| Culzie | Date: Monday, 2013-10-21, 8:06 PM | Message # 1 |
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| North Belfast man Stephen Dobbin cannot drive down the Shankill Road without remembering the immediate aftermath of the Shankill bomb
'I dug a wee baby out of the rubble'.
Around 1.06pm on October 23, 1993, the civil servant, then a Boys Brigade leader, had been driving a minibus carrying two seven-a-side football teams from the Shankill to a football pitch in south Belfast. They had just passed Frizzell’s fish shop when the bomb exploded.
"I just remember the bang and then the dust and the debris blowing right across the road," he said. "I gave the minibus over to the other Boys Brigade leader who was with me and lifted the first aid kits.
"I remember the chaos. Everyone was in total shock. There were clouds and dust all over the place. Then it went very, very quiet – and then people started to cry out.
"Then I started to try and treat people as best I could. I suppose I reacted automatically. It was gut instinct. I was a trained first aider. There was nothing I could have done for the people inside the shop."
Mr Dobbin said he first treated two elderly ladies who had been walking past the shop that busy Saturday. And later an elderly gentleman and young woman. All were "in shock".
"But in particular I remember digging out one wee baby in a pram," he said.
"That is still prominent in my mind. There was debris on top of the pram.
"I remember the fire brigade were pulling people out of the shop, but they were all dead. Then I started to help."
At the time of the atrocity Mr Dobbin was working with the Department of the Environment.
He said he went back to his car, which he had parked on the Shankill, to get jackets and helmets to go inside the shop,
"The firemen were getting people’s bodies out when I went in," he said.
"It was an horrendous day. The last body was taken out around 8pm I think. I remember getting home after 9pm that night."
He said press coverage of the bomb the following day brought the magnitude of what had happened home to him.
"It was very upsetting to see it," he said. "I know it is the 20th anniversary and it brings back memories for the families, but it also brings back a lot of memories for the people who tried to help in the immediate aftermath. I went to all nine funerals and I also go to the remembrance service every year."
He said although the events of October 23, 1993 "no longer play on my mind after all these years", every time he drives up the Shankill Road his "gaze is always drawn to where Frizzell’s fish shop used to stand.
"There is a credit union there now". NEWS LETTER 21 OCTOBER 2013
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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| RSAUB | Date: Tuesday, 2013-10-22, 5:49 PM | Message # 2 |
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| A terrible act of depravity by those who now rule over our Country.
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| Culzie | Date: Saturday, 2013-10-26, 2:47 PM | Message # 3 |
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| Indeed. America went after Bin Laden but we have to have terrorists in government.
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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| Culzie | Date: Saturday, 2013-10-26, 3:04 PM | Message # 4 |
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| This is only the third Catholic I've have ever heard putting blame on the IRA. She blames those who killed her partner but also Begley and his accomplice. Notice too its still the same way of naming a loyalist paramilitary group as a 'gang'. The IRA groups are usually referred to as 'squads' or 'units' by the media. The women complaints about Begley being elevated and glorified as some sort of hero. I'd say the media in their use of 'units' and 'squads' titles helps to boost the image of the IRA as 'heroes'
I blame Shankill bombers for the loyalist revenge killing of Martin
By CHRIS KILPATRICK – 25 October 2013
The partner of a young taxi driver murdered by loyalist terrorists said she blames the Shankill bombers for his death.
Martin Moran (22) was shot twice in the head as he delivered a food order to a house in Vernon Court, off Donegall Pass in south Belfast, less than 12 hours after the IRA attack on Frizzell's fish shop.
Mr Moran, a Catholic from Ava Street in the Ormeau Road area, was the father of a five-week-old baby girl.
The taxi driver died two days after he was shot in the UFF attack on October 25, 1993.
His was the first death in a bloody backlash from loyalist killers, with six innocent people murdered within the following week of the Shankill blast.
Seven days from the bomb, a UFF gang opened fire in a bar in Greysteel, Co Londonderry, which resulted in eight deaths.
On the 20th anniversary of his murder, Mr Moran's partner Lorraine Girvan said she had been robbed of her soulmate and her daughter Amanda of a father.
As well as those involved in the callous murder of Mr Moran, Ms Girvan said she also blamed Shankill bombers Thomas Begley and Sean Kelly for his death.
She described as stomach-churning the sight of a plaque being unveiled to Thomas Begley in Ardoyne last Sunday.
He was killed in the blast at Frizzell's fish shop on the Shankill Road as he and accomplice Kelly planted the device.
"The people of the Shankill were devastated as were those in the aftermath, the lives taken of those innocent people," said Ms Girvan.
"What gutted me even more was the plaque (erected to Begley). What is he? A 'hero'? What is he a hero of? Murdering innocent people? It hurts you more when you see things like that.
"If those two (Begley and Kelly) hadn't gone out that day and caused that horrific Shankill bombing my Martin wouldn't have been shot that night in the first retaliation.
"We would still have him here," she said. "My child would be sitting here at 20 with her father, knowing him. I could have had more children, who knows
[u][color=#0000ff]http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news.......u]
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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| Culzie | Date: Saturday, 2013-10-26, 9:20 PM | Message # 5 |
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| by Philip Bradfield
Published 23/10/2013 08:28
A man who pulled the dead and injured out of the rubble of an IRA bomb attack in Belfast 20 years ago today says it was just like 9/11, "except that it was on the Shankill Road".
