger strike, protesting within the British prison system for status as a Republican prisoner of war and not a criminal. He had been elected as a Member of the British …

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The Killing of 11-Year-Old Francis Rowntree

There have been many disturbing facts at this week’s inquest into the killing of Francis Rowntree by a British soldier, and not only because he was an innocent 11-year-old child and his family are only getting this semblance of justice 44 years later. Francis was shot in the face/head with a rubber bullet fired from …

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Paper Trail Logo - Legacy Archive Research

Online Survey: Public Records and the Past

Paper Trail needs YOU!.. to complete a short online survey and share it with your friends and contacts. We are canvassing views on the importance of the retrieval of legacy archives in Britain and Ireland, especially for: People impacted by events detailed in the public records, and Those who work with these people The short …

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The British Prime Minister and the New Lodge 6

Previously unpublished Prime Ministerial records relating to the New Lodge 6 killings were released on the anniversary of the atrocity by Paper Trail. We tracked the files over the last couple of years before releasing them to the New Lodge 6 families and their legal representatives. They prove that: The British Prime Minister was told …

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Jean Smyth-Campbell

Belated Police Investigation Into MRF Is Cynical Window-Dressing

News that the Police Service of Northern Ireland will finally investigate a clandestine unit of the British army that murdered civilians in the north of Ireland in the early 70s has been labelled as cynical window-dressing by the family of one of the victims. Young mother, Jean Smyth-Campbell, was murdered in June 1972 and police …

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Special Forces… and a Casual Cover-Up

A secret but seemingly innocuous British Ministry of Defence (MOD) file discussing a civil litigation case in 1975, not only confesses that a serious crime was carried out as part of Special Force duties, but also records how casual cover-up permeated the British system.   On April 12th 1974, three British soldiers, William James Simpson, …

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