Horrors of the bombings relived

TWO boxes of tissues were left on the bare table among the microphones and other props you expect to find in an Oireachtas committee room. As the room emptied out at the end of the hearing, they remained the only physical reminders of the traumatic testimony that had expired.

For a full day, the injured and relatives of those who had died in the Dublin and Monaghan bombs relived the trauma of the day in May 1974 and the empty anger of the intervening years. The passage of time had not lessened the loss.

Liam Sullivan owned a barber shop close to where the Parnell Street bomb exploded. A good friend of his, Edward O’Neill, had just come with his two young sons to get his hair cut.