On 27 June 1970, Billy McCurrie’s father was shot dead by the IRA.
As Billy waited for his dad to come home, he heard lots of automatic gunfire which continued all through that night. But, while running up the street to find his father, his friend’s dad ran out of a house, grabbed him and said that his father had been killed. Killed by the people from the much-reviled Republican community.
The funeral took place on the day of his brother’s birthday and, instead of celebrating, there was his brother, carrying his father’s coffin. His memory of the day was of thousands lining the street. Someone started to sing Psalm 23, and everyone joined in. The family were enveloped in a darkness, like a cancer that ate away at them and just took over their life.
Insatiable longing for revenge
Billy had an insatiable longing for revenge. At 16 he had the opportunity to join the junior wing of the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force). He was asked by a commander what he wanted to do and his reply was that he ‘just wanted to kill’. The chilling response was that he needed to get in line and wait his turn as there were 50 or 60 ahead of him wanting to do the same.
On 19 February 1976, his turn came. That morning he left his home and walked to a house where he collected the gun. Accompanied by a 25-year-old, he was told ‘you better not bottle this or chicken out’.
Billy remembers their target, a man in a car. As the car drew alongside Billy and his mate, there were firstly two shots. Then he fired more. It was ‘cold, callous, bloody, brutal and merciless’.
Bomb making
Billy had also started taking bomb-making courses as he was clear that more people could be killed with a bomb than with a gun. Looking back at this moment, he believes it was a ‘Godsend’ that he was arrested just two weeks after the shooting, before he could kill anyone else: he wanted to kill more people.
When caught, he was sentenced to be detained at the Secretary of State’s pleasure, which amounted to life imprisonment. Faced with this span of time before him, he showed no remorse. He remembers practically laughing in the face of the judge as the sentence was handed down.
The Maze prison
He spent time on remand and then carried out his sentence in the notorious Maze prison. Here he encountered the very same people he would have been killing. They were ‘contained’ initially in a part of the prison prior to being moved to the infamous ‘H’ blocks. Bizarrely, the authorities kept out of the way and this section was run by either IRA or UVF paramilitaries. More training was given in prison. Guerilla warfare was studied, all with the purpose of coming out and being a better killer.
Billy met a man called Peter Thompson who had also been given a life sentence. Peter was a hypocrite as far as Billy was concerned. He needed a crutch to lean on, a way to get out of his sentence as he would show he had ‘changed’. Peter had become a Christian. He was also the self-appointed wing hairdresser. This meant that as he worked his way around the prisoners, he was able to have 30 minutes with each person on the wing talking about Jesus! It was around this time that, out of the blue, Billy started receiving magazines from New Zealand. Having no idea who they were from he sent them to Peter, as ‘he was into religion!’
God sends magazines?
In August 1980 Billy went to find Peter to ask if he was getting the magazines. A medical officer looked over and said: ‘Don’t you think it’s God sending you these magazines?’ As he stood there waiting to be called a fool when Billy said he was sceptical about God’s existence, the officer said: ‘Regardless of whether or not you believe in God there is a God, and whatever you think, there is a hell, you’ll still go to hell if you believe as you do now. And then you’ll be a believer as everyone there is. And there’s no release date there.’
This statement left Billy feeling that there was no argument that heaven and hell existed, and he certainly knew where he was going. He began to be conscious that he had done wrong.
The cross and a sense of guilt
Shortly after this he met Gladys Blackburn, a retired school teacher from the Methodist College in Belfast, who used to go around the army camps and prisons telling people about Jesus. It was Christmas Eve 1980. She read about Jesus’ crucifixion, and it was the first time in which Billy had ever felt any guilt. An overwhelming sense of guilt. He knew he had offended God as well as his fellow man. He realised the truth of what the thief on the cross had said, that Jesus had done nothing wrong, but that he was taking the wrath for Billy’s sin. ‘He who knew no sin, becoming sin, taking my punishment’.
Billy asked how to become a Christian and was told it was as easy as ABC. He got down on his knees in the cell and acknowledged his sin. There in Block 7 of the Maze. No flashes of lightning, or thunder: ‘I know that God heard what I said. All anger and rage just went. I felt clean. For the first time, I felt clean. My burden of guilt, hate and bitterness just went. Immediately it went.’ Billy described feeling contentment and peace.
A Christian in prison
As Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego found, it wasn’t easy to be a Christian in prison. Billy told his family and friends about the change that had come into his life. His older sister said: ‘Anything’s better than Marx’ and felt it was his next little phase. But his mother sent a letter.
The prison authorities censored every letter, and they were uncertain as to whether they should give this particular one to him. But they did, and he sat in his cell, crying his eyes out reading the it. His mother wrote: ‘How could you talk about this God of love and forgiveness when your father was gunned down like a dog?’
She went on to tell how she’d met his father after the war and how they’d shared their plans and dreams. Billy was reading through Romans, and wrote a reply to his mother about vengeance belonging to God, not to us. He told his sister to take his mother to church with her. A few weeks later he received a letter back from his mother: ‘I now know what you mean about God’s forgiveness. Tonight at church, I became a Christian.’
Singing again
A mountain of hatred had been removed. ‘No one could ever tell me there was no God as there was such a difference between the two letters. After Jesus came into her life, she started singing again. He takes shattered lives and broken lives and makes them whole again,’ said Billy.
And now? Billy is the pastor of a baptist church in Ormskirk, with a wife and a family. But he still has nightmares. ‘There are consequences to your actions. I live with them. I don’t deserve sympathy though. I’m thankful that I was shown mercy. I don’t deserve to have been let out of prison. But I am thankful for my freedom. A Christian isn’t a good person, just a forgiven one.’
