The Abercorn Restaurant bombing was a bomb attack that took place in a crowded

city centre A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the Commerce, commercial, Culture, cultural and often the historical, Politics, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely e ...

restaurant and bar in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

on 4 March 1972. The bomb explosion claimed the lives of two young women and injured over 130 people. Many of the injuries were severe and included the loss of limbs and eyes. The

Provisional IRA The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; ) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland ...

was blamed, although no organisation ever claimed responsibility and nobody was ever charged in connection with the bombing. According to Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist who has written extensively about the IRA, republican sources have unofficially confirmed the group's involvement.

The bombing

Telephone warning

The Abercorn was on 7-11 Castle Lane in central Belfast and housed a ground-floor restaurant and upstairs bar. It was owned by 45-year-old Bill O'Hara, a Catholic businessman."Troops hold 16 in terror hunt". ''The Age'', 7 March 1972. On Saturday 4 March 1972 it was packed with late afternoon shoppers when an anonymous caller issued a bomb warning to

999 999 or triple nine most often refers to: * 999 (emergency telephone number), a telephone number for the emergency services in several countries * 999 (number), an integer * AD 999, a year * 999 BC, a year Media Books * 999 (anthology), ''99 ...

at 4.28 pm. The caller did not give a precise location, but advised that a bomb would go off in Castle Lane in five minutes' time. The street, located in the busy Cornmarket area, milled with crowds of people shopping and browsing as was typical on a Saturday in Belfast.

Explosion

Two minutes later, at 4.30 PM, a handbag containing a five-pound

gelignite Gelignite (), also known as blasting gelatin or simply "jelly", is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or guncotton) dissolved in either nitroglycerine or nitroglycol and mixed with wood pulp and Potassi ...

bomb exploded under a table inside the ground-floor restaurant. Two young Catholic friends were killed outright: Anne Owens (22), who was employed at the Electricity Board, and Janet Bereen (21), a hospital radiographer. The young women had been out shopping together and had stopped at the Abercorn to have coffee; they were seated at the table nearest the bomb and took the full force of the blast."Innocents maimed and killed in city centre explosion". ''Irish News'' by Marie Louise McCrory
22 July 2005; retrieved 21 December 2011.Moloney, Ed (2010). ''Voices From the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland''. p. 102 Owens had survived a previous bombing at her workplace. More than 130 were injured in the explosion, which overturned tables and chairs, and had brought the ceiling crashing down onto the ground floor restaurant. Many people were severely maimed. Some had their limbs blown off; others suffered terrible head and facial injuries, burns, deep cuts and perforated eardrums. Three had eyes destroyed by shards of flying glass. Two sisters, Jennifer and Rosaleen McNern (one of whom was due to be married), were both horrifically mutilated; Jennifer lost both legs, and Rosaleen (the bride-to-be) lost her legs, her right arm and one of her eyes. Witnesses described a scene of panic and chaos as the bloodied survivors stumbled through the smoke, broken glass, blood, and rubble, crawling over one another to get away, whilst firemen attempted to bring out the injured, many of whom lay with their bodies mangled, unable to move. An RUC officer was one of the first people to arrive on the scene. He described the carnage that greeted him as something he would never forget. "All you could hear was the moaning and squealing and the people with limbs torn from their bodies"."Bulldozers move in on Abercorn". ''Belfast Telegraph''. Joe Oliver. 23 September 2007. A woman who had been inside the restaurant before the blast later told an inquest that she had seen two young teenaged girls walk out of the Abercorn leaving a handbag behind shortly before the explosion. This same woman had been waiting at a bus stop when the bomb went off. A detective-sergeant established that the explosion's epicentre was to the right of the table where the two girls had been sitting. The bomb had reportedly been left behind inside a handbag.

Responsibility

Nobody was ever charged in connection with the bombing and no paramilitary organisation ever claimed responsibility for it. Both wings of the IRA denied involvement and condemned the bombing. However, the RUC and British Military Intelligence blamed the

First Battalion Belfast BrigadeMitchell, Thomas G. (2000). ''Settler versus native:ethnic conflict in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland and South Africa''. p. 56 and it is now widely accepted that it was responsible.CAIN: Glossary of Terms on Northern Ireland Conflict
Abercorn Restaurant There was a public backlash against the organisation in

Irish nationalist Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cult ...

and Catholic areas such as West Belfast. The two dead women had both been Catholic, along with many of the injured including the McNern sisters, and the Abercorn Bar was a popular venue with many young Catholics and nationalists. Provisional IRA Chief of Staff Seán Mac Stíofáin claimed the bombing was the work of

loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...

paramilitaries.Taylor, Peter (1997). ''Provos: The IRA and Sein Fein''. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p. 131 According to Mac Stíofáin, the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA) had made threats against the Abercorn in its weekly newsletter after the Abercorn management refused to play the British national anthem. The WDA denied the allegations, adding that one of its members had a friend who been badly injured in the blast.MacStíofáin, Seán (1975). ''Revolutionary in Ireland''. G. Cremonesi. p. 238 The day after the bombing, a leaflet allegedly circulated by the loyalist Ulster Vanguard declared: "We make no apologies for Abercorn. No apologies were made for

Aldershot Aldershot ( ) is a town in the Rushmoor district, Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme north-east corner of the county, south-west of London. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Farnborough/Aldershot built-up are ...

..These premises were being used extensively by Southern Irish shoppers for the transmission of information vital to the terrorist campaign...". Vanguard leader Rev Martin Smyth dismissed the statement as fake. According to Ed Moloney in his book ''Voices from the Grave'', IRA sources have since confirmed, albeit unofficially, that the Provisional IRA was responsible. Moloney suggested that, based on eyewitness accounts, two teenaged IRA girls were probably the bombers. Unnamed republican sources suggested that the Abercorn was targeted because the upstairs bar was frequented by off-duty

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

soldiers."Police revisit Abercorn bomb outrage"
''The People'' (London, England). Joe Oliver. 19 June 2005; retrieved 21 December 2011.

Aftermath

The detonation of a bomb in a city centre restaurant on a Saturday afternoon packed with shoppers, and the severity of the injuries—inflicted on mostly women and children—ensured that the attack caused much revulsion and left a lasting impression on the people of Belfast. It was condemned by both unionist and Irish nationalist politicians and also by church leaders.

Ian Paisley Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014) was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and ...

called on the government "to mobilise and arm every able-bodied volunteer to meet the enemy". The extent of the injuries the blast had inflicted resulted in the Royal Victoria Hospital implementing a 'disaster plan' for the first time. The sculptor F.E. McWilliam produced a series of bronzes (1972–73) known as ''Women of Belfast'' in response to the Abercorn bombing. Unrelated to the bombing, the Abercorn featured in a sectarian attack in July 1972, when Michael McGuigan, a Catholic working in the bar, was abducted by loyalist paramilitaries, shot and left for dead, but survived. He had been dating a Protestant waitress who also worked in the Abercorn, which is why the loyalist group targeted him.NORTHERN IRELAND: Indiscriminate Terror

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

, 28 August 1972 The Abercorn was demolished in 2007.

References