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Abercorn Restaurant bombing of 1972

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  • 03-01-2015 9:50pm
    #1
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭


    Why is this bombing widely blamed by the IRA? I'm not suggest it wasn't the IRA but I'm not suggesting it was either. I know the IRA were set of a lot of bombs at that time but to bomb a Catholic restaurant were the IRA drew the main support from less than only 7 weeks after Bloody Sunday. Remember the RUC blamed the IRA for McGurks Bar bombing for 5 years until a UVF man confused.
    TheWoodvale Defense Associastion (WDA) had made threats against the Abercorn in its weekly newsletter after the Abercorn management refused to play the British national anthem. And a week later a leaflet allegedly circulated by the loyalist Ulster Vanguard declared: "We make no apologies for Abercorn. No apologies were made for Aldershot (the Officials bombing of the Paras HQ)
    And the Abercorn featured in a sectarian attack just 4 months later in July 1972, when Michael McGuigan, a Catholic working in the bar, was abducted by loyalist paramilitaries, shot and left for dead, but survived.

    WDA or IRA? Whats your thoughts?


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    #2
    ChicagoJoe
    Registered Users Posts: 372 ✭✭ChicagoJoe


    DarkyHughes wrote: »
    Why is this bombing widely blamed by the IRA? I'm not suggest it wasn't the IRA but I'm not suggesting it was either. I know the IRA were set of a lot of bombs at that time but to bomb a Catholic restaurant were the IRA drew the main support from less than only 7 weeks after Bloody Sunday. Remember the RUC blamed the IRA for McGurks Bar bombing for 5 years until a UVF man confused.
    TheWoodvale Defense Associastion (WDA) had made threats against the Abercorn in its weekly newsletter after the Abercorn management refused to play the British national anthem. And a week later a leaflet allegedly circulated by the loyalist Ulster Vanguard declared: "We make no apologies for Abercorn. No apologies were made for Aldershot (the Officials bombing of the Paras HQ)
    And the Abercorn featured in a sectarian attack just 4 months later in July 1972, when Michael McGuigan, a Catholic working in the bar, was abducted by loyalist paramilitaries, shot and left for dead, but survived.
    Have you any reliable links proving those terrible events ? And I don't see how it could be called "a Catholic restaurant", it was in the center of Belfast and anyone could have been in it.
    WDA or IRA? Whats your thoughts?
    Or British dirty tricks dept/SAS ?


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    #3
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭DarkyHughes


    ChicagoJoe wrote: »
    Have you any reliable links proving those terrible events ? And I don't see how it could be called "a Catholic restaurant", it was in the center of Belfast and anyone could have been in it.

    Or British dirty tricks dept/SAS ?


    Just stories I've read in books & on the net no hard evidence but this was the era when government forces loved to blame everything on the IRA like the like the UVF/UPV 1969 bombs, the Mcgurks bar bomb & Kelly's bar bomb & probably some others which at the time were all blamed on the IRA but later turned out to be Loyalist bombings. The only found out the 1969 bombs were the work of the UVF after a UVF man blew himself up in some electoral plant. And it took like 6o r 7 years for the UVF to admit they did Mcgurks. That was one of heir fortes blame stuff on other people. Like when they tried to frame the Miami Showband If they had the IRA codewords they would of tried to blame Dublin & Monaghan on them to.

    I suppose not a Catholic bar but the WDA consider it one because they didn't play the British Anthem or wave a flag. But alot of Catholics went there.

    On side not is there any record of the UVF or UDA not giving a warning before a bomb. Maybe if they had given a 45 minute warning in Dublin 17th of May 1974 so,so many people would have escaped death that day.


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