Dublin & Monaghan 1974 bombings (100 percent of each bomb detonating)

BalcombeSt4

I noticed this year was the 50th anniversary of the Dublin & Monaghan bombings, there were certainly a lot more people at the memorial they have each year than most other years, during The Troubles, the families of the dead were treated with suspicion by the Special Branch that they were somehow propagandists for the IRA.

Anyway, I disagree with a lot of so-called experts who say the Loyalists couldn't have carried it out by themselves, or at least the groups who claimed to be carrying out Loyalist attacks. British Army bomb disposal expert Colonel George Styles told the Hidden Hand documentary that the Loyalist paramilitaries had never carried out a co-ordinated multi-bombing operation before or since Dublin & Monaghan. That's simply false, to my knowledge in the South alone they had carried out two other operations where two or more bombs were timed to go off at specific times to create as much chaos as possible. 1 December 1972 two bombs exploded in Dublin within a few minutes of each other killing two people & injuring 130, I think the Red Hand Commando was officially blamed for that bomb, but Jack Lynch said in an interview a few weeks after those bombs that he believed a SAS style group was involved in them and that made every Loyalist attack in the South seem like it was some undercover covert operation, that image wasn't helped by episodes like the Littlejon Brothers or the fact a eight-man SAS unit carrying Browning pistols, Sterling smgs & Pump Action shotguns were caught & arrested by a joint IDF & Gardai patrol at the height of Loyalist sectarian bombings & shooting along the border in Co Louth. Again, just a few weeks later on 28 December 1972 three Loyalist car bombs exploded in Pettigo Co Donegal, Clones Co Monaghan, and Belturbet Co Cavan within about 30 minutes of each other, killing two & injuring eight in Belturbet & injuring three in Clones.

Then after 17 May 1974, they had similar co-ordinated attacks, the 12 October 1975 attacks for example, around 17 or 18 bombs were planned to go off at specific times during the day around Mid-Ulster, and one of the bombs exploded prematurely killing four UVF members, 8 civilians were also killed by the various bombs & 50 people were injured, the next day the UVF was made illegal again as the UVF & Sinn Fein were made legal in April 1974 by Merlyn Rees who was hoping they would come on in on the SunniSunningdale Agreement. Another famous one was the Charlemont Pub attacks, on 15 May 1976, nearly two years exactly to the day of the Dubin & Monaghan attacks, two gangs of Loyalists attacked pubs in a village close to the IRA's South Armagh Brigade area, first Clancy's bar was sprayed with Sten gun fire injuring four people & killing one person, about 30 seconds later according to eyewitnesses a blast was heard less than half a mile away at the Eagle Bar, three more people were killed there & 18 people injured. There are plenty of other non-lethal examples.

^ But these type of attacks seemed to be just the UVFs Mid-Ulster Brigade, which was the one linked with serving RUC, RUC SPG & UDR members known as the "Glenanne Gang". The Belfast UVF was certainly less sophisticated in their bombing technology, they would just make up crude but powerful bombs (usually weighing around 100 lbs of explosives with a black wicker fuse) that would destroy pubs, pubs were the main targets for the Belfast UVF in the early to mid 70s & their auxiliary group the Red Hand Commando. But I guess if your target is unarmed civilians you wouldn't need a highly sophisticated method of bomb detonation like the IRA or INLA did.

But my question is. Is it unusual for 100% of the explosives inside a bomb to detonate? That's the one very odd thing I keep hearing about the bombings. Is there another example of a high-profile bombing by Loyalists or Republicans detonating 100% of the explosives inside? The closest IRA equivalent bombing to Dublin & Monaghan is the Old Bailey & Whitehall bombings in 1973 where the bombs like in Dublin weighed about 200 lbs & even though they didn't kill anyone the level of destruction was about the same & around the same number of people were injured. the bombs were set to detonate within a few minutes of each other as well, which the bombs at the Bailey & Whitehall did, two other bombs were defused. The bombs made by the South Armagh Brigade for Bishopsgate & Docklands, surely with 25 years of experience would they have been able to replicate the full force of the explosives being extracted from the bombs like in Dublin, Or would this simply not make a difference if 80% or 70% of the bomb exploded would the end result still pretty much be the same?

Thanks for any insight.

Esel

FYI: IDF = Israeli Defence Forces

Can't help with the other stuff.

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122859925#Comment_122859925

It's also the Irish Defence Forces or just Defence Forces, but other countries aren't going to have a clue if you just say Defences Forces which countries forces it is, and if you say Oglaigh na hEireann it makes people think of the IRA.

Esel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122859929#Comment_122859929

If you must use initials, then it's PDF (Permanent Defence Forces).

IDF is confusing and just wrong.

Why not just say Irish Army anyway?

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122859932#Comment_122859932

Well, yeah, the Free State Army was officially called the (Irish) National Army I preferred that to Defence Forces, I don't why they had to change it, I just use DF or IDF in History so people don't think I'm talking about the Free State Army.

Esel

Who, apart from yourself, would think that a 1970s reference to the 'Irish Army' meant the 'Free State Army'?

