Evidence of collusion seen in Dublin and Monaghan attacks

Explosive material used in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings 50 years ago was manufactured by the IRA but then passed into the hands of unionists, according to a former British Army intelligence agent.

On 17 May, 1974, four car bombs exploded without warning, bringing murder and destruction to the border town of Monaghan and Dublin city centre. The attacks killed 33 people – one of them was nine months pregnant. It remains the single worst day of the conflict.

Although claimed by the unionist paramilitary UVF, Colin Wallace, who played a key role for British state intelligence in the north in the 1970s, believes the explosives may have been handed to them by elements of the British Crown Forces.

Members of the Glenanne gang, the mid-Ulster group led by Robin ‘The Jackal’ Jackson and including several members of the Crown Forces, are suspected of carrying out the bombings that killed 34 people on May 17 1974. In total, members of the gang are suspected of being involved in 120 murders.

The involvement of the British state in the attacks has long been suspected, but investigations into the attacks, on both sides of the border, were incredibly short-lived. No-one was ever charged in connection with the bombings.

Fifty years later, victims’ families are still searching for the truth of what happened.

Mr Wallace, who was a key figure in British intelligence at the time, described this week how the Crown Forces had a list of suspects within three or four days. Many of them were members of the British Army or the then RUC police.

Interviewed by the Irish News, Mr Wallace said he does not know whether any were questioned in the aftermath.

“The explosives used were largely a mixture...the explosive was home made and it was actually of IRA manufacture,” he said.

“And therefore how did they acquire that? Either they managed to get some captured IRA materiel or some of (the materiel) that was captured was given back to the loyalists.”

If the materiel was from stores captured by the Crown Forces from the IRA then that is “quite a sobering thought if that is true”.

Mr Wallace said it pointed to “loyalists acting with some sort of help from the security forces”.

Mr Wallace added that British military intelligence would have had “a very good picture that something was being planned” and “would have known what the target was”. When asked whether the bombings could have been prevented, Mr Wallace said: “Difficult question. In theory, yes.”

The families of the victims have called on the Dublin government to do more to uncover the full truth behind the attacks. For many years they pointed out that the only contact they had from the 26 County State was the Special Branch surveillance carried out on those attending the annual memorial mass and ceremony.

The Dublin parliament this week unanimously supported a call for the British government to open and allow access to all documents on the bombings. It is the fourth time it has done so.

Sinn Féin foreign affairs spokesman Matt Carthy highlighted the failure of the 26 County State to investigate, adding that people seemed more concerned that suspicions of British state involvement be suppressed.

He said “the truth is that the British government murdered Irish citizens”. In most incidents they did it covertly, in collusion with loyalists and it was part of the “colonial playbook right across the world”.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald read out the names of all 34 people killed, “33 civilians and a full-term unborn baby, Martha O’Neill – the largest death toll in any single day of the Troubles”.

She said the “unimaginable pain and loss had been prolonged by searing injustice” and the British state continues to deny its involvement.

Ms McDonald said “now is the time for the light of truth. Now is the time for Justice for the Forgotten.”

Urgent Appeal