The unusual suspects

An eight-year-old boy was walking home through the dark streets of Belfast in the biting evening chill. On his way home, he passed the family-owned pub McGurk's, which was a popular meeting place for many of the locals in the New Lodge area of ​​the Northern Irish capital. The moment he passed the pub, he saw a man wearing a dark overcoat and a mask get out of a car and leave a box in front of the pub. A guest was passing the pub when the little boy called out:

"Watch out, there's a bomb".

The man started running. A few seconds later there was a deafening explosion.

Sources:
weatherspark.com, www.thenewlodge.com, www.britannica.com, assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government, Police Ombudsman's report,
mcgurksbar.com/collusion/, BBC, mcgurksbar.com, Ciran McAirt: The McGurks Bar Bombing

Music used in this episode:
Folk Round by Kevin MacLeod #Uppbeat:
https://uppbeat.io/t/kevin-macleod/folk-round
The Green Horse Inn provided by EagleCinematics / Pond5
When Angels Cry  provided by williamlpearson / Pond5
Dramatic Suspense: https://pixabay.com/music/suspense-dramatic-suspense-116798/ by https://pixabay.com/users/ashot-danielyan-composer-27049680/
Anuch – Our champion - Music from #Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/anuch/our-champion

Produced and narrated by Natasja Engholm
Creative input: Lars Hvidberg, www.whiteberg.dk
Male voices by Voice talent Jon Lob

See pictures from today's story and follow me on: TerrorTalks on Facebook and TerrorTalks on Instagram

Transcript

Eight-year-old Joseph McClory was on his way home. He walked through the dark streets of Belfast in the cutting evening chill thinking only of getting home to his cosy house. It was -10 degrees on December 4, 1971, approaching a quarter to nine in the evening. On his way home, he passed the family-owned bar McGuirk's, a popular meeting place for many locals in the New Lodge area of the Northern Irish capital. There was a typical English bar atmosphere in the small bar. The bar was in the lower part of a classic townhouse with a pitched roof and two floors. The upper part was home to the bar's owners Patrick   McGurk, his wife Philomena and the couple's four children. Below was the bar itself, framed by black facades and tinted windows, where guests could meet friends and chat over a beer. Like most weekends, many had found their way to McGuirk's. The bar faced a quiet and deserted road, apart from happy voices from the bar. As Joseph McClory passed the bar, he saw a black car parked at the bar's entrance. The observant little boy noticed that the car had a small British flag stuck to the rear window. Still, with his eyes fixed on the car, Joseph McClory walked toward an intersection. At that exact moment, a man wearing a dark overcoat and mask exited the car and left a box in front of the bar before running back to the waiting car. A guest was passing the bar when the little boy called out:
"Watch out, there's a bomb".

The man started running. A few seconds later, there was a deafening explosion.

You are listening to TerrorTalks - a podcast about some of the most spectacular terrorist attacks in history. In this podcast, I tell the stories of the terrorists, their victims and the consequences for the survivors and society. About people who will sacrifice their own lives or the lives of others for a political, economic, religious or social goal. Who was behind it, who they wanted to hit, and why.
My name is Natasja Engholm, and I am a Danish journalist with a Master's in Middle Eastern Studies based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Unfortunately, terror has come close to home a few times in my life. The massacre on 69 people on the small island Utøya in Norway happened half an hour's drive from where some of my close family lives. 
A good friend was only a meter away from one of the suicide bombers on the London Underground in 2005. He miraculously escaped with two burst eardrums. And finally, I worked in Afghanistan some time ago, where a major terrorist attack on a local cafe claimed the lives of 21 people. Among them was the owner, who had served me cake on my birthday the year before. 

Fortunately, I have never been in the middle of a terrorist attack myself. However, these experiences have awakened my curiosity, fascination and, not least, a fear that most people probably know about: that it will happen to me someday. That it comes close.
Before you start listening, I must warn you that the podcast contains descriptions and details that can be violent and unsuitable for especially small children and people affected by hearing about murder and violence.

