Time for truth on 1974 bombings

This Friday will be the 40th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, in which 34 people were killed, including a pregnant woman and her unborn child, as well as a family of four (a four-month-old baby, her 18-month-old sister and their parents).

The bombings caused maximum carnage on Dublin’s busiest day and at its busiest time — rush hour, Friday, between 5.30pm and 6pm. Three, massive bombs went off without warning, and a further bomb, a diversion to allow those responsible to escape, exploded a short while later in the border town of Monaghan.

This was the biggest mass murder in the history of the Irish State. The Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, said in the Dáil a few days after the bombings: “It was, without exception, the worst single outrage in these islands, since the end of the Second World War.”