Remembrance Day bombing

54°20′39″N 7°38′3″W

Remembrance Day Bombing
The aftermath of the bombing.
Location	Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Coordinates	54°20′39″N 7°38′3″W
Date	November 8, 1987 10:43 a.m. (UTC)
Target	Remembrance Sunday commemoration ceremony
Attack type	Bomb
Deaths	12
Injured	63
Perpetrators	Provisional Irish Republican Army

The Remembrance Day bombing, also known as the Enniskillen bombing or the Remembrance Day massacre,^[4] refers to a bomb explosion in the County Fermanagh town of Enniskillen, Northern Ireland which was undertaken by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The bombing took place on 8 November, 1987 at the town's war memorial during Remembrance Sunday commemoration ceremonies for those killed in all conflicts involving the British Army.

The Target

The Bomb was intended to kill Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers who were parading to the memorial.[5]

Casualties

Eleven people were killed in the bombing; all except one were civilians. One of the dead, Marie Wilson, was the daughter of Gordon Wilson. Wilson went on to become a peace campaigner and member of the Seanad Éireann. One further person, Ronnie Hill, died after spending 13 years in a coma. 63 people were injured.^[6] Local business man Raymond McCartney captured the immediate aftermath of the bombing on video camera while at the scene. The footage was shown on television stations throughout the world within hours showing the devastation caused by the bomb. All the victims were Protestants.

Reactions

The bombing led to a public outcry in the Republic of Ireland, the UK, and elsewhere. In the aftermath of the attack the IRA insisted that its leadership had not sanctioned the bombing.^[7] The Fermanagh Brigade of the IRA was stood down after what was one of the most horrific and brutal attacks of Northern Ireland's Troubles.

The Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Brian Lenihan, told Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament):

I am quite certain there is no Member of this House who does not share a profound sense of horror at this atrocity by the men of violence in Enniskillen last Sunday — a sense of outrage and horror which is shared by all decent Irish men and women throughout the island and throughout the world. There can be no question but that those who planned and perpetrated this act did so in the clear knowledge that many civilians would be attending the ceremony and would be killed or maimed. We all recognise something obscene in the fact that this attack was planned and carried out on a day which many ordinary Irish men and women had gathered to commemorate those of their families and friends who had died in two World Wars. There is a long Irish tradition of respect for those paying tribute to our dead. This outrage is the latest and most horrific example of the pattern of violence of the IRA — a pattern which shows clearly their contempt for the sanctity of human life and for a sense of human decency.

The leader of the The Workers Party, Tomás MacGiolla, told the Dáil:

…[what had] occurred was entirely consistent with the strategy that the Provisional IRA have been pursuing for the past 18 years — sectarian warfare. The objective of this is to provoke an all-out civil war between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.

In Seanad Éireann Senator Maurice Manning told the House:

In the long catalogue of horror over the past 17 years on this island, few events can have generated such total revulsion as the massacre of innocent, decent Irish people, gathered together to solemnly honour their dead in Enniskillen last Sunday. Our hearts and our prayers go out to the families and friends of those so shamefully slaughtered in the name of Irish unity.

The bombing has come to be seen as a major tactical error by the IRA. In killing people honouring their war dead the IRA created a backlash which was perceived to have undermined its claim to be a non-sectarian organisation defending nationalists. The bombing also had a negative impact on Sinn Féin's electoral support. In 1989, in the first local elections held in Fermanagh after the bombing, it lost four of its eight council seats and was overtaken by the SDLP as the largest Nationalist party. [8] It was not until 2001, 14 years after the Enniskillen bomb, that Sinn Féin support returned to its 1985 level. [9]

In reaction to the bombing Bono, of the Irish rock band U2, paused during the singing of his famous protest song about the Troubles, Sunday Bloody Sunday, to denounce the violence and the Irish-Americans supporting it, saying:

And let me tell you something: I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven't been back to their country in twenty or thirty years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home; and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution - fuck the revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead, under the rubble of the revolution that the majority of the people in my country don't want. No more! Sing no more!

Bono can be seen delivering the quote in the rockumentary Rattle and Hum.

In 1997 Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams apologised for the bombing.^[10]

See also

• The Troubles in Enniskillen

Footnotes

1. ^ Mary Harney, DETE press release [11]
2. ^ BBC News Report - 30 December, 2000 - IRA bomb victim buried - [12]
3. ^ Dáil Éireann - Volume 375 Column 483 - 11 November, 1987 [13]
4. ^ Dáil Éireann - Volume 375 Column 486-487 - 11 November, 1987
5. ^ Dáil Éireann - Volume 375 Column 482 - 11 November, 1987
6. ^ Seanad Éireann - Seanad Éireann - Volume 117 Column 1346 - 11 November, 1987
7. ^ BBC News Report - 8 November 1997 - Adams apologises for Enniskillen bombing - [14]

External links

• Irish Emigrant newspaper report of the bombing.