Signalman Paul Genge remembered 50 years on

Lurgan and Brownlow Royal British Legion conducted a dignified Service of Remembrance yesterday afternoon to remember Signalman Paul Genge, who was the first soldier to be murdered in Lurgan.

At 5.00pm on 7 November 1971, while walking out off-duty in Lurgan, Signalman Paul Genge and Signalman David Grant were approached by two gunmen in a car on the Tandragee Road near the town’s hospital only several hundred yards from the factory.

Seeing the gunmen, who were armed with a Luger pistol and a Thompson sub-machine gun, the signalmen ran but were unable to escape — Signalman Genge was shot and killed and Signalman Grant was wounded in the thigh.

The Deputy Lord Lieutenant Hubert McAlistair, the Lord Mayor Glenn Barr and Lt Col M Fraser Brenchley were in attendance yesterday to pay their respects. 

Pictures by Maynard Collins