A Stormer Rugby star player and his family died in the damaged home due to fire.
SAD NEWS: An Ulster footballer and his family died in a fire-damaged home.
The evening of May 21, 2024 began like any other Friday evening in Dublin and Monaghan.
Afterwork pints. Final preparations for 21st birthday celebrations and communion services. Young folks are heading home for the weekend.
The streets of sunny Dublin were busier than usual, with Dublin Bus on strike for a record 65 days.
But, as the city hummed, three automobiles carrying bombs approached the capital.
Earlier that morning, three vehicles were hijacked or taken in Belfast as a sophisticated loyalist paramilitary plot to attack Dublin went into action. Before leaving for Dublin, the hijackers delivered the automobiles to the bomb squad at a farmhouse outside Glennane in south Armagh.
In Portadown, a fourth car was stolen, the one that would eventually contain the Monaghan bomb, in an apparent attempt to divert attention away from the border and allow the Dublin assailants to return easily to the North.
The Dublin automobiles were prepped near the airport and strategically placed in the city center when it was at its busiest.
Between all the incidents, 34 people including an unborn baby lost their lives. The eldest fatality was an 80-year-old World War I veteran, while a five-month-old baby also died.
It marked the deadliest day of the Troubles.
5.28pm, Parnell Street – Bomb 1
Friends Breda Turner (21) and Marie Phelan (20) headed for Dublin city centre full of excitement, both carrying out last minute errands for a friend’s 21st birthday party. Breda went to a dry cleaners on Parnell Street while Marie visited Guineys over on Talbot Street to pick up a gift for the party.
Like many young people from the country working in Dublin at the time, Ms Turner returned home most weekends to visit her family in Thurles. “We always looked forward to Friday evenings, she’d be home for the weekend. But that particular Friday evening, she wasn’t coming home,” explains Breda’s sister, Marie Power.
“She just went up Parnell Street to a dry cleaners that day and that was the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Her whole life was wiped out in a flash. She had just gotten engaged. It’s as if it was only a month ago. It’s crazy thinking that length of time has passed.”