If you want to achieve clarity for readers, using the term IDF is just plain wrong.

Maybe referring to them as the Irish Army sticks in your craw. Would 'Green Brits' suit your narrative better?

Mick Tator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122863196#Comment_122863196

I’m not going to bother picking Balcomb’s opening post apart, but like most of what he writes, it is riddled with claptrap from the first paragraph onwards e.g. “… the families of the dead were treated with suspicion by the Special Branch….” - (really?) to silliness “But I guess if your target is unarmed civilians you wouldn't need a highly sophisticated method of bomb detonation like the IRA or INLA did.) FWIW, a detonator's purpose is to initiate a chemical reaction in a device to cause the explosion, the target is irrelevant. Then we get handwringing on the bombmaking skills of the terrorist groups and if all of a device’s explosive material ignites. The detonators for bombs vary according to the explosive material, be it Semtex or homemade from fertilizer or other domestic compounds.

Poor old Balcomb has shown during the last several years of posting here that he is stuck in a time warp. He is bent on upholding the views of an Ireland long gone (thankfully), making strange assertions and posting arcane ‘data’ all of which is esoteric, based mainly on his suppositions and conjectures, rarely with credible sources and usually intimating personal inside knowledge. The subsequent debate/comment (lack of!) on his posts indicates that his guff is uninteresting to most here.

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122864086#Comment_122864086

In both Don Mullan's "The Dublin & Monaghan Bombings" & Joe Tiernan's "The Dublin Bombings & the Murder Triangle" family members talk about feeling exactly how they were treated like crap by the Irish state. Anne Cadwallader in her book also touches on how the families were treated. If these are sub-par sources please tell me your sources, would you? As obviously these books were written by shinners with an agenda. 🤔

I don't know what you are talking about, to be honest. The general Republican & Nationalist view is that there was collusion in the Dublin & Monaghan bombings and that Loyalists could have carried out the attacks without British help, probably from the SAS, I've just argued against that point of view, saying, Loyalists could have bombed Dublin without help & I gave examples of similar operations. Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack's "UVF: The Endgame" book makes similar points to ones I just did.

Yes, I compared the detonation methods between the Mid-Ulster UVF who were using electrical detonators like the IRA and the Belfast UVF were still using bombs with 10-second fuse timers.

I made the point about the 100% of the explosives being expended because in the 2003 Barron report it mentions "According to one of the Irish Army's top bomb disposal officers, Commandant Patrick Trears, the bombs were constructed so well that 100% of each bomb exploded upon detonation"

"stuck in a time warp" Yeah, imagine posting about a conflict that took place in the past in a HISTORY FORUM, I'm just out of control. 😚😥 I'm not going to apologize to someone for being interested in the history that took place on this island.

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122863196#Comment_122863196

Are you blind? I just said I agreed with you. I think they should be called the (Irish) National Army like they originally were.

Why the fcking hell would it stick in my craw? I think you want to stick in my craw so you & your little petty mate can have a go at bashing a Republican. Which, for the record, I'm not, I'm a Democratic Socialist & have strong Anarchist tendencies, I'm inspired politically much more by the likes of Bakunin, Rosa Luxemburg Noam Chomsky & Tony Benn, than Patrick Pearse, Joe Cahill or Gerry Adams, Seamus Costello & James Connolly would have some influence on my political thinking but not a huge lot. Irish Republicanism is very vague & ambiguous anyway, there were people who joined the RM who were hardline Marxists & others who were very socially conservative. I don't want to be talking politics but for some reason you do, so I'm telling you, your assumptions are wrong.

Esel

You're not a Republican? You have fooled everyone on Boards if that is the case.

Explain your choice of username so.

I'm puzzled by your 'logic' in describing Mick Tator as my 'little petty mate'?

I don't think I have ever interacted with Mick, although I did get a laugh from his username. In fairness, he mictated all over you in his post above. I didn't even thank that post FFS.

BTW, feel free to use the term 'Green Brits' to refer to the Irish Army. It has good provenance. I heard it from Uinseann MacEoin after we went through a Garda/Army checkpoint on the border. What he actually said was "Fụcking Green Brits!". I laughed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uinseann_MacEoin

Esel

You might feel the urge to edit this part of his Wikipedia page. To say the least, he would not be amused by it.

Born

Vincent O'Rahilly McGuone
4 July 1920
Pomeroy, County Tyrone, Ireland, United Kingdom

Mick Tator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122867093#Comment_122867093

Balcomb, you continue to meander all over the place like a rivulet in a bog, clutching straws in its flow. In your OP you wrote <<the families of the dead were treated with suspicion by the Special Branch>>. When I challenged on that, you changed direction to say <<…family members talk about feeling exactly how they were treated like crap by the Irish state>> which is quite different. To add to your roaming in various directions you quote Cadwallader as an ‘expert’ to support your views, yet you discount her expertise completely in writing << Anyway, I disagree with a lot of so-called experts who say the Loyalists couldn't have carried it out by themselves…>> Have you even read her book on collusion?

