Here in Co. Tipperary, we remember two victims of the Dublin bombings; both murdered in the city, forty seven years ago today.
In Dublin city three car bombs were detonated without warning, during rush hour on the 17th of May 1974.
The first victim, Miss Breda Turner, then aged just 21, was working in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners; the primary State Body responsible for the assessment and collection of taxes and other duties, here in the Republic of Ireland. Originally from Thurles, in Co. Tipperary, she had moved to Dublin and was engaged to be married on the following Easter.
Ms Turner sadly was murdered in the Parnell Street explosion. (See second picture above).
The second victim was Mrs Maureen Shields, aged 46, originally from the village of Hollyford, Co. Tipperary. Mrs Shields had moved to Dublin, where she worked in the Civil Service, until her marriage to husband Leo in 1953. The couple had one son and two daughters.
Mrs Shields, sadly, was murdered in the Talbot Street explosion. (See first picture above).
While the Dublin bombings, in 1974, were the biggest mass murder in the history of the Irish State, no one person has ever been charged with these crimes.
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group from Northern Ireland, claimed responsibility for the bombings in 1993.
Former Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, Baroness Nuala O’Loan (Member of House of Lords of the United Kingdom), found that Special Branch officers gave the killers immunity and ensured that the murderers were never brought to justice.
It is at this time that we also remember Mr George Bradshaw, a Tipperary victim of the Dublin bombing of the 1st of December 1972.
Mr Bradshaw, aged just 30 years, was a bus conductor from Fethard, in Co. Tipperary; one of two male victims who died when a car bomb exploded at Sackville Place, Dublin at approximately 8.15pm on that fateful day. Both victims were bus drivers with CIE and brutally murdered, having just left the nearby CIE Workers’ Club.
Mr Bradshaw had only moved to Dublin less than two years previously. Married to wife Kathleen, a nurse from Belfast; both then parents to two young children, Lynn and Rory.
In a statement today, the Government said is was fully committed to seeking out the truth behind those events and, hopefully, to secure some measure of comfort for the victim’s families and the survivors.
They further stated they would continue to develop and establish effective ways to address the legacy of the troubles, including implementation of measures agreed in the Stormont House Agreement, so as to meet the legitimate needs and expectations of all victims and survivors.
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