Irish Republican News · November 16, 2004

Bomb attack on family home

Unionist paramilitaries bombed the home of a Derry woman and her three children last night.

Gwen Mulholland and her family escaped injury after a pipe bomb-type device exploded outside the house near Maghera at around midnight.

Ms Mulholland, her three-year-old son, 16-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son were in bed at the time.

The 47-year-old single mother reported hearing a large bang.

She then heard a second, louder explosion and went downstairs to find her front window smashed and her car damaged.

Ms Mulholland has lived in the village all her life and in her present home for the past 13 years.

“I don’t know whether it was mistaken identity, but these guys knew what they were doing,” she said.

“To single out a woman living on her own with three children is just atrocious.

“I would like them to show their faces, stand up and be counted rather than be cowards running away in the dark.”

Sinn Féin Mid Ulster MP Martin McGuinness said it was a “deplorable attack on a mother and her children”. It was not clear which group were behind the attack.

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