My father couldn’t identify Anna, the morgue was like a slaughterhouse.. she was identified by her earrings
Agony over sister who died with husband & kids
THE Dublin Monaghan bombings, 50 years ago this week, were the single biggest loss of life in one day in the history of The Troubles.
A total of 33 people and an unborn child lost their lives in the co-ordinated car bombs in Dublin city and Monaghan town.
No one was ever bought to justice for the atrocity, although loyalist paramilitary group the UVF admitted responsibility years later.
British collusion is suspected although much evidence has been destroyed or lost. The notorious Glenanne gang, a deadly part of the UVF which contained rogue police officers and soldiers, is suspected of having carried out the attacks.
The families of victims have called on the British government to release the files on the bombings.
Ahead of the anniversary on Friday, Alice O’brien, sister of Anna O’brien, whose whole family were killed in the blast, talks to MICHELLE FLEMING.
Alice says it’s time for the authorities to release the files on that terrible day in May. Most evenings, young mother Anna O’brien appeared at the window of her flat, her voice joining the chorus of chatter carrying across Dublin’s Gardiner Street.
Back then, women threw open their windows, to shout out meet-up plans, news, or just to say goodnight.
Anna’s younger sister Alice O’brien, 65, tells the Irish Mirror: “That’s how people chatted together years ago, just roar across the road.”
On the evening of Friday, May 17, 1974, Anna didn’t come to her window. The 21-year-old had been killed, along with her husband Johnny and two little girls, in what later became known as the Dublin Monaghan bombings.
The whole family died in the single biggest atrocity in one day of the Troubles, killing 33 people, and an unborn child, which happened 50 years ago this week.
At 5.28pm, in rush hour, the first of three bombs exploded just around the corner, outside The Welcome Inn, on Parnell Street.
Two minutes later, a second car bomb went off on Talbot Street and a third exploded on South Leinster Street 5.32pm.
At 6.58pm, in the centre of Monaghan town, a fourth car bomb exploded outside
Greacen’s pub. Added to the death toll was baby Martha O’neill, who was stillborn afterwards and the unborn baby of Colette Doherty, who was nine months pregnant when she died. As the country reeled in horror, Anna’s aunt Chrissie, who lived across the road from her, noticed there was no sign of her niece and her family, husband Johnny, 22, and their two baby girls, Jacqueline, 17 months, and five-month-old Anne-marie.
Anna’s sister Alice, then 15, was still living at the O’brien family home in Finglas, while her older sister had settled in the north innercity.
Alice recalled: “Anna didn’t come near the window at all that night, so Chrissie knew they didn’t come home that day. She knew something was wrong...”
The next day, word got back to Finglas from relative who had a phone that Anna, the eldest of Annie and Paddy Doyle’s 14 kids, and her young family were missing.
Paddy, a bus driver, who should have been working on Parnell Street the day before but was off because of the bus strike, made his way into Chrissie’s and together they made the dreadful journey to the Dublin City Morgue.
Alice said: “My father couldn‘t identify Anna as it was too bad.
“He said the scenes in the morgue were unbelievable.
“It was like a slaughterhouse. They were putting arms and legs together to make up the bodies. Anna was identified by my aunt Chrissie by her earrings. She gave Anna those earrings herself.”
Johnny had a tattoo of his and Anna’s names entwined in script on his arm.
Alice said: “That’s how they identified Johnny. He’d no arms or legs, just the tattoos. Anna lost legs and arms.” Anna and her family walked straight into the bomb on Parnell Street and were killed outright.
Alice said: “They lived right around the corner in town so would have been going to the park, maybe going up to Stephen’s Green as it was such a lovely day, or going shopa
My mother never got over it. When Anna died, my ma died
ALICE O’BRIEN TELLS OF IMPACT ON HER FAMILY
ping, anywhere, but the bomb got them, they walked into the bomb by The Welcome Inn and got blown up.”
The horrific news didn’t reach the family home until almost 7pm on the Saturday. Alice said: “The police and the doctor and the priest came back to the house that evening. All my aunts and uncles got wind of it and came over to the house.”
Anna and Johnny had met and fallen in love while they were working at local Seabourne Fish Factory. Anna was 17 when the couple got married, and Johnny got a job at Palm Grove Ice Cream Factory in Rathfarnham.
They moved into a flat on Gardiner Street where they had Jacqueline and Anne-marie. Alice, 65, said: “Anna was always very glamorous, she loved her clothes, wearing the high boots and doing her hair styles.
“She loved Tom Jones, she loved singing The Green Green Grass Of Home, that was her favourite.”
Nothing was ever the same in the once happy home after the tragedy.
Alice said: “My mother never got over it, never ever. When Anna died, my ma died.
“That’s what killed my ma nine years later. She didn’t talk after, she stayed at home and didn’t bother with anything or anyone else.
“She went downhill from pure grief and a broken heart.
“Anna was her eldest and they were the only two grandchildren and she doted on them.
“She didn’t bother with anything. My dad went back on the buses a
while after. We all kept one another going, our ma was there but she wasn’t herself again.
“She never spoke about Anna or the kids. She never got over it.” She died on January 29, 1983.
Alice said: “She took a turn and died one day when my son Thomas was sitting with her.”
Anna’s dad Paddy died on April 4, 1999. There was no family portrait of the O’brien’s, such was the time.
The only family photo was in the press, of Anna and Johnny’s coffins, flanked by two small white caskets.
Anna’s sister Catherine, who was five when Anna died, treasures a pair of tiny navy, red and cream sandals, splashed with yellow paint, worn by
Jacqueline the day before she died. Like many parents of those killed in the Dublin Monaghan bombings, Annie and Paddy Doyle died without getting justice for their family.
Alice added: “It’s 50 years and we still have no answers, we want the Government to release the files.
“So many families died brokenhearted. A lot of the people who did the bombing are probably dead as well.
“We have been on the campaign for years and went to so many ministers of justice and so many governments.
“The least they can do is give us the files. We need to know but so much time has gone on. The least we should get is answers.”