I know exactly where I was on June 18 1994 because, like many others, I went to a bar to watch a football match on television that night.
Ireland famously beat Italy in the World Cup at the Giants Stadium in New Jersey, the Belfast pub was packed and the celebrations were unrestrained at the final whistle but, before long, word began to spread that there had been a shooting somewhere in rural south Down.
Mobile phones were in their infancy so there was little other firm information, but it was clear something dreadful had happened, the mood changed and the crowd drifted off quietly.
We were lucky, and got home safely, but the customers at the Heights Bar in Loughinisland had not been so fortunate, and, by the next day, the grim details were in wide circulation.
Read more: Loughinisland and the continuing search for truth and justice – The Irish News view
Two UVF members wearing boiler suits and balaclavas burst into the tiny pub during the game before shouting messages of sectarian hate and firing more than 60 bullets into their helpless targets from close range.
The dead were Adrian Rogan (34), Malcolm Jenkinson (52), Barney Green (87), Daniel McCreanor (59), Patrick O’Hare (35) and Eamon Byrne (39), with six of their friends seriously wounded.
There was so much evidence about what happened, and so much knowledge about the likely perpetrators, there was an understandable expectation that prosecutions would follow swiftly.
However, as the days turned into months and years, it became clear that the gunmen and their associates were being protected and we were looking at a deeply malign but not unfamiliar scenario.
I have had the privilege of speaking at two book launches in the last month, with the first for Ghosts of a Family, written by the leading Dublin historian Edward Burke about the notorious massacre of Owen McMahon and his family at Kinnaird Terrace in north Belfast in 1922, while the second, Shooting Crows, by Trevor Birney, lays bare the Loughinisland scandal.
There are striking parallels between the two atrocities, as each involved the shocking murder of six innocent Catholic civilians during periods of great tension just over 70 years apart, and in both cases no charges ever followed.
The term collusion began to appear for what seems to have been first, but sadly not the last occasion after Kinnaird Terrace, and there can be no doubt that, just over seven decades later, precisely the same description must be applied to Loughinisland.
It goes without saying that all killings are not only equally wrong, but also cruel, dreadful and capable of causing only misery and bitterness on a huge scale, whether they happened in 1922, 1994 or at any other time, and whether they involved loyalists, republicans or official agencies.
Perhaps the justice which the Loughinisland families so greatly deserve will never arrive, but it is a significant step forward that Trevor Birney’s book, Shooting Crows, places the full facts of the case before the jury of public opinion
However, it also needs to be said that the first duty of a state is to protect its citizens, and, if there is the slightest hint that it could have played any role in their deaths, it becomes a matter of fundamental concern to our entire society.
Birney, with Barry McCaffrey, worked tirelessly with the Loughinisland families to ensure that the entire devastating story could be told for the first time through their acclaimed 2017 documentary No Stone Unturned, which was a major breakthrough, and should at long last have paved the way for the full force of the law to deliver convictions.
Instead, the arrests which took place the following year were those of Birney and McCaffrey, who found themselves taken from their homes into police custody and questioned about serious offences, which could have resulted in their imprisonment, including the alleged theft of material from the police ombudsman’s office and possible breaches of Britain’s Official Secrets Act.
It was all both entirely ludicrous and hugely disturbing, and it took another two destabilising years before they were fully exonerated and received comprehensive apologies, with the consequences still being considered before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in London.
While Shooting Crows, which will be published later this week, makes essential but chilling reading, it must be remembered that the entire legal saga has been played out without the individuals who pulled the triggers ever finding themselves in the dock.
Perhaps the justice which the families so greatly deserve will never arrive, but it is a significant step forward that the book places the full facts of the case before the jury of public opinion.
It also demonstrates that it is the people of Loughinisland, who supported the victims, stood by their neighbours and displayed courage in the face of the worst kind of adversity, who give us hope for the future.
Shooting Crows, by Trevor Birney, is published by Merrion Press on Thursday, October 17, and will be officially launched at Waterstones, 44 Fountain Street, Belfast, at 6.30pm that day, with Susan McKay and Noel Doran. RSVP to info@merrionpress.ie
