by Ken Wharton
The late Martin McGuinness brandishing a gun.
I remember that all the buildings shook, and I saw clouds of thick black smoke billow over the building. I walked into a crowd of people running out of Castle Lane, looking really scared, with sheer terror on their faces; many of them were mums with little kids and they were half-carrying, them, half-dragging them away from the smoke. Alarms were still clanging in my ears and there were dozens of sirens, ambulance, fire, peelers, Army bomb disposal; everything. I could only get so near, but I could see all the front of the Abercorn blown out, soldiers, peelers, bloody faces, people lying on the ground, people limping, bits of furniture and bits of what looked by butchers’ cuts of meat, but I realised later that they were bits of people!
Everywhere I walked, I was crunching over broken glass, broken wood, bits of marble, cardboard; bits of paper were flying everywhere and everywhere was smoke and soot. There were puddles everywhere and I foolishly thought it was because of the rain we’d been having; I now know that it was probably blood because with all those injuries, that blood had to go somewhere. I went home, and I felt sick and just wanted to tell my mam and da what I had seen. My friends caught up with me, but they were buzzing with excitement and one said: ‘What about what the RA did to those Brits!’ I am ashamed to say that I just agreed with them, but now, I wish that I hadn’t. What the ‘boyos’ did that day was not in my name!
Gerry Adams and Brendan Hughes in Long Kesh.
On 9 March, the Provisionals lost another four of their members; in another ‘own goal’ incident a bomb assembly team removed themselves from the gene pool at a house in Clonard Street, Belfast. Tony Lewis (20), Sean Johnston (19), Gerard Crossan (19) and Thomas McCann (20) were all killed in the explosion that demolished the building in which they were working, injuring several residents. However, the IRA’s senior commander, allegedly Gerry Adams, had several more operations up his sleeve that would lead to more terror, more bloodshed and yet more grief for the people of Northern Ireland.
It was only late March, but already more than eighty people were dead; that total would reach 100 before the month was over. On 20 March, the Provisionals planted a 200lb (91kg) device inside a stolen car, which they parked in Donegall Street in Belfast city centre. As the bombers walked off, leaving the bomb on a short timing device, a dustbin lorry parked close to it, with its crew jumping off to begin emptying the area’s commercial waste. A spokesman for the Provisionals telephoned the Belfast Telegraph with deliberately contradictory warnings, designed to confuse the police and Army,* thus maximising civilian casualties. RUC officers were sent into the area to evacuate the crowds of shoppers and office workers alike, but the bomb exploded as they were in the process; when it did, it left seven people dead and more than 150 people badly injured, cut by flying glass and shrapnel. RUC Constable Ernest McAllister (38) was killed instantly, as was his colleague, Constable Bernard O’Neill (36). Three of the dustbin men standing close to the explosion had no chance of survival; those killed were: Ernest Dougan (40), James Macklin (27) and Samuel Trainor (40), who was also a part-time soldier in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). A passing van driver, Sydney Bell (65), was caught in the blast, as was one of the oldest victims of the Troubles, Henry Millar (79); Mr Millar died from his injuries on 5 April.
Explosions: Belfast on Bloody Friday, 21 July 1972. The IRA set off twenty-six explosive devices in Belfast, which killed eleven people and injured 130.
On 17 April that same year, Corporal James ‘Jim’ Elliott (36), a UDR soldier, was abducted from near his home in Rathfriland in Co. Down. He was the father to three children, with his wife being pregnant at the time. He was held at a safe house either just inside the Irish Republic, or possibly in the border town of Crossmaglen** in Co. Armagh. During the thirty-six hours of his captivity, he was severely beaten and tortured before being taken to an isolated road close to Newtownhamilton, where he was shot several times in the head and body. Just for good measure, his murder squad attached a 200lb explosive device to his body, before surrounding it with several Claymore-type mines intended to cause carnage among those who tried to recover his body.
Botanic Avenue on Bloody Friday.
Respects are paid to the victims of Bloody Friday, Oxford Street, Belfast.
