May 17th, 1974: what happened on the day: Deaglán de Bréadún, Political Correspondent, outlines the sequence of events that unfolded on the day of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings
A date which will live in infamy, May 17th, 1974, saw the biggest loss of life in any 24-hour period in The Troubles. Thirty-three civilians and an unborn child were killed and 258 people injured when four car bombs exploded in Dublin and Monaghan.
Most of the deaths were in Dublin where three parked cars exploded during the busy Friday rush hour as people made their way home from work in the balmy early-summer weather. The bombs went off almost simultaneously, at about 5.30pm, in Parnell Street, Talbot Street and South Leinster Street in the centre of the city.
The timing and locations were clearly arranged with a view to maximising the casualties. Twenty-three people were killed instantly and three more died from their injuries over the next few days. Some 90 minutes after the Dublin bombings, another car bomb exploded, at North Road in Monaghan town, causing seven deaths.
The first Dublin bomb exploded at 5.28pm in Parnell Street, when a green Hillman Avenger blew up, causing 11 deaths. Esma Crabbe (15), a volunteer with St John's Ambulance told the Evening Press: "I was called to a man covered by a plank. When I lifted it up, one of his legs was missing and lying nearby. One side of his head was completely ripped away and was lying on the ground. A child aged about 12 lay nearby. At the scene, there were bodies all over the place; many people were in deep shock, and there were terrible injuries."
The second - and most lethal - bomb went off two minutes later in Talbot Street, killing 14 people and an unborn child.
Dr John Cooper, an anaesthetist from Belfast's Mater Hospital, described the scene: "I ran back to see a woman on the pavement decapitated. Another woman lay dead with a piece of a car-engine embedded in her back. A man was dying with an iron bar through his abdomen."
Within another two minutes, at South Leinster Street a blue Austin 1800 Maxi exploded, killing two people. The Monaghan explosion took place at about 7pm, killing five people initially with two more dying within weeks from their injuries.
The victims in Parnell Street included a family group of four from Lower Gardiner Street: parents John and Anne O'Brien, both in their early 20s, and their infant daughters Jacqueline and Anne Marie.
Antonio Magliocco, an Italian who had come to Ireland a decade earlier, was killed at the same location, and Simone Chetrit, a French language student who planned to return to Paris the next day, died in the Talbot Street blast. Overall, there were 21 female and 12 male fatalities.
The bombings took place on the third day of a general strike in Northern Ireland organised by the Ulster Workers' Council which brought down the power-sharing executive set up under the terms of the Sunningdale Agreement.
No one was ever caught or sentenced for the Dublin/Monaghan bombings.
On July 7th, 1993, Yorkshire Television broadcast a programme entitled Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre, which claimed the bombings were the work of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) aided by members of the British security forces.
Shortly afterwards, on July 15th, 1993, the UVF issued a statement taking sole responsibility for carrying out the bomb attacks. However, this did not quell continuing speculation that elements of the British security forces, at whatever level, were involved in the atrocities.
The Fine Gael/Labour government of the day and the Garda Síochána were criticised for allegedly failing to investigate the bombings with sufficient vigour.