IRA university bomb: 'Soon after fatal blast a student shouted out tiocfaidh ar la - and the place just erupted'

He had got to his class early, which stood in a wing of the building just opposite the bomb room, with perhaps 20 metres (65 feet) of open space in between.

He was “daydreaming” at the time, looking out at the very classroom which was about to explode.

Main story about the bombing at this link:

• IRA university bomb: RUC widow gives first interview for decades and tells of how family were forced from home by IRA threat within days of burying son

"It was quite bizarre – I don’t remember hearing a noise,” he told the News Letter.

“But I do remember seeing this window all of a sudden leaving the building and rushing out towards me.

"My first thought was maybe it was a lab or something, some kind of gas. Some time after that, I don’t know how long, the alarms went off and the building was evacuated.”

The bomb was on the top floor, and the quickest and safest way down was via a tight spiral fire escape outside.

"They had to step people into the stretchers, literally strap them in, so they could bring them down vertically,” he said.

The bomb killed three police officers, and wounded many more.

“Some days after that there was a Students’ Union AGM in the main assembly hall,” Co Antrim man John, now 60, said.

"As this incident had happened, I wanted to hear what people had to say about it.

"[A senior students’ union rep] was asked by various people when he was on stage to comment on the bomb and condemn the bombing – and he wouldn’t do it.

"He was beating around the bush, but never actually condemned the bombing.

"He maybe felt intimidated – I’ve no idea.

"But one thing that really alarmed me was it was kind of an open house, and people could come up and share various thoughts.

"I remember one guy getting up on stage and standing up to the mic.

"He caught my ear because he started talking absolute garbage – he didn’t really know what he was saying. It was just a lot of mumbo jumbo.

"And then eventually he must’ve plucked up the courage to shout out ‘tiocfaidh ar la’ – and the place erupted, with both support and condemnation at the same time."

This article is part of an occasional series the News Letter runs on forgotten or lesser-known atrocities during the Troubles, where the death toll was often not high enough to be widely remembered.

Here are some other recent ones:

• ‘UDA could not have picked worse target’: remembering the murder of primary school teacher Cyril Murray in east Belfast exactly three decades ago
• DUP brother of UDA sectarian murder victim Gavin Brett breaks 20 year silence
• IRA murder 40 years on: ‘We will have to wait until the next life before we see justice’

• WATCH – IPLO murder 30 years on: Random Protestant victim Billy Sargent had survived Nazi machine gun attack only to be shot while having a pint

Nine years after the fatal Jordanstown bombing, John lost three work colleagues in the IRA’s Teebane bombing, when a van full of 14 workmen was blown up, killing eight.

Another witness to the uni bombing, Stephen Thompson, told the News Letter he was aged 20 and doing a degree in combined sciences at the time.

"The classroom was to the left of ours, with a grass patch separating,” he said.

"I remember the bomb going off: a huge explosion, and the windows in our classroom bending inwards, like someone blowing a bubblegum bubble – but they never broke.

"I looked across and saw the debris all over the grass and all the windowframes were all blown out.

"There was that stillness that comes after an explosion and then the sirens could be heard.”

It was not the first time the university had been bombed.

Back in March 1977, before the process of turning the campus from a polytechnic to a full-fledged university had begun, the IRA planted a bomb in a lecture theatre where Lord MacDermott, the former Lord Chief Justice, was giving a guest lecture.

He and four lecturers in the audience were injured – including Nuala O'Loan, who later became the Police Ombudsman.

She had been pregnant at the time, and the ceiling collapsed onto her.

She lost her baby as a result of the bomb.

Two months before that, the IRA had bombed a common room in the halls of residence on campus, though on that occasion there had been no injuries.