Bloody Friday: shattered bodies are covered by blankets.
Relatives who viewed his body reported the look of ‘... torture and agony in his face’. They reported also that he had been shot in both hands, both wrists, chest and throat; his hands and fingers were blackened with bruising, his fingertips showed that sharp objects had been driven behind his fingernails. One side of his face was caved in as though it had been done by either a rifle butt or a heavy boot, with his broken nose displaced to one side. Several teeth were smashed, several having been clearly torn from his mouth; both arms were broken, and his genitals were kicked until swollen out of all proportion.
The killings carried on, with both soldiers and innocent civilians as well as PIRA personnel continuing to die as the violence raged on the streets of the Province. David Currie (26) died at work on 1 May when the Provisionals detonated eight devices, as part of their economic warfare, at the Courtaulds’ Factory in Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim.
The final death knell for the Officials occurred on 21 May, with the wily Martin McGuinness once again playing the cynical role of agent provocateur. William Best (19) was a Catholic who lived with his family in Rathkeele Way on the Creggan estate; a year earlier, he joined the British Army, enlisting in the Royal Irish Rangers, then based in West Germany. He was due back on leave on or around 15 May, but understandably, his parents were worried about the consequences of him returning to the hate-torn Creggan, especially after the events of Bloody Sunday, only fifteen weeks earlier. They sought the advice and guidance of the senior Provisional in the city, one Martin McGuinness. He visited their house at least once – posterity has not recorded if he purchased Marietta Biscuits* prior to the visit – but he gave a cast-iron guarantee that if their son came on leave in civvie clothes and did not interact with patrolling soldiers, he would be perfectly safe; McGuinness gave his word of honour.
On the evening of the 21st, six days after returning on leave, Ranger Best set out to make a telephone call before possibly meeting friends at his local pub. He was never seen alive again; somewhere close to Londonderry City Cemetery – where several of the 30 January victims are buried – he was bundled into a car and taken to a nearby safe house. He was interrogated between bouts of punches and kicks from his captors: members of the OIRA. McGuinness was informed, duly turning up at the house where Best was being held. It would appear that the OIRA were torn between releasing the young soldier and executing him. McGuinness spoke to the vacillating OIRA leadership, pressurising them to execute Best, stating that they would lose any further credibility if they let him go. At the PIRA man’s persuading, it was decided to kill the soldier and he was duly taken to waste ground in nearby William Street, where the badly beaten young man was shot twice in the head and left where he sprawled. He was found the following morning by an off-duty nurse returning from a night shift at Altnagelvin Hospital. The discovery of his body and the realisation that the OIRA were responsible led to more than 200 women from the Creggan marching on Official Sinn Féin offices, threatening to burn them out of the city. Ranger Best’s funeral in the Creggan was attended by 5,000 people and his cortège was led by twenty-five Roman Catholic priests.
The Officials later announced a ceasefire, thus effectively ending their ‘military campaign’, which left the stage clear for their rivals; it further left the duplicitous but exceedingly clever McGuinness and the Provisionals as the only Republican power in Londonderry.
July would prove the bloodiest month of the Troubles, with almost 100 people dying violently; most would die at the hands of the Republicans. The day 21 July 1972 is one that will long live in infamy as one of the blackest days of the Troubles; it became known as ‘Bloody Friday’. The IRA set o
ff twenty-six car bombs, killing nine people and injuring 130 on a summer’s Friday afternoon with the streets crammed with shoppers – a day of utter chaos, confusion, panic and violent death. People were literally fleeing from one explosion right into the mouth of the next. The IRA bombs killed two soldiers – Driver Stephen Cooper (19) of the RCT and Sergeant Philip Price (27) of the Welsh Guards – as well as an RUC sergeant, Robert Gibson (45), father of five children. They also killed six civilians, including three teenagers, managing to kill two of the very community they claimed to defend. Brendan Hughes, in his submission to Irish writer Ed Moloney,** claims that Gerry Adams, as Belfast Brigade Commander, was the architect of the wave of bombs that devastated the centre of Belfast on that summer afternoon.