Despite your assertions on explosives, it’s clear you do not understand an iota on their construction, use or development by our northern brethren. In the early 1970’s, before the (mainly) Libyan deliveries and training, both sides of the terrorist equation had bombmaking skills that could best be described as primitive, learned from the ‘Anarchists Cookbook’ (which BTW, most students had read/owned in 1972). At that time most Loyalist factions had just about enough cop to make incendiaries, The changeover from these (chlorates) to nitrates (from ammonium nitrate fertiliser) by both sides happened later. It required large amounts to be effective, hence car/van bombs. They also required more precise measures, processing and mixing, because one of the ingredients produced oxygen on ignition, fuelling the explosion. (Google ‘ammonium nitrate Beirut 2020’.) Get the mix right, all ignites, otherwise the chemical reaction will fizzle out and there will be residue. The better educated ‘republicans’ had earlier access to gelignite and then Semtex, but they were an elite few.

While your point << being interested in the history that took place on this island>> is perfectly valid, using some historic events to write a lot of guff to promote your obtuse political agenda is tiresome and your continued fascination with body count statistics, despite being told by several here, is, to say the least, offensive.

donaghs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122867093#Comment_122867093

There’s plenty of people who also think that 1972-73 Dublin bombing were the result of British agents , not the incompetent loyalists. - the Littlejohn brothers and the mi6 spy John Wyman (who was arrested at one point, along with his main contact in Garda intelligence).

Plenty of articles on them all. Here just one:

https://historyireland.com/the-1972-3-dublin-bombings/

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122868415#Comment_122868415

This is your politics getting in the way of history Mick not mine, I don't think the British government planned the Dublin & Monaghan bombings, rogue UDR & RUC officers certainly did, along with UVF & possibly RHC members. I would have started an entirely new thread about collusion if I wanted & would have went into deeper detail about the possible collusion aspect in the Dublin bombs, but this is NOT what I wanted want to talk about. The only question I had is why was so much emphasis put on the fact 100% of each bomb detonated. Yes, Mick, unlike you I am no expert on bomb-making or bomb-making material, could it be from Loyalists changing from homemade explosives to commercial & military grade explosives? And what's the difference between, 100% of a say, 200lb bomb detonating to 80 or 90% of it detonating? Like the IRA bombs at Bishopsgate in 1993 & Manchester & Docklands in 1996, did 100% of the explosives detonate in those cases? This was the main point I wanted to know, not because of any wild conspiracy theories. I guess the question might have been better suited to the Science or Weapons threads.

I can get why you feel confused about the families, as a whole they feel they were treated like Provo fellow-travelers, this is largey due to three different authors, Don Mullan, Joe Tirniey & Ed O'Neil & Barry J Wyte (both surivors & Ed lost his father in the Talbot street blast & him & his brother were badly injured) have much harsher words for the Gardai, RUC, British MPs & Irish TDS as well as people like President Robinson who welcomed the Bloody Sunday families with opened arms but shunned the Dublin & Monaghan families, this was around 1990/91, now it's fashionable for political figures to talk about the Dublin & Monaghan bombings, but back in the 70s & 80s even the so-called Irish left wouldn't touch the issue, the reason the families chose their campaign name as Justice for the Forgotten (formed in 1996) is because they feel they were forgotten mainly by the Irish government but also by the Gardai & the Irish public. They also campaign for the 1972 & 73 Dublin bomb victims, the Belturbet & Clones 1972 victims along with the 1975 Dundalk victims, the victim at Castleblaney in 1976 and as well as the families and survivors of the Miami Showband massacre.

Mick Tator

@BalcombeSt4 Perhaps if you wrote shorter posts it might be clearer? History is history; however, when it is written with a political agenda it, at best, is biased (Hobsbawm et al) or at worst, propaganda. You posed a question buried amidst random assertions that have little/nothing to do with it. When answered, you then change the question and add more random assertions. Any response to you is giving you an excuse to add more waffle. And no, I’m not an explosives expert, I just have a Leaving Cert knowledge of physics & chemistry.

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122963114#Comment_122963114

Thank you for the practical advise.

I honestly wasn't trying to write a political agenda. If I was I would have named it the thread "Dublin Bombings & Glenanne Gang Murder Triangle"

I was just confused as to why people would make a big a big deal over 100% of the bombs exploding. Even if it was like 80% of each bomb exploding I thought the outcome would have been pretty much the same because of the bus strikes that Friday, and Dublin was absolutely crowded espespecially in the Tablot street area.

Esel

Maybe the 100% figure implies it was commercial explosive rather than home-made, and thus possible state involvement in the construction/installation of the bombs.

BalcombeSt4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123053445#Comment_123053445

That's what I thought they were hinting at, as they mention the Monaghan bombing was just your typical Loyalist bomb, with blackpowder exploives packed into a Beer Keg with a 5 minutes fuse on it that just had to be lit to prime it.

If they were commericial explosives in Dublin I presume it was the Glenanne Gang members who provided them, after all they were able to smuggle out, Browning Pistols, Sten & Sterling sub machine-guns to use in many attacks between 1973 - 1977.