The evening at the McGurks bar had otherwise been business as usual. Behind the bar stood owner Patrick McGurk, welcoming people in his usual warm and friendly manner. Many were regulars and were greeted with a
"Just the usual"?
Despite the conflict that occasionally raged in the streets of Belfast, to which we will return later, McGurk's was not known as a place where people came to discuss politics. In fact, the host couple, Patrick and Philomena McGurk, were known for their zero tolerance for bigotry and prejudice. They had their home just above the bar and were determined to create an environment suitable for their children to grow up in and be a part of. There was even a swear box on the bar counter.
Two of the guests were Seamus Kane and James Cromie, pupils at St. Malachy's College, and, that evening, visited classmate Gerard McGurk. They often came to the McGurk Family home to play football with their teenage sons, and tonight was no exception. Philomena and the couple's only daughter, Maria, had just returned home from confession in the local St. Patrick's Church.
Kathleen Irwine, called Kitty, aged 53, and her husband John visited McGurk's as usual on Saturday night. Here they enjoyed themselves while their teenage children stayed at home nearby. The couple sat to the bar's left in a smaller, quieter area and soon bumped into their old friends, Edward Keenan, 69, and Sarah Keenan, 58. They were in a great mood because Edward had just received his pension bonus after many years of hard work at Belfast docks. The couple looked forward to giving the family some extra Christmas presents 3 weeks later.
A short distance from the bar, 55-year-old Thomas McLaughlin, his uncle Malachy McLaughlin and friends Joe Reid and Matt McClafferty sat talking and laughing. Malachy McLaughlin suddenly thought he could smell something reminiscent of a stink bomb outside the entrance. He looked towards the door, expecting that some children had been playing a prank. 

In a split second, there was a flash of light followed by a deafening bang. Everything went black and quiet for a few seconds. Then the silence was broken by the survivors' moans, wails and calls. In the chaos, it still hadn't dawned on them, but it was the bomb that 8-year-old Joseph had seen being placed outside the bar that had just exploded. The upper floor, where the McGurk Family lived and the bar downstairs, had now collapsed into a jumble of rubble, broken glass, injured and dead.
Thirteen-year-old Seamus Kane, who, amid laughter and good-natured teasing moments before, had been playing football in the McGurk family's home, later told.
"Everything went dark. I remember being under the rubble. I had no idea it was a bomb, and I could hear injured people shouting."
He and friend Gerard McGurk, son of the owners, survived the blast, but their schoolmate James Cromie, aged 13, was killed.
Seamus Kane lay badly injured for around 20 minutes before a soldier and civilian rescuers pulled him from the ruins of the bar. It may sound strange that soldiers helped with the rescue work, but British soldiers were stationed to keep peace and order in Belfast. The fire burned Seamus Kane's back, and he later had stitches in his leg.
The only one upstairs who survived unscathed was the McGurk couple's second son, 13-year-old Patrick, who had been showering in the family home. It was the only part of the upper floor that did not collapse. Confused, he tried to put on his clothes in the dark and run down the stairs and out the front of the house, but it was completely blocked. Instead, he climbed out of a window, where he now stood and watched in vain for his mother, 46-year-old Philomena, and 14-year-old sister Maria, returning from confession in St. Patrick's Church. They never showed up. No one had noticed them arriving home minutes before the bomb went off. They both died in the terrorist attack, Philomena, when the house collapsed and Maria from carbon monoxide poisoning. Philomena's brother John Colton was also in the family home upstairs, getting ready to help his brother-in-law in the bar. He followed his sister and niece in death.
Sitting near the bar with his uncle Malachy McLaughlin and friends Joe Reid and Matt McClafferty, Thomas McLaughlin died shortly after the bomb. His friend, 46-year-old Joe Reid, was lying across his stomach, burned on his back and unable to move. Under the rubble, they lay with two other friends and tried to keep each other's spirits up. Then Thomas McLaughlin shouted.
"I’m finished”.
After that, he fell silent. Joe Reid thought to himself that he must be dead. Outside, people shouted for the survivors, and Joe Reid shouted back. The wait felt like an eternity, although it was probably 5-10 minutes at most before he was rescued. All the while, loose rubble fell around him, and he held his hands over his head to protect it and ensure he could breathe.
Matt McClafferty suffered eye and leg injuries and later said:
“It's a miracle that I'm alive. The flash seemed to come from the direction of the bar. I didn't know whether I had been injured or not. There was water running down my neck, and I thought it was blood."
The last of the four-leaf clover, Thomas McLaughlin's uncle, 62-year-old Malachy McLaughlin, broke his ankle and received cuts to his leg. His leg and left hand were stuck in the rubble. He was rescued by two soldiers.
John Irvine was impaled by a massive wooden stake through the chest. He and his wife Kitty and friends Edward and Sarah Keenan celebrated Edward's retirement over a beer mug. The crash was still echoing in his head, and he was gasping for breath from all the dust that had collected in his mouth. His first thought was his wife.
"Kitty, kitty, are you alright"
he called. But he got no answer. On his left were the screams of his friend Sarah Keenan,
"God. Get me out of here. I'm dying."
Sarah Keenan was lying under the same wooden stake as John Irvine, clutching desperately at his hand. Shortly after, however, her hand went limp, and the screams of Sarah Keenan stopped. Her husband Edward screamed too.
Suddenly John felt Kitty, his wife, make one last move as she hit his leg. The gas lines beneath her and Edward Keenan caught fire, and traces of soot in their lungs later indicated they were likely burned alive. John could hear pleas, moans and cries for help all around him. After what must have felt like an eternity in a burning inferno, he was finally lifted out by firefighters.
Joseph McClory, the 8-year-old boy who claimed to have seen a man place a bomb outside McGurk's bar, ran home to his mother. Shaking and pale with fear, he told her about the bomb, the car, and how he had been hit by the shock wave from the explosion. He also told her about the man whose life he had saved by warning him about the bomb. His mother believed him, but many others did not. Had Joseph McClory been just a bit older, the following events might have turned out differently.