The killings began early on that morning, although the Provisionals were not involved initially; in the small hours of the 21st, an Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) murder gang in a stolen red Mini arrived in Clovelly Street, a narrow street just off the Springfield Road. The street was a cul-de-sac, so the driver did a U-turn before coming to a halt by the front door of Anthony Davidson (21). One man knocked on the door but, given the lateness of the hour and the upsurge in sectarian killings, Mr Davidson was reluctant to open it. However, on hearing the knocker mention a friend’s name, the young Catholic opened up, whereupon the man shot him in the face and arm; he was fatally wounded, dying a short time later in the RVH.
Several hours later, a group of around forty men and women, in twos in order not to raise suspicion, began leaving more than twenty stolen or hijacked cars around Belfast city centre, each one packed with explosives, designed to go off at separate times. Each successive blast would occur only seconds or minutes after the previous one; several of the devices were also left in suitcases, and it is worth noting that some of the twenty plus devices did not explode.
At 14.10, a car bomb exploded outside Smithfield Market. There was extensive damage, but no one was killed in the blast; it was a reprieve for the people in the area, but worse was to come. Six minutes later, a 50lb (23kg) device exploded in a suitcase planted at the Brookvale Hotel, having been planted by three armed men; the Army had already cleared the area. Just seven minutes later, a bomb planted outside York Road railway station exploded; the building was wrecked. At 14.45, two bombs exploded at a Protestant garage on the Shankill Road; the 100lb (45kg) blast caused extensive damage. In the first thirty-five minutes, four blasts had caused extensive damage and people were panicking, unsure of where to run to avoid the next. More importantly, the SF were in a state of confusion; neither soldiers nor policemen knew where was safe and where was not as they tried to shepherd civilians to safety. There were by this stage no deaths, but in three minutes, the world changed, as nine life-clocks reached ‘midnight’ in a flash of brilliant whiteness.
At 14.48, a car exploded outside the Ulsterbus depot in Oxford Street, killing four employees: Robert Gibson (45), William Crothers (15), William Irvine (18) and Thomas Collops (39); all four were torn to pieces and killed instantly. Seconds before the explosion, several soldiers entered the street; two of them, Driver Stephen Cooper (19) from the Royal Corps of Transport and Sergeant Philip Price (27) of the Welsh Guards, were unknowingly standing next to the bomb. They simply vaporised in the blast. Within two minutes, another car bomb exploded outside a branch of the Ulster Bank on Limestone Road; whilst they were no fatalities, a dozen people were injured by flying glass and debris. Another bomb in a car parked outside the Botanic Avenue railway station exploded, causing massive damage, but fortunately only light casualties.
THAT DAY
Kevin Wright, Royal Corps of Transport:
This day started the same as any other in Belfast, with people rushing off to work; loads of traffic crossing the Queen’s Bridge into the city and traffic racing down from Holywood, passing us on the Sydenham bypass. I heard the radio crackle into life behind me as I was driving a Saracen towards the city; I could tell by the operator’s reaction this was no ordinary shout. Little did I realise in a matter of an hour how many people would be not making the journey home from work.
As the section commander was shouting directions to me and to get my foot down, we came upon another unit at Oxford Street bus station, and we were told by them that there was a suspect car they were checking out. I looked in the direction of the car, and I saw two guys talking and realised one of them was Driver Steve Cooper from my unit in Germany. He was a member of 33 Sqn RCT but was attached to our sister Sqn for this tour. I gave him a shout and asked how he was and he replied giving me a thumb up. I watched Steve and a Sergeant walk in the direction of the suspect car. As I turned away with the rest of my patrol to get back in our vehicle, I felt a massive blast of hot air and pressure nearly knocking me over. In an instant two lives had been taken for no reason at all. I still thought for some hours after that maybe Steve and the Sergeant had got away with it and survived the blast, but sadly they had not.
