Victims’ families ‘deserve truth’ after 50 years, says president

Survivor tells of his continuing fight for justice over bombings

President Michael D Higgins has said the relatives of the 34 people killed in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which happened 50 years ago yesterday, “deserve the truth” about what happened.

More than 300 people were injured and 34 people, including an unborn baby, died in the atrocities on May 17, 1974.

Mr Higgins told those gathered yesterday at the memorial on Talbot Street, Dublin, that he shares their “feeling of being abandoned and failed by the system, of their being denied justice for the loss of loved ones”.

Three bombs on Parnell Street, Talbot Street and South Leinster Street in Dublin went off almost simultaneously at around 5.30pm while the fourth exploded at around 7pm at Heaton’s Corner in Monaghan town.

The bombings claimed the greatest number of lives on a single day in the Troubles.

Taoiseach Simon Harris, Tánaiste Micheál Martin and former taoisigh Leo Varadkar and Bertie Ahern were among those in attendance at a memorial event on Talbot Street, as were U2 member Larry Mullen Jr and representatives from Dublin and Monaghan councils.

The event was led by Aidan Shields, who is a member of the campaign group Justice for the Forgotten, who was 19 when his mother Maureen died in the bombings.

Families and friends of the victims laid wreaths, bunches of flowers, framed photos and other tributes at the memorial.

Survivor Bernie McNally read out the names of each victim, telling those gathered: “I am very grateful, despite my injuries, to have survived and to go on to live a good life, that I can continue to fight for justice.”

A poem was recited by the poet laureate for Dublin 1, Rachael Hegarty, who had been shopping in Guineys with her mother and brother when the bomb went off outside.

“Seamus Heaney, our great Nobel laureate, said, ‘Hope and history rhyme’. It is very hard for hope and history to rhyme when there is no justice,” Ms Hegarty said.

The bombs were later claimed by the UVF in a statement in 1993, nearly 20 years after the attacks.

Irish victims commissioner John Wilson proposed a judicial inquiry in 1999, which was chaired by Justice Henry Barron.

The report was critical of the initial garda investigation – which was the subject of a further report in 2007 – and attributed the bombings to the UVF’s Glennane Gang. It also suggested collusion involving British state actors.

Successive Irish governments have requested access to British files relating to the bombings in order to substantiate or eliminate suspicions of collusion, but responses to those requests have not been forthcoming.

Speaking at the commemorative event yesterday, Mr Higgins described May 17, 1974 as a “dark day of terror” in Dublin and Monaghan.

He acknowledged the pain and suffering that remains with the bereaved and the injured, including the “unanswered questions” and the continuing pursuit of justice.

“Even in the context of the many atrocities committed at that time, the Dublin and Monaghan car bombings of 1974 were crimes of a particular level of savagery, executed consciously upon workers and civilians with total disregard for human life and suffering,” he said.

“As well as personal injury and the horror of seeing the impact of the bombs on human bodies and in what were familiar streets, now altered for ever, many families experienced the slow realisation that a family member was missing, the panic and foreboding of the search that ensued in overcrowded city hospitals, for some the grim task of identifying loved ones through body parts, bits of clothing or fragments of jewellery, followed by the ordeal of the funerals.

“And then, for many, seeking basic information – nothing.”

The President acknowledged “systemic failures” at State level and shared with the families “their feeling of being abandoned and failed by the system, of their being denied justice for the loss of loved ones”.

“Many people have listened to the heartbreaking stories, heard of the remarkable bravery of bereaved families and survivors, and of their battle for the truth,” he said.

“However, relatives need more than an empathetic ear. Justice demands that they deserve the truth – no more, no less.”

Mr Higgins said it is “not morally acceptable” to ask those affected by the Troubles to “forget about the past”.