But what was the terrorist attack on a small bar in the Northern Irish capital Belfast about? The terrorist attack was far from the first and was not to be the last. It was part of a historical conflict in Northern Ireland, brought to life in 1969, two years before the attack on McGurk's. The conflict was characterized by fighting between three parties: paramilitary Catholics, paramilitary Protestants and the security forces of the British state. The conflict in Northern Ireland refers explicitly to a flare-up of the historical conflict between Catholics and Protestants between 1969 and the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998. The following brief outline of the conflict's background is much more complex than my exposition of it. History is necessary to understand what led to the attack on McGurk's, but on the other hand, it is not possible to touch on the many things that caused it to explode in the late 1960s.
To find the bloody roots of the attack, we have to go back to the beginning of the 17th century. Northern Ireland is located in the northeastern part of the Irish island, and the capital is Belfast. At that time, Scots and English were given land by the British state in the province of Ulster, which had previously belonged to the native Irish. With increased immigration of Protestants from the rest of Britain into the otherwise predominantly Catholic area, it led to bloody conflicts that continued 350 years into the future. During the 1900s, Ireland was granted partial self-government as part of Great Britain. In the predominantly Protestant north of Ireland, self-government and independence had been resisted for fear of being swallowed up by overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland. Even when the rest of Ireland gained complete independence in 1922, Northern Ireland remained part of Great Britain with its own parliament and devolved government. While this arrangement satisfied the Protestants' desire to remain part of Great Britain, the Catholics saw the agreement on the partition of Ireland as an illegitimate division of the island against the will of most of its people. And this fear of being oppressed and out of influence that, for some 30 years, brought terror and horror to Northern Ireland.
If we fast forward to the years leading up to the escalation of the conflict, the Protestants founded the terrorist group Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1966 in Belfast, where they declared war on the Catholic counterpart, the Irish Republican Army (IRA). They were far from top-managed and close-knit organizations but so-called cells, which operated autonomously in the organization's name. In addition, there were many smaller groups on both sides, which were also not subject to anyone else's rules but their own. After riots in August 1969, considered by many to be the beginning of the conflict, the British Army stationed soldiers in Northern Ireland. In December of that year, the IRA was split into two factions: the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA. Both launched armed campaigns against the British Army and the local police force in Northern Ireland. The British government's official position was that its forces were neutral in the conflict and sought to maintain law and order in Northern Ireland and the right of the Northern Irish people to democratic self-determination.
While the old IRA rebels before 1969 had principles of non-violence against civilians, the part that left the organization, the Provisional IRA, was determined to wage armed struggle against the regime in Northern Ireland - even at the cost of civilian lives. The new IRA was willing to assume the "defenders of the Catholic community" role. During 1971 the violence gradually worsened. There were daily bombings and shootings between the IRA, the police and the British security forces. From 1970 to 1972, there was an explosion of political violence in Northern Ireland. The deadliest attack in the early 1970s was the McGurks Bar bombing in 1971. The violence peaked in 1972, when nearly 500 people, just over half of them civilians, were killed, the worst year on record for the conflict.

We now return to the time after the attack on McGurk in 1971. There was nothing more to investigate in that case. After a relatively short investigation, the British authorities closed all further investigations. The conclusion, which they stuck to for a long time, was that it was a so-called "own goal", i.e. a bomb that went off by accident in the hands of the terrorists. Both the local authorities and the British authorities refused to believe that it was not the Catholic terrorist organization, the IRA, which was behind it. A British intelligence document stated:
"It has been confirmed that it was a Provisional IRA bomb which was destined for another target but exploded prematurely."
On December 23, the British Army sent a letter to people in North Belfast stating that:
"When the IRA in the area is destroyed, "we can look forward to … a period in which you will not lose your friends in a repetition of the IRA's accident in the McGurk's bar."
Survivors and relatives refused to believe this. They insisted that the bar had no links to the IRA and that there had been no suspicious persons or activity in the bar that night. That was backed up by a document from British Army Intelligence, which said the bar was not known to have IRA links. Relatives of the victims campaigned for an independent investigation into the bombing as they believed the local authorities' investigation was flawed from the start. Furthermore, they wanted to disprove the claim that the victims were IRA members killed by their own bomb (the "own goal" theory). The relatives claimed that this theory was promoted as part of a
"Government policy to avoid publicly acknowledging the loyalist campaign of violence".

