The Forgotten, RTÉ Radio 1/podcast
It is 50 years since the Dublin-Monaghan bombings.
The Forgotten brings us back to a beautiful sunny Friday in rush-hour Dublin and the car bombs that led to more than 30 deaths in a single day.
It was Friday May 17 1974. A woman, Margaret, retraces the footsteps of her sister Anne as she makes her way through a busy Talbot Street on her way to Connolly station to catch the Sligo train.
It’s a route I would take myself as a student on my way to the Belfast train just five years later.
Listening to these stories, what hit home was how little I was aware of the tragedy that unfolded on the streets I dashed down without a care.
That Friday in May the UVF killed 33 people, including a woman who was nine months pregnant, in a series of no-warning explosions in Dublin and Monaghan.
The stories are heart-rending.
A woman talks about the bomb going off – the boom and the complete silence that followed.
Journalist Vincent Browne was working for the Sunday Independent that day and heard the explosion as he was about to walk out to meet his brother.
He knew the sound as he had worked in Northern Ireland, he said. He assumed there had been a warning and he expected the usual… that the place had been cleared and there might be a few injuries.
But as they walked up Talbot Street, he and his brother were not prepared for what they might see.
“We suddenly realised that there were bodies lying on the street. I lifted up a young woman and as I did so, she simply disintegrated. I didn’t know that bodies disintegrated... she was alive, but she disintegrated.”
Five decades on and you can hear the shock in his voice still. The Troubles would continue for another 20 years, but no single day would surpass this death toll.
We suddenly realised that there were bodies lying on the street. I lifted up a young woman and as I did so, she simply disintegrated
— Vincent Browne
Nineteen years later, the UVF said they carried out the attack, following an ITV documentary which claimed they had help from British security force members.
The families of those murdered are still waiting for answers.
The Forgotten is a tough listen. The youngest victim was just five months old and the oldest was an 80-year-old First World War veteran.
It was harrowing, but important. We should never forget.
