Bayardo Bar attack
Bayardo Bar attack | |
---|---|
Part of The Troubles | |
Location | Bayardo Bar Aberdeen Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland |
Coordinates | 54°36′14″N 5°56′53″W / 54.604008°N 5.948119°W |
Date | 13 August 1975 |
Attack type | shooting, bombing |
Deaths | 5 (4 Protestant civilians, 1 Ulster Volunteer Force member) |
Injured | 50+ |
Perpetrator | Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade |
The Bayardo Bar attack took place on 13 August 1975 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), led by Brendan McFarlane, launched a bombing and shooting attack on a pub on Aberdeen Street, in the loyalist Shankill area. IRA members stated the pub was targeted because it was frequented by members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Four Protestant civilians and one UVF member were killed, while more than fifty were injured.
According to journalists Alan Murray and Peter Taylor, it was a retaliation for the Miami Showband massacre almost a fortnight earlier when members of the popular Dublin-based band were shot dead by the UVF at a fake military checkpoint.
McFarlane and two other IRA volunteers, Peter "Skeet" Hamilton and Seamus Clarke, were sentenced to life imprisonment for perpetrating the Bayardo attack.
Background
By the year 1975, the conflict in Northern Ireland, known as "
There was a rise in sectarian killings during the truce, which 'officially' lasted until early 1976.
In the early hours of 31 July 1975, the popular
The attack
The Bayardo Bar was crowded with people of all ages on Wednesday 13 August 1975. Shortly before closing time a stolen green
A Belfast Telegraph article later stated that, as the IRA unit drove away down Agnes Street (an arterial road linking the Shankill to the Crumlin Road), they fired into a crowd of women and children queuing at a taxi rank; there were no fatalities.[6] Within 20 minutes of the blast, the IRA unit was arrested after their car was stopped at a roadblock. The Armalite that had been used to kill William Gracey and Samuel Gunning was found inside the car along with spent bullet cases and fingerprints belonging to the three IRA men.[7][11]
The IRA did not initially claim responsibility, However, IRA members later stated that the Bayardo was attacked because it was a pub where UVF members met and planned terrorist assaults against nationalists.[6] Martin Dillon said that the Bayardo was frequented by the UVF and that Lenny Murphy, head of the Shankill Butchers gang, was a regular customer.[15] Steve Bruce also maintained that in the early 1970s, the UVF's Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership) would often be found drinking in the pub, which was just around the corner from their headquarters above "The Eagle" chip shop on the Shankill Road.[16] A former IRA prisoner stated that fellow inmate Lenny Murphy told him he had left the Bayardo ten minutes before the attack and that the Brigade Staff had just finished holding a meeting there.[17]
Retaliation
Loyalists, especially the UVF, responded with another wave of sectarian attacks against Catholics. Two days after, a loyalist car bomb exploded without warning on the Falls Road, injuring 35 people.[18] On 22 August, the UVF launched a gun and bomb attack on McGleenan's Bar in Armagh. The attack was strikingly similar to that at Bayardo. One gunman opened fire while another planted the bomb; the explosion caused the building to collapse. Three Catholic civilians were killed (one of whom died on 28 August) and several more were wounded.[19] That same night, another bomb wrecked a Catholic-owned pub in nearby Blackwatertown, although there were no injuries.[20]
These loyalist attacks were responded to in kind by the IRA (sometimes using the cover name "Republican Action Force"), with the months that followed the Bayardo attack being characterised as a bloody game of tit-for-tat. This was met with disillusionment by imprisoned republicans such as Gerry Adams and Brendan Hughes, with the latter stating that sectarianism was "destroying the whole struggle".[21]
Convictions
In May 1976, Brendan McFarlane, Seamus Clarke, and Peter Hamilton were convicted in a non-jury
The Bayardo Somme Association has described the Bayardo attack as "a forgotten atrocity".[6] The association erected a memorial to the victims on the site where the Bayardo Bar stood before its demolition. The large steel monument was incorporated into the remaining section of the original structure; it bears the names and photographs of the five people who were killed plus photos of the pub taken before and after the bombing.[22]
See also
- Chronology of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions (1970-1979)
References
- ^ a b c d Extracts from The Longest War: Northern Ireland and the IRA by Kevin J. Kelley. Zed Books Ltd, 1988. Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
- ^ Taylor, Peter (1999). Loyalists. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p.142
- ^ Taylor, Peter. Brits: The War Against the IRA. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001. p.182
- ^ Taylor, pp.147–149
- ^ a b c Taylor, p.149
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Bayardo murders lost in rubble of McGurk's". Belfast Telegraph. Alan Murray. 10 March 2011 Retrieved 8 November 2011
- ^ a b "McFarlane – The Inside Story". Magill magazine. Derek Dunne. April 1986. In an unsigned statement which was read at his trial, McFarlane admitted he had driven the car used in the Bayardo attack.
- ^ Bishop, Patrick Joseph & Mallie, Eamonn (1987). The Provisional IRA. London: Heinemann. p.223
- ^ "Sinn Fein on the brink of new era of openness". Belfast Telegraph. Liam Clarke. 7 October 2011 Retrieved 10 November 2011
- ^ a b c "Last vote for dying IRA chief; he backs Adams in election". The Mirror (London). Maurice Fitzmaurice. 2 March 2011
- ^ a b c d O'Malley, Padraig (1990). Biting the Grave: the Irish hunger strikes and the politics of despair. Boston: Beacon Press. p.68
- ^ Note: Seamus Clarke is the younger brother of Terence "Cleaky" Clarke, Gerry Adams' former bodyguard, who was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for the assault of Corporal Derek Wood in 1988.
- ^ McKittrick, David (1999). Lost Lives. UK: Mainstream. p.560
- ^ CAIN Web Service Sutton Index of Deaths – 1975 Retrieved 8 November 2011. CAIN gives Linda Boyle's age as 19.
- ^ Dillon, Martin (1989). The Shankill Butchers: the real story of cold-blooded mass murder. New York: Routledge. p.7
- ^ Bruce, Steve (1992). The Red Hand: Protestant paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. Oxford University Press. p.190
- ^ Stevenson, Jonathan (1996). We Wrecked the Place: contemplating an end to the Northern Irish troubles. Free Press. p.54
- ^ Brian Hanley & Scott Millar. The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party. Chapter 8: Brothers Fighting Brothers. Penguin UK, 2010
- ^ McKittrick, David. Lost Lives. p.565
- ^ "Northern Ireland expects violence". Rome News Tribune. 24 August 1975
- ^ Taylor, Peter (1998). Provos: The IRA and Sinn Féin. London: Bloomsbury. p. 195
- ^ CAIN Bayardo Bomb memorial