UK remains silent over Dublin and Monaghan

● Sir — I was fortunate enough not to have any member of my family caught up in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of May 17, 1974. However, a close family friend — a young wife and mother of two children on her way to Connolly Station to catch her train home — was one of the 33 innocent people who lost their lives that day.

Each year on May 17, I pay my respects to this lady, her family and all the victims of the atrocity, at the Talbot Street memorial.

Inexplicably, it was 25 years before any taoiseach agreed to meet the families of those killed in the bombings.

Those families must still be wondering why they have been treated so shabbily over the years. Just weeks after the atrocity, the garda investigation was effectively wound down and garda files relating to the bombings went missing.

I am saddened and outraged at suggestions that people like me should “move on” and “stop dragging up the past” when I campaign for the British government to release the files that were withheld from the Barron Inquiry.

I will not move on. I will stay true to my friend. The possibility that I may fail in my struggle will not deter me from pursuing a cause I know to be just.

Tom Cooper,

Templeogue, Dublin 6W