Another argument was that they wanted to undermine IRA support and create tension between the two IRA factions.
Perhaps they just had tunnel vision and had stubbornly decided that the IRA, as the usual suspects were the culprit. Or maybe they also had an interest in maintaining the focus on the Catholic activists as the primary aggressors in the conflict. At least the IRA regarded the British as occupying forces. The British troops were officially neutral. But perhaps the British forces were not as impartial as they would like to appear. The British focus was then also primarily on the IRA and other Catholic activists, and an investigation by the Police Ombudsman then also confirmed that certain British officers collaborated on several occasions with loyalist paramilitaries, were involved in murders and also obstructed the course of justice when allegations of collaboration and murders were investigated.
However, the relatives' protests were futile. New information suddenly appeared five years later, suggesting that the truth would be entirely found elsewhere.

The phone rang on the Belfast Telegraph newspaper. I am rewinding here to two days after the attack on McGurk's to substantiate how much evidence the authorities ignored along the way. A male voice said:
"We accept responsibility for the destruction of McGurk's pub. We placed 30 lb of new explosives outside the pub because we had proved beyond doubt that meetings of IRA Provisionals and Officials were held there."
On the phone was a person who claimed to be a spokesman for the "Empire Loyalist" group. Several other newspapers received the same call. Empire Loyalists had only once previously claimed responsibility for an attack: the bombing of a community centre on November 12, 1971, a month before the attack on McGurk. However, the local authorities had no information about such a group and believed it could be a cover name. But a young man claimed to have seen a man behaving strangely in a telephone box on the same day. He said the man had a jacket with a UVF badge attached. The young man claimed to have examined the telephone box afterwards and found a piece of torn paper. When it was put together, it said, among other things:
"We, the Empire Loyalists, wish to state that we did not destroy McGurk's public house as an act of retaliation ... Furthermore, we do not require the forensic experts of the Army to cover up for us ... We shall not issue any further statements until we exterminate another rebel stronghold".
On the same day, both branches of the IRA condemned the attack, denying responsibility and blaming the Protestant Ulsters and the security forces.
And then there were the witnesses: Both the 8-year-old newsboy Joseph McClory, the 48-year-old dock worker Henry Davey, who escaped the explosion after the newsboy's warning, and a female witness, all three claimed to have seen a car with four men and a small Union Jack- flag in the back window stop outside the bar where they had left a package.
"I was just about to get to the side door when the paper boy shouted a warning to me. He said, 'Mr. don't go near there, I saw men planting a bomb there.'”
Henry Davey said he left his house shortly before nine o’clock on Saturday night to go to the bar. He crossed the road and went to the front door, which was locked, so he went to the side door on the other side. Henry Davey said he hesitated momentarily and then walked around to the North Queen Street side of the bar. The bomb went off after a few seconds.
“The child ran across the road towards me but I didn’t see him afterwards and I think he ran away. I have not even seen him yet to thank him for saving my life.”
But it wasn’t until March 1976, five years after the terrorist attack on McGurk, that authorities received a tip they couldn’t ignore. It is not clear precisely what these al erts were about, but evidence pointed to the fact that - as many local Catholic residents had been convinced all along - the IRA was not behind the attack.
According to a report by the Police Ombudsman in 2011, evidence emerged in 1976 linking a member of the Ulsters, Robert Campbell, and four others to the McGurk’s bomb. Robert James Campbell was called Jimmy, so we will also refer to him as that here. He led the so-called B-Company unit in the Ulsters and was behind several attacks against Irish Catholics. He soon confessed to his involvement in the attack on McGurk’s but refused to name his comrades.
Jimmy Campbell met on the night of the attack, Saturday, December 4, 1971, with three other Ulsters in Belfast, where they were told to bomb a bar on North Queen Street. The 13-kilo bomb was disguised as a brown package and placed in a car they drove to the target. Jimmy Campbell said their target was not McGurk’s but another bar nearby. This bar was believed to be called The Gem and apparently had links to the Official IRA.
According to Jimmy Campbell, they stopped near The Gem around 19.30 but could not gain access due to the security guards on site. After waiting for almost an hour, they drove the short distance to McGurk’s. Jimmy Campbell suggested that McGurk’s was chosen solely because it was the nearest Catholic bar. Around 20.45, one of them placed the bomb on the porch entrance and rushed back to the car. This is what young Joseph McClory had witnessed. The bomb exploded moments after they had driven off.

