A Fermanagh mother has spoken about her grief as the 30th anniversary of her daughter’s shooting approaches.

Annabella Johnston’ heard the gunfire outside her home. Her daughter Jillian had been shot 27 times.

Jillian was born on April 17, 1966. “She would have been 22 the month after she was murdered,” he mother said.

Recalling the night her daughter died, she said: “It was on March 18, 1988 that she went to the café with her fiancé, they came home about 10.15pm and pulled up into the yard in the car, I was on my own at the time by husband having gone out to visit neighbours.

“I heard awful automatic gunfire, it seemed to go on and on I was terrified, I can remember the sound to this day. I rang my sister in law who lived nearby and she came, just as she opened the door I heard Jillian’s fiancé calling out and lamenting, I ran out and the minute I saw Jillian I knew she was dead. I lifted up her head and it fell down again. That Friday night will be with me for ever, Jillian was buried the following Sunday. The postmortem revealed that at least 27 bullets had been found in her body.

“A few months later two friends who had worked at our farm were shot leaving Belleek Police Station. No-one has ever been charged with any of these murders.

“Gerry Adams stated in the Press that it was wrong information they had received. Jillian’s murder brought it home to us that you didn’t have to be in any organisation to be murdered.

“Jillian’s brothers and sisters have all moved on with their own lives and have families of their own now, but the memory of Jillian’s brutal murder will be with them always and is still talked about as if it was yesterday,” she said.

“30 years on we feel as a family that no-one will ever be brought to justice for the murder of Jillian, however, it is our Christian belief that those responsible for this cowardly act will have to answer to God on their final Judgement Day,” she said.