THE woman in the grey coat, holding a Pomeranian in her red woollen mittens, appeared calm when the RUC pulled up alongside her on the Malone Road in 1984.

On the journey to the police station for questioning, she told officers she had two guns.

Strapped to her right leg with a surgical bandage was a grey wig and a Colt revolver. On her left was a Ruger and a black sock. She was 18.

A short time earlier, another young woman (23) was walking from Mass in south Belfast. She held up the collar of her new beige linen blouse to her mother, who admired it.

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“It’s new. Do you like it, Mum?” she asked.

She was then killed when two gunmen fired shots at her family, and a bullet pierced her aorta.

She bled out on a Belfast street as a female parishioner – a doctor – gave her mouth‑to‑mouth in vain.

Her father, a magistrate, was shot six times.

Her mother, mercifully, escaped injury, though she had to live out her life in grief.

Her 14‑year‑old sister arrived at a chaotic scene.

As Mary Travers lay dying,........

© The Irish News