On July 29, 1977, Jimmy Campbell was charged with 15 murders and 17 attempted murders. The following year, he pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to life in prison with a recommendation that he serve no less than 20 years. He is the only one ever charged with the terrorist attack and ended up doing 15 years in prison. Jimmy Campbell was released on September 9, 1993. He died in 2013, and the closest he came to an apology for his actions were these words:

“Unfortunately I can do nothing to help all those poor people, and all I can say is sorry. Sorry is only a wee word. But it means a whole lot, you know. That’s all I can do for you, boss.”

However, like the episode about the Oklahoma bomb, I personally think his apology rings pretty hollow. A terrorist attack is not spontaneous but often a years-long planning process with room for deliberation. I’m not a psychologist, but radicalization is not insanity. He knew what he was doing and that it would cost lives. In addition, Jimmy Campbell refused to name his co-conspirators, who could have contributed to the investigation and perhaps a greater peace of mind for the survivors and their relatives.

The Belfast Peace Agreement was concluded on Good Friday in 1998, mainly ending the 30-year conflict. Some of the relatives still wondered how the terrorists were able to escape despite the heavy security presence consistently present in Belfast. Some even claimed that the British had helped organize the attack. The original target, The Gem, had links to the Official IRA, and the purpose, according to those who believed in it, was to blame another faction of the IRA and thus create discord.
However, in February 2011, 40 years after the attack, the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland abolished the inquiry I referred to earlier into the attack and the local authority’s investigation. It concluded that there was no evidence that the authorities had aided the terrorists, but they were biased towards promoting the perception that the IRA was responsible. Among other things, by giving selective and misleading briefings to the government and the media.
Ombudsman Al Hutchinson stated: 
“Inconsistent police briefings, some of which inferred that victims of the bombing were culpable in the atrocity, caused the bereaved families great distress, which has continued for many years”.
The attack on McGurk and the subsequent events are excellent examples of how complex terrorism and terror are. When I was a child in the 1980s, terror in Europe was not only in the service of the Islamist cause. My parents often watched TV news, which was shown right after children’s class, and here I quickly learned the names of terrorist groups, which were often abbreviated to three letters: ETA in Spain, RAF in Germany and, not least, IRA in Northern Ireland. As a child who didn’t know the nuances of the conflict and therefore just stuck to what the media mentioned, the IRA became a symbol of terror. It was they who spread terror, and it was they who were to blame for the many civilian casualties.
But the conflict in Northern Ireland was not just the IRA as the bad guys on one side, but on the brink of civil war with the self-proclaimed mediator Britain as a stakeholder. I remember the IRA as one of the terrorist groups that was often mentioned in the TV news. I don’t remember the details, but they were mentioned in the context of conflict, death and destruction. On the other hand, I never remember hearing that there was an opponent. The IRA were dissatisfied, and if there was an opponent, soldiers from Great Britain were in the country to maintain peace and order. But it was not all the violence in the early 70s in Northern Ireland that the IRA was behind. Opposing the IRA, which fought for a Northern Ireland united with the rest of its Catholic brethren on the island of Ireland, were various Protestant groups which wanted to remain part of Great Britain. An opponent who, like the IRA, was prepared to use the most violent methods and kill innocents to pursue their political goals. It is important to remember that Britain and the pro-British government in Northern Ireland had access to the media and official channels to tell the stories that made themselves look the best. An essential element in the angle of the narrative about who are heroes and villains, terrorists or freedom fighters.

You have listened to TerrorTalks, a podcast about terror and radicalization. This episode was written, produced and narrated by me, Natasja Engholm, while Jon Lobb voiced the men in the story. Also, a big thank you to consultant and journalist Lars Hvidberg, who contributed with sparring and wise thoughts. Today's episode has greatly benefited from the information in the book The McGurk's Bar Bombing by Ciarán MacAIRT. You will find the episode's sources in the show notes where ever you listen to your podcast. I would also appreciate it if you would give me a positive rating.
Listen to the next episode, where I talk about a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 14 people. Only because they were women. And where the focus was directed at the wrong terrorists. You can also follow TerrorTalk's social media on Instagram and Facebook, where you can see pictures from today's story.