Here in Co. Tipperary today, we remember two victims of the Dublin bombings; both murdered in the city, forty eight years ago this very day, 17th of May 1974.
In Dublin city three car bombs were detonated without warning, during rush hour.
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 town 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, in Co. Tipperary. Mrs Shields had moved to Dublin, where she had also 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.
Former Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, Baroness Nuala O’Loan (Member of House of Lords of the United Kingdom), previously found that Special Branch officers gave the killers immunity and ensured that the murderers were never brought to justice.
It is at this time also that we remember Mr George Bradshaw, a Tipperary victim of the Dublin bombing of December 1st 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. He was married to loving wife Kathleen, a nurse from Belfast city; both were parents to two young children, Lynn and Rory.
This afternoon in a statement by Mrs Helen McEntee (Minister for Justice) she stated, “For the past two years, it was not possible to hold the remembrance ceremony in the way that we may have wished due to Covid restrictions and it will, I am sure, be a relief to many to be able to meet again in person, this year, to remember all those murdered and injured on this day in 1974.
The Government is fully committed to seeking out the truth behind those events and, hopefully, to secure some measure of comfort for the victims’ families and the survivors. The Good Friday Agreement recognised the need for a particular acknowledgement of the position of victims. The Irish Government will not forget our duty to victims and survivors.
Developing and establishing effective ways to address the legacy of the Troubles is a way to meet the legitimate needs and expectations of all those killed and injured in those dark days, including those victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings who are at the forefront of our minds today”.
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