The forgotten tragedy

Writing in the Irish Times afterwards, Vincent Browne pointed out that nobody thought to mention that the day of the Queen's arrival in Dublin was also the anniversary of the combined worst atrocity to arise out of the conflict in Northern Ireland: the bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in 1974 which killed 34 people (including an unborn baby but excluding a subsequently stillborn baby and a mother who allegedly died of shock). Most of the victims were young women, including civil servants from rural towns waiting to travel home for the weekend. One victim was a young Jewish French woman whose family had survived the Holocaust; another was a World War one veteran. One entire family from central Dublin was wiped out. There were a number of children also among the dead. The numbers of injured ran into hundreds, many of them suffering severe mutilations. The descriptions of the scenes make grim reading - one young woman standing close to the second bomb was decapitated and so badly mutilated that the only clue to her gender was her platform boots.

The bombings took place against a background of organised loyalist resistance to a new constitutional arrangement in Northern Ireland which was designed to allow power-sharing with nationalist politicians and minimal consultation or involvement of the Dublin Government in Northern Irish affairs (points the loylaists have now conceded under the Good Friday agreement). At the time - as I remember well - loyalists had ordered a general strike to bring down the new Government. Within a week of the bombings they were successful and Northern Ireland was condemned to 20 more years of continuous violence. It was only in 1993, after being "outed" by a British TV documentary, that the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force admitted responsibility. In doing so, they refuted the persistent allegations of British Government collusion. On that point my mind is not made up. Nevertheless, collusion with loyalists has been proven in other cases, while loyalist terrorists failed to demonstrate such sophisticated bomb-making and planting skills during all the remainder of the "troubles".

Writing after the incidents, the then British Ambassador, Arthur Galsworthy, commented as follows:

"..there is no sign of any general anti-Northern Protestant reaction ... The predictable attempt by the IRA to pin the blame on the British (British agents, the SAS, etc) has made no headway at all. ... It is only now that the South has experienced violence that they are reacting in the way that the North has sought for so long."

The newspaper noted that "despite these feelings of schadenfreude", Galsworthy continued,

"it would be ... a psychological mistake for us to rub this point in. ... I think the Irish have taken the point."

Commenting on the fact that a demonstration outside his residence scheduled for the following Sunday was cancelled, he said: "I almost felt neglected."

(I should comment that this crassness on his part did not justfy the murder of his successor by the IRA in 1976.)

Nobody is contesting the fact that, when it comes to grisly body counts of innocent civilans, violent republicans have nothing to boast about. From Bloody Friday, in 1972, through Birmingham, Guildford, Woolwich, Warrington, Enniskillen and Omagh (to name just a few of the worst cases) they have shown scant regard for innocent life - and this is before one considers the many soldiers and policement they murdered. But it seems to me that these victims have at least had spokespersons in the establishment willing to speak for them, as have the victims of British Army atrocities - in particular, the murder of 14 unarmed civilians on Bloody Sunday, in Derry in 1974.

By contrast - and expecially at the time - the Irish and British Governments really did not want to know about the bombings. They were working to a simplistic paradigm that IRA violence was the sole cause of the North's problems and that it demanded a robust reponse. As with the British Ambassador, all of the officlal comments sought to blame the IRA indirectly for bringing the situation about (ignoring the complex factors which had brought the IRA about to start with). Among such commentators was Garret Fitzgerald, who was Foreign Minister at the time and who was the subject of widespread eulogies following his death last week (only partially deserved, in my view). The Irish police investigation of the bombings was subsequently wound down within a matter of months. RTE, the Irish broadcasting company, subscribed fully to this editorial line - it is telling that subesquent exposés of police torture in Northern Ireland, framing of innocent people for the bombings in Guildford, Woolwich and Birmingham, and an alleged cover-up of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings were all aired by British television.

More recently, some judicial enquiries have been undertaken in southern Ireland and have failed to establish British Government collusion, although their credibility has been weakened by British Government refusal to hand over key documents. But, as Vincent Browne pointed out (and this was not the Queen's fault), had the plight of the "little people" (mostly working class) victims and their families been anywhere on the radar of the Irish Government, she would almost certainly have been advised to acknowledge them in her speeches during her visit.

It only remains for me to list again the innocent victims of this outrage:

• Patrick Askin (44) Co. Monaghan
• Josie Bradley (21) Co. Offaly
• Marie Butler (21) Co. Waterford
• Anne Byrne (35) Dublin
• Thomas Campbell (52) Co. Monaghan
• Simone Chetrit (30) France
• Thomas Croarkin (36) Co. Monaghan
• John Dargle (80) Dublin
• Concepta Dempsey (65) Co. Louth
• Colette Doherty (20) Dublin
• Baby Doherty (full term unborn) Dublin*
• Patrick Fay (47), Dublin & Co. Louth
• Elizabeth Fitzgerald (59) Dublin
• Breda Bernadette Grace (34) Dublin and Co. Kerry
• Archie Harper (73) Co. Monaghan
• Antonio Magliocco, (37) Dublin & Italy
• May McKenna (55) Co. Tyrone
• Anne Marren (20) Co. Sligo
• Anna Massey (21) Dublin
• Dorothy Morris (57) Dublin
• John (24), Anna (22), Jacqueline (17 months) & Anne-Marie (5 months) O'Brien, Dublin
• Christina O'Loughlin (51), Dublin
• Edward John O'Neill (39), Dublin
• Marie Phelan (20), Co. Waterford
• Siobhán Roice (19), Wexford Town
• Maureen Shields (46), Dublin
• Jack Travers (28), Monaghan Town
• Breda Turner (21), Co. Tipperary
  
• John Walsh (27), Dublin
• Peggy White (44), Monaghan Town
• George Williamson (72), Co. Monaghan