Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 1981, Lance Corporal John McKeegan, the Ulster Defence Regiment, was killed in Strabane, Northern Ireland.

A part-time soldier, he had previously served in the Ulster Special Constabulary, and also worked as a delivery man for a builders’ merchant. A woman had phoned in an order for building supplies, and when Lance Corporal McKeegan arrived with the delivery, he was shot twice in the back and died at the scene. The driver with him was also shot at, but escaped unharmed. The order was bogus, but the address was real, an elderly couple’s home which had been taken over by the gunmen, who lay in wait for Lance Corporal McKeegan for several hours. A man was subsequently imprisoned for his involvement in the murder (along with sixteen other offences including the bombings at Strabane District Council offices and the Fir Trees Hotel). Lance Corporal McKeegan is buried in St. Peter’s Parish Church of Ireland Cemetery in Donemana, County Tyrone.

John, from Donemana, was 40 years old and married with two daughters and a son.