Rose & Crown Bar bombing

Rose & Crown Bar bombing
Part of the Troubles

Bombing aftermath outside the Rose & Crown bar
Location Ormeau Road, Belfast,
Northern Ireland
Date 2 May 1974
22:00 (GMT)
Target Irish Catholics,
Irish Nationalists
Attack type
 Time bomb
Weapons gelignite bomb
Deaths 6
Non-fatal injuries
 18
Perpetrator Ulster Volunteer Force

The Rose & Crown Bar bombing was a bomb attack against a Catholic owned pub in Belfast which was carried out by the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) just less than two weeks before the start of the Ulster Workers' Council strike of May 1974 which brought down the Sunningdale power sharing agrement and just 15 day before the UVF Dublin and Monaghan bombings which killed 34 people and injured 300 people, the highest casualty rate in a single day during The Troubles.

Background

Loyalists and Unionist from nearly all political and social backgrounds reacted with anger to the Sunningdale agreement in particular the part that offered the Dublin government a say in how Northern Ireland would be governed. Many young Loyalists joined the Loyalist paramilitary groups like the UVF and Ulster Defence Association (UDA). In the weeks leading up to May 1974 the Loyalist paramilitaries had intensified their campaing. On 9 February the UDA shot dead two Catholic civilians in a bar in Belfast [1] Two days later on the 11 February two more Catholics were killed by the UDA/UFF.[2] On the 19 February the UVF killed two more civilians in a bomb attack on a pub in Armagh.[3] On the 29 March the UVF bombed Conways bar in Belfast killing two more Catholic civilians.[4] On the 21 April the UVF shot dead a Sinn Fein member in Fermanagh.[5]

The Bombing

At around 22:00 pm the UVF threw a cylander bomb laden with 200lb of high explosives through the front door of the Rose & Crown bar, the bomb went of nearly straight away once inside. The bomb brough the front of the entrance crashing down making it harder for people to escape. five people were killed outright with one more dying from his wounds a day or two later. Some of the injuries were horrific. Eyewitnesses described the horrific scenes of men with no legs or arms—even one man blown in half. A 75 year old man lost a leg and a other man lost an arm. One of those who died was walking past the bar when the bombing happened, the explosion was so powerful it blew both his legs off and killed him instantly.[6]

Aftermath

A white sedan seen near the building was later found abandoned in a Protestant area half a mile away.

Two teenagers were eventually arrested and jailed for the bombings.[7]

Loyalist paramilitaries killed a total of 51 one people the majority of whom were killed in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings 17 May and injured about 400 in the month of May 1974 alone making May 1974 the worst month out of the whole conflict for Loyalist paramilitary attacks.[8][9]

In 2014 for the 40th anniversary of the bombing a monument near the bomb site was dedicated to the victims of the UVF atrocity.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dyndeaths.pl?querytype=date&day=9&month=02&year=1974
  2. ↑ http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dyndeaths.pl?querytype=date&day=11&month=02&year=1974
  3. ↑ http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dyndeaths.pl?querytype=date&day=19&month=02&year=1974
  4. ↑ http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dyndeaths.pl?querytype=date&day=29&month=03&year=1974
  5. ↑ http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1974.html
  6. ↑ http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/1974/05/03/BGY509100090/?s=rescuers
  7. ↑ http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/monument-to-mark-uvf-atrocity-at-rose-and-crown-bar-on-belfasts-ormeau-road-30236470.html
  8. ↑ http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch74.htm#May
  9. ↑ http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1974.html
  10. ↑ http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/monument-to-mark-uvf-atrocity-at-rose-and-crown-bar-on-belfasts-ormeau-road-30236470.html

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