Bloody Friday: day of infamy as civilians became targets in IRA city bomb blitz

One bomb after another was detonated at different locations across the city on July 21, 1972 – leaving nine people dead and 130 injured – on what quickly became known as Bloody Friday.

While some of the car bombs were driven to their targets by PIRA gunmen who shouted warnings to nearby civilians, many others exploded without warning, or after attempts to provide warnings to the already over-stretched security forces proved futile.

It was a nightmare scenario for those trapped in the city as the many of the main thoroughfares were closed due to explosions, suspicious abandoned vehicles and numerous hoax bomb warnings.

Soon after the first devices exploded in Smithfield and the Windsor Park railway bridge around 2.10pm, quickly followed by blasts at the Brookvale Hotel and York Road rail station, the air became heavy with acrid smoke.

The sound of sirens echoing through the city centre added to the sense of fear and chaos.

One after another, bombs exploded in the Botanic area, the Liverpool ferry terminal, a south Belfast filling station, an electricity sub-station and on the Queen Elizabeth Bridge.

The greatest loss of life occurred at Oxford Street bus station, where six people died, and at a shopping centre on the Cavehill Road where mother-of-seven Margaret O’Hare, 34, Brigid Murray, 65, and 14-year-old Stephen Parker were killed.

Those who died at Oxford Street were civilians William Crothers, 15, Jackie Gibson, 45, William Irvine, 18, Thomas Killops, 39, and soldiers Stephen Cooper, 19 and Philip Price, 27.

The Bloody Friday attack was one of the worst terrorist atrocities of the Troubles during what was the bloodiest year of the conflict.

By July 1972, murder and sectarian violence was daily occurrence and the Province was teetering on the brink of all-out civil war.

Just a few months earlier (on March 20) the Provisional IRA had launched its first major car bomb attack – killing two police officers and five civilians when a device targeting the News Letter’s office exploded in Lower Donegall Street.

Another IRA bomb targeting civilians had ripped through Belfast’s Abercorn restaurant in Cornmarket, two weeks prior to the Donegall Street mass murder.

That attack claimed the lives of two young women and left many others with life-changing injuries.

Within days of the Donegall Street mass murder, and with the death toll spiralling, the UK Government prorogued the Stormont Parliament and introduced direct rule from Westminster.

William Whitelaw was installed as the new Secretary of State and the government responded to pressure for a clampdown on the various active terrorist groupings.

By the end of July 1972 a renewed offensive against the Provos – who had created several ‘no go’ areas for the security forces mainly in Belfast and Londonderry – was launched in the form of Operation Motorman.

This in turn led to the Provos carrying out yet another atrocity with innocent civilians as the targets – placing three bombs in the Co Londonderry village of Claudy as troops moved in to clear barricades republican areas of Derry city.

Commenting on the Bloody Friday attacks, Ulster University’s CAIN Troubles project states: “In addition to the bombs there were numerous hoax warnings about other explosive devices which added to the chaos in the streets that afternoon.

“Many people believe these hoax warnings were deliberately used to reduce the effectiveness of the security forces in dealing with the real bombs.”

The Provisional IRA issued an apology for Bloody Friday in 2002, saying it had not been their intention to kill “non combatants”.

However, the Provos would routinely target civilians, or recklessly endanger civilian lives, throughout the course of the Troubles.

Some of the most notorious examples include the Coleraine bombing in 1973, the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, La Mon House Hotel in 1978, the Harrod’s bomb in London in 1983, Enniskillen in 1987 and the Warrington and Shankill Road bombings in 1993.

Those six attacks alone killed 59 civilians with hundreds more suffering serious injuries.

During the upsurge in violence in Northern Ireland in 1972, a total of 497 people lost their lives with more that half of them civilians.

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