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Pitchfork murders
Part of the Troubles
Location	Aughnahinch, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland
Date	23 October 1972 4:20 p.m.
Attack type	Stabbing
Weapon	Bowie knife
Victims	Michael Naan and Andrew Murray
Perpetrators	British soldiers Stanley Hathaway and John Byrne

The Troubles
Assassinations in Ireland, Britain and mainland Europe

1970s

1980s

1990s

acronyms

Republicans
INLA = Irish National Liberation Army
IPLO = Irish People's Liberation Organisation
OIRA = Official Irish Republican Army
PIRA = Provisional Irish Republican Army

Loyalists
LVF = Loyalist Volunteer Force
RHC = Red Hand Commando
UDA/UFF = Ulster Defence Association / Ulster Freedom Fighters
UVF = Ulster Volunteer Force

Security Forces
RUC = Royal Ulster Constabulary

see also: The Troubles in Ireland See also: The Troubles in Britain and Europe

The killing of Michael Naan and Andrew Murray, better known as the Pitchfork murders, was the killing of two Catholic civilians in October 1972, by two British Army soldiers of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Stabbing

On 23 October 1972 at around 4:20 p.m., two soldiers of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Sgt. Stanley Hathaway and Cpl. John Byrne, attacked farmer and civil rights activist Michael Naan (31) and laborer Andrew Joseph Murray (24) with a Bowie knife, while they were lifting hay off a trailer at Naan’s farm in Aughnahinch, County Fermanagh.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]

Murray was stabbed 13 times in the chest and Naan was stabbed at least 17 times and his throat slashed.^[3]

Hathaway and Byrne claimed they attacked Naan and Murray because they believed they were members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Although it is possible they targeted Naan because he was a prominent member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association; the killings could have also been in reprisal for the murder of Pvt. John Robert “Robin” Bell (21), a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment who was ambushed by the IRA a day earlier at his family’s farm in nearby Derrydoon.^[5]^[6]^[7]

References

^ "The Pitchfork murders: Fifty years of unanswered questions". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2023-11-27.
^ Burke, Edward, ed. (2018), "Murder: The Killing of Michael Naan and Andrew Murray", An Army of Tribes: British Army Cohesion, Deviancy and Murder in Northern Ireland, Liverpool University Press, pp. 227–332, ISBN 978-1-78694-097-1, retrieved 2023-11-27
^ ^a ^b "Pitchfork Murders: cover-up by British Army exposed". www.anphoblacht.com. Retrieved 2023-11-27.
^ "h300_andy.htm". www.tinneny.net. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
^ "Three killings which left a Border community reeling". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
^ "Nann and Murray murders in Fermanagh still 'raw' 50 years on". NorthernSound. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
^ "Brother recalls deadly IRA ambush as they arrived home". Impartial Reporter. 2016-10-21. Retrieved 2023-11-30.

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