A mural in the Rathcoole housing estate depicting the three Scottish Soldiers.
‘Three Scottish Soldiers’
One of the IRA’s most infamous attacks took place on 9 March 1971 and involved the murder of three unarmed and off-duty Scottish soldiers. Female IRA Volunteers lured the men from the relative safety of a pub in Belfast’s city centre, from where they were driven to a remote spot at White Brae Lane and executed, in a line, at close range.[1] Brothers John and Joseph McCaig were aged just 17 and 18, respectively, while Dougald McCaughey was 23 years old. The cold and calculated nature of the killings sparked widespread revulsion in Northern Ireland and the event is often considered ‘one of the key points in Northern Ireland’s descent into full-scale violence’.[2]
On the day the three soldiers were buried in Scotland, some 20,000 people attended remembrance rallies in Belfast and Carrickfergus, where they held a two-minute silence, before singing a hymn and the national anthem.[3]They were not only the first off-duty soldiers killed during the Troubles but were also among the youngest military casualties of the entire conflict. Their young age coupled with the cultural closeness between Protestant Scotland and Northern Ireland engendered deep feelings of anger within Northern Ireland’s loyalist community. As one former paramilitary explained:
‘I think what the killing did do was bring home quite quickly how potent a threat the IRA now were and how capable and ruthless they were. Because of the notion that . . . the three soldiers were Scottish and of a similar age to ourselves, we somehow felt a bond with them . . . we seen them almost as loyalists . . . and this remains the case to this day’ (Robert Niblock in Mulvenna).[4]
For many loyalists, the event further evidenced the IRA’s savagery, and the three soldiers were commemorated by a memorial stone at the site of their killings, as well as in murals, poems, and songs. Loyalist News printed several songs, including ‘Three Young Soldiers’ (‘N. Smith’ 27th March 1971), ‘The Lesson of White Brae Lane’ (‘Wm. Stewart’ 11thMarch 1972), and ‘Lest We Forget’ (17th March 1973). Yet of all the artistic tributes dedicated to the men, the most popular—and enduring—is ‘Three Scottish Soldiers’, set to the tune of ‘Silent Night’, which first appeared in the 24thJuly 1971 edition of Loyalist News.
‘Three Scottish Soldiers’
Three boys came to Belfast their country to serve,
They suffered a fate that no man should deserve.
For they were off duty and out for the day,
Yet all three were victims of the IRA.
They’re sleeping in heavenly peace.
Sleeping in heavenly peace.
Their young lives were over, their duty was done.
Only God knew when that day had begun,
That three Scottish soldiers would each lose his life,
For being in Belfast to fight on our side
They’re sleeping in heavenly peace.
Sleeping in heavenly peace.
The three lay together in that dark country road,
Still friends by death, they stood by the code.
For serving our country with honour and pride,
Let’s be grateful in Belfast they stood by our side.
They’re sleeping in heavenly peace.
Sleeping in heavenly peace.
To the people in Scotland, my God what a blow.
They can’t understand who could sink so low,
They think here in Belfast there’s nothing but scorn
For the Queen’s Colours these three boys had worn.
If only they knew how we cried
When we learned how these boys had died.
We must stand firm in Ulster, we must make it plain,
That these Scottish soldiers had not died in vain.
We must show the whole country that Ulster is true,
And the good people here love the red, white and blue.
Let’s never forget what it cost.
To make sure our Ulster’s not lost.
The song’s reference to the soldiers as ‘boys’ with ‘young lives’, serves to underline their innocence, while the phrases ‘their country to serve’, ‘fight on our side’, and ‘serving our country’ point to the closeness of Ulster and Scotland—the solders being in Northern Ireland to safeguard kith and kin. The final two stanzas convey a sense of guilt, shame, and indebtedness on the part of Ulster loyalists and a reassurance that the soldiers’ sacrifice was not in vain. In a practical sense, the song’s use of ‘sleeping in heavenly peace’, repeated twice in the first stanza, serves as a useful mnemonic, linking the song to the original ‘Silent Night’ and likely contributes to how well the song has endured. ‘Three Scottish Soldiers’ was reproduced several times in Loyalist News and appears in Orange Loyalist Songs (1972), as well as in the Orange Cross Book of Songs, Poems and Verse (1972), where it is listed as ‘Our Shame’. The song was popularised by Sylvia Pavis and remains a firm favourite within today’s loyalist song scene.
Sylvia Pavis is an entertainer from loyalist East Belfast who has been performing for over 50 years and reports to have raised over £2 million for charitable causes. Pavis is known variously as ‘The First Lady of the East’, ‘The Queen of East Belfast’ and ‘The Queen of Song’. The onset of the Troubles motivated her to become involved in the loyalist music scene:
‘I was singing from I was 12 years of age. At 14, I went out and sang in the bars and then I started doing cabaret . . . I was a cabaret [singer] before I was a loyalist singer, and then the troubles started in 1969, and when the troubles started, I started doing the loyalist stuff’.
Pavis explained the history of ‘The Three Scottish Soldiers’ song, thus:
‘When they were murdered, there was a fella, I don’t know who it was,[5] lived down Millisle [Co. Down] and he wrote this song, ‘Three Scottish Soldiers’ to the tune of ‘Silent Night’. Well, I used to sing in Deeside. So, he sent the words up to me in Belfast through Joe McKee [who] sang and played the organ. So, I’m singing along with Joe in the Deeside, just across the way and he says, ‘Sylvia, a fella gave me this here’. He said, ‘remember the three boys that was murdered?’ And I said yes. So, he sent me this song and he says, ‘I want you to sing it and put it to the tune of silent night’. I said OK, so we practiced, and I sung it. . . I’ve been singing for 47 years. Their deaths were 48 years on the 10th of March there. That song goes to everybody’s heart … when I [sang at] the Shankill Road there at the weekend, over 400 people stood up . . . I cry after singing it . . . I cry whenever I sing it’.
Despite taking place half a century ago, the killing of the three Scottish soldiers retains a painfulness and a poignancy within the loyalist music scene and beyond. But the particularities of the event are also deemed to be of the upmost importance. In an interview, Pavis explained that she now speaks the line ‘Still friends by death, they stood by the code’ instead of singing it, because some audiences said it wasn’t clear what she was saying. Thus, in privileging the communication of events over musical performance, Pavis illustrates the educative role of such songs, which is similar to that found within the Irish rebel music scene (see Millar 2020).[6]
[1] McKittrick David, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton. (1999). Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Edinburgh: Mainstream. p71.
[2] McKittrick David, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton. (1999). Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Edinburgh: Mainstream. p70.
[3] McKittrick David, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton. (1999). Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Edinburgh: Mainstream. p71.
[4] Mulvenna, Gareth. (2016). Tartan Gangs and Paramilitaries: The Loyalist Backlash. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p93.
[5] The Orange Cross Book of Songs, Poems and Verse (1972) attributes the song to ‘R. McF Belfast Jail’. However, despite many conversations with loyalist singers and culture brokers, I have been unable to identify the original author.
[6] See Millar, Stephen R. (2020). Sounding Dissent: Rebel Songs, Resistance, and Irish Republicanism. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
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