Sinn Féin TD, Seán Crowe, met the families of the victims of the McGurk’s Bar bombing in Leinster House. Crowe is the Chair of the Oireachtas All-Party Group on Victims of the Conflict.

Speaking after meeting the Dublin South West TD said:

“I want to thank the families of the victims of the McGurk’s Bar bombing for travelling to Leinster House to brief Oireachtas members on their fight for truth and justice.

“Their accounts of the massacre of their loved ones in December 1971 and the treatment of this atrocity by the British government at the time and by successive British governments, is absolutely appalling.

“Fifteen people, including two children, died in this attack.

“Within hours of the massacre the British government deliberately spread lies that republicans were responsible for the bombing. They also blackened the name of those who died by suggesting that they were somehow complicit in the bombing.

“The immediate evidence that an eye-witness gave to RTÉ which was broadcast within hours of the attack in which he said he saw the bombers fleeing the scene was ignored.

“It suited the official narrative that loyalists with British support and collusion were not involved

“The lies, based on reports from the British Army and the RUC, were willingly accepted and promoted by the British and Unionist governments.

“A British Army scene of crime assessor submitted a report to the British Army Headquarters in which he stated that the bomb was placed in the entrance to the bar.

“This contradicted the public account by the British government and their soldiers report and was marked ‘Not for PR’.

“The lie was publicly supported by Reginald Maudlin (British Cabinet Minister), Brian Faulkner (the North’s de facto Prime Minister), John Taylor (Unionist Cabinet Minister), Graham Shillington (RUC Chief Constable), and Sir Harry Tuzo (British Army GOC) among many others.

“The lie continued for decades until the families uncovered the truth themselves, ironically from the British government’s own files in Kew Gardens.

“The Historical Enquiries Team (HET) and the police Ombudsman failed to look or unearth these files that were lying there for everyone to see.

“The families are seeking justice and the truth.

“I support the calls they made in Leinster House for a new investigation, a new inquest, and the scrapping of the HET report into the massacre.

“It is time the families of the bereaved were given the full truth after 46 years of lies and deceit.

“It is time they were given a public apology and its long past the time the British establishment came clean on their dirty war in Ireland.”

ENDS