(Valerie Robinson, Irish News)

Southern Correspondent Valerie Robinson finds that those injured or bereaved by the car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan struggle to come to terms with their pain while also battling for a full public inquiry – and the truth.

The stories of all those affected by the blitz-like attacks on the Republic in 1974 remain a stark reminder of the physical and emotional pain that became a legacy of the bombings. Edward John O'Neill was typical of those killed by the blasts.

The 39-year-old self-employed painter and decorator lived in Dominick Street in Dublin with his pregnant wife Martha and five children, Denise, Angela, Billy, Edward junior and Niall.

On the morning of the bombings, Mr O'Neill had taken Billy to the barber shop for a haircut and had given into the pleadings of five-year-old Eddie to go along too.

The father and sons were on Parnell Street when the first no-warning bomb exploded.

Edward junior, now aged 34, remembers his father instinctively turning to shield the boys, allowing his own body to take the full force of the blast.

Mr O'Neill died at the scene, while the children both suffered serious injuries.

Three months after the attack, Mrs O'Neill gave birth to a still-born daughter, named Baby Martha, who was buried alongside her father.

Edward O'Neill's earliest memories after the explosion are of being scolded by a matron after she found his brother Billy racing him through the hospital corridors in a wheelchair.

"I remember the matron threatening us with her slipper to stay in bed," he said.

"I was in pretty bad state then, I'd lost my left knee and I had bad lacerations, but it didn't really hit home that my father had been killed," he said.

"I spent most of the next two years in hospital and even when I was nine or 10, I remember asking my mother where my daddy was. Usually she'd say he was at work and would be home soon, but one day I remember her saying: 'Your daddy's up with the angels.'

"I don't know how my mother coped with my father's loss, our injuries and the baby's death.

"She had an inner strength that still remains today. I know people who ended up committing suicide, or with drugs and drink problems but my mother kept us all on the straight and narrow. And she did all that without any help from the government.

"You know what they say – nobody is more cruel than kids are. I became a real target for bullies at school because I developed a bad stammer and I couldn't walk very well because of the damage to my leg.

"They used to taunt me unmercifully but it made me a stronger person.

"I was very traumatised by what happened. Even now I still have the most horrendous nightmares. Sometimes I can actually feel my skin on fire. I'm also extremely protective of my own two children, who are aged five and five months. I need to know that they're safe at all times."

Over the past 30 years, Mr O'Neill has undergone more than 20 operations to remove shrapnel from his body, including his legs, skull and neck.

He has also written a book, entitled Two Little Boys, about the day the explosions took place and the effects the attack had on his life.

The family of Anne Byrne, a Donaghmede housewife, did not realise how many lives had been affected by the attacks until they attended a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the bombings.

Mrs Byrne, aged 35, was killed on Talbot Street while on a shopping trip.

She had left her children Michelle, aged eight, and four-year-old Trevor in the care of a neighbour. Her husband Michael, a sales rep, didn't learn that his wife was missing until he arrived home from work that evening – her body was later discovered in the morgue.

Her daughter Michelle O'Brien remembers hearing the bombs going off and being told by a neighbour that they sounded like gas explosions.

"Our father tried very hard to shelter us from what happened, so it wasn't until the 25th anniversary that we realised that we weren't the only ones affected," she said.

"My father always found it too hard to talk about my mother's death. It's still tough.

"I remember that she loved her home – we'd only moved there two years earlier and she was just like any other mother."

Joseph O'Neill, now aged 70, was almost killed when the second car bomb exploded outside his shoe shop on Talbot Street as he was closing up for the evening.

The businessman was collecting the day's takings when he heard the Parnell Street bomb go off and was at a doorway when the second blast happened.

His tenant, May McKenna, originally from Monaghan and Dungannon, Co Tyrone, lived over the shop.

The 55-year-old was about to enter the shop when she was killed.

Shop assistant Bernie McNally (16), who had been coming up from the basement, suffered serious facial injuries which led to an eye being removed in the mid-1990s.

"I had put my hand on the knob of the door when the bomb went off," Mr O'Neill said.

"I was thrown backward into the shop and all the shoes and shelving fell on top of me.

"When I began to rise up I saw that a piece of timber was on fire and I lifted my right leg to stamp it out, but my shoe and sock had been blown off.

"I decided to walk to Moran's Hotel to lie down but it was only then I noticed the wounds on my stomach and that I was bleeding heavily.

"It also seemed pitch black because my eyesight was damaged.

"Someone took me to Jervis Hospital in a car but they wouldn't let us past the gate because a huge crowd had gathered.

"Eventually, they were persuaded to let us in because I couldn't be carried.

"When I was in the ward I passed out and didn't wake up until Monday or Tuesday. My wife Nora got a terrible fright.

"I'm still on full-time medication for my stomach but I tried to get on with my life.

"While my shop was being repaired Charlie Brett, a trader down the road, rented me a premises for little or nothing.

"I don't feel angry. I suppose I accept the whole thing but I realise that I was saved by a solid Georgian pillar in front of the shop. If the car had been a foot or two further up, I would have been killed."

Patrick Askin, a 44-year-old forestry worker, was killed while winding down for the weekend with a pint when the fourth and final bomb exploded outside Greacen's Pub in Monaghan town.

His son Patrick, then aged six, remembers his father as a very quiet family man who had been very kind to his wife Patricia and four children Paul, aged five, Patrick and two-year-old twin girls Sonia and Sharon.

"I remember hearing the blast while standing beside my mother at the scullery sink.

"It shook the window. Friends took us into the town and my mother went into the hospital – we weren't allowed in.

"When she came out she was in an awful state. I only learned recently that dad had lived for a while," he said.

"We never stopped thinking about my father. I still think about him every day.

"He would never have hurt anybody," the Armagh man said.

This article appeared first in the May 14, 2004 edition of the Irish News.

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