An RUC officer told author Colin Breen:
When we got to Oxford Street, I saw this woman. I can’t even tell you what she looked like because there was no way of knowing ... She had her back up against the wall and she quite literally had lost her chin, the bottom half of her face. She was standing there against the wall, no other marks on her. She was gurgling and screaming, trying to breathe with her chin sliced off. I tried to get her stuck back together as best as I could. I was holding pieces in and tried to bandage it in a very primitive way to get the pieces to where they should be, until I could get one of the ambulance men, who were dealing with other casualties.*
The same officer speaks of a member of the public finding the foot of a dead soldier several days later and bringing it into the police station in a plastic bag. BBC News camera teams showed gruesome footage of body parts being literally scraped off the pavement and from walls and, without ceremony, shovelled into plastic sacks.
At 14.55, the biggest bomb of the day – 160lb (75kg) – exploded at the Queen Elizabeth Bridge, which caused massive damage but no serious injuries. At this stage a total of nine bombs had exploded in a small area of Belfast in the space of just forty-five minutes. No one knew if the last one was truly the last; mothers were running around frantically, trying to shepherd their children together; others were trying to locate missing children, lost and separated in the noise and smoke. It was sheer panic and even the professional soldiers and the police officers were stretched to breaking point. The carefully planned emergency measures broke down as the Provisionals knew that they would. At Cavehill Road, at this precise moment, three human beings were alive; their hearts were beating, their blood was being pumped around their bodies, their lungs were inhaling and exhaling, and their brains were processing thoughts; that would change in a mere twenty minutes.
A victim of the Bloody Friday blasts is treated in hospital.
At 15.02, almost simultaneously, two more explosions rocked Belfast as a car bomb exploded at Agnes Street and a device in the Liverpool Bar at Donegall Quay caused major damage but only light injuries. Sixty seconds later, on a bridge over the M2 motorway, a bomb exploded injuring several people; another sixty seconds later, a suitcase bomb at York Street railway station exploded, injuring several soldiers and police officers who were searching the area following the earlier bomb attack there. Within the space of sixty more seconds a car bomb exploded in Ormeau Avenue, injuring several more people. At 15.05, a car bomb containing 150lb (68kg) of explosives detonated outside a garage in Donegall Road, and while there was much damage, there were no serious injuries. Almost simultaneously, another car bomb exploded at Stewartstown Road. It was now fifty-five minutes since the first bomb went off, seventeen minutes since the first fatalities and fifteen bombs had exploded.
In 1972, Belfast’s Cavehill Road was still an area of mixed denominations, a place where Catholics and Protestants co-existed despite the Troubles. The positioning of a car bomb there was cynical; it was designed to maximise casualties and it was designed to drive a huge rift b
etween the two communities. The man who chose that spot – there are those who allege that the architect was Gerry Adams, albeit through a proxy – was cynical and calculating in the extreme, knowing that there would be sectarian issues long after the last echo of the blast had faded away.
The car bomb had been placed outside a busy row of shops on the Cavehill Road, but had been spotted by an eagle-eyed boy scout, Stephen Parker (14), who was working in one of the shops. He revealed his suspicions to the shop keeper and proceeded to warn the shoppers milling around. As he did so, the bomb exploded, killing him, as well as Margaret O’Hare (37), the mother of seven children; her 11-year-old daughter was badly injured in the blast. Brigid Murray (65) was caught in the blast and was killed instantly. Two Catholics and a Protestant cut down side by side by a Provisional IRA car bomb, the same Provisional IRA who purportedly ‘protected’ their fellow Catholics.
A survivor described the Cavehill Road blast: ‘Oh, God, there were flames and then when they died away, there was nothing, only glass and blood. The people all around were confused and they screamed for their children.’ Young Stephen Parker could only be identified by the box of trick matches that were found in his pocket.
Just fifteen minutes after this blast, another device exploded at Nutt’s Corner, but the quick thinking of a bus driver, carrying schoolchildren, managed to help them avoid serious injury. At 15.31, the final devices either exploded or were defused by Army bomb disposal.