Gary Lenaghan was a shopkeeper on the Shankill who witnessed the bomb from 100 yards away, just after 1pm on October 23, 1993.
Nine innocent people were killed when IRA man Thomas Begley carried the bomb into Frizzell’s fish shop on the Shankill Road. He was said to have been targeting a UDA meeting that was supposed to take place upstairs, but didn’t.
His bomb was on an 11-second fuse and killed him along with nine other people. Another 57 people were injured.
Sunday saw a major republican commemoration for Begley in the Ardoyne area of west Belfast, drawing widespread condemnation, but staunchly defended by Sinn Fein. IRA man Sean Kelly, who assisted Begley in the attack, took a prominent role and offered an apology which has been rejected as insincere by a number of victims.
Mr Lenaghan last night recounted the bombing itself.
"I had a stall outside the shop that day. It was a crisp, peaceful October day," he said.
"I saw the bomb going off. It sounded like a fighter jet flying past above your head.
"There was an almighty crack and then complete silence. Then there was another huge bang as the building collapsed.
"We were pulling dead and injured people out of the rubble right until the end – including Thomas Begley.
"It was just like 9/11 except it was on the Shankill Road.
"Instead of white dust there was black dust and papers dropping out of the sky.
"People were lying everywhere across the road. Parents and children were crying out looking for each other.
"The building was collapsing further as we were trying to dig people out but people thought nothing of their own safety.
"The bodies were covered in black dust."
He believes the Begley family had a right to remember their son as they saw fit.
"But how would the people of Londonderry feel if someone unveiled a plaque on the Guild Hall to the Parachute Regiment?"
The republican event in the Ardoyne on Sunday, he said, was not in memory of Thomas Begley.
"It was remembering the act [of terrorism] and those who participated in that act.
"They are trying to airbrush what they did out of history and to promote the bombing as something that was good and noble.
"Those were things that nobody should see on a populated street."
He added: "How would the Irish community feel if during St Patrick’s celebrations in New York someone unveiled a plaque to the 9/11 bombers? That is how the Shankill families are feeling."
l A memorial service is taking place at West Kirk Church on the Shankill Road today at 12.30pm.
Schoolchildren will leave the church to lay wreaths in the nearby Memorial Park and at the site of the bombing.
A woman who lost both her parents in the Shankill Road bomb has told the News Letter that she has not slept for some weeks in the run-up to the 20th anniversary today.
"Last night I only got to sleep about 9am," Michelle Williamson said.
"I have to be strong for mum and dad for the anniversary.
"I feel physically sick standing here and remembering our dead after [Sean]Kelly’s words [of apology] on Sunday."
After the remembrance events of today she said she would "reflect".
"My husband will pick up the pieces," she added.
"There are no politicians pulling my strings, the victims are fighting for themselves now. This is coming from the heart – I want justice for my mum and dad."
She went to the bomb vigil on the Shankill Road last night and is attending the memorial church service on the road today.
[u][color=#0000ff]http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news....u]
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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| Culzie | Date: Thursday, 2013-10-31, 8:49 PM | Message # 6 |
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| Shankill and Greysteel NL Editorials
News Letter Editorial 1
23rd Otober 2013
Twenty years ago today one of the most heinous crimes of the Northern Ireland Troubles occurred at a fish shop on the Shankill Road in Belfast when a Provisional IRA bomb resulted in the deaths of nine innocent people, plus one of the terrorist bombers.
This was an atrocity that was both calculated and cruel in its planning and implementation and it left lasting scars on many people, not just those directly in the line of the explosion.
The October 23, 1993 Shankill bombing came near the end of the Troubles period and, even for a society reeling from the dire effects of more than 2,000 totally unnecessary deaths, it seriously traumatised a close-knit Protestant community and led to increased polarisation between loyalists and republicans in north and west Belfast.
Regrettably, two decades on, this polarisation is still all too apparent at the various flashpoints in an area of the city that had more terror-related deaths than any other in the Province.
The polarisation and tension was sadly aggravated by the holding of a ghoulish commemoration in the republican Ardoyne area on Sunday for the IRA terrorist Thomas Begley, a ceremony which was not just insensitive but deeply insulting and offensive for the still grieving Shankill families.
What makes the insults harder to bear and understand is that this type of public commemoration for terrorists is organised with the full compliance of Sinn Fein, a party of government in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Today, a dignified service of remembrance for the nine innocent Shankill victims will be held in West Presbyterian Church on the Shankill Road and there relatives will get the opportunity to quietly reflect on the memory of loved ones whose lives were cut short by the murderous machinations of evil people.
Shankill, like the massacres at La Mon, Tullyvallen, Kingsmills, Enniskillen, Teebane and Greysteel, was an atrocity that stained our society. It was criminality no cause could justify.
News Letter Editorial 2
30th October 2013
Today we remember the sectarian massacre at Greysteel, when loyalist gunmen entered the Rising Sun bar and sprayed the occupants with bullets, killing eight civilians.
The atrocity, which took place at a Halloween party, was marked by the vile cry of "Trick or Treat" by one of the terrorists, Stephen Irwin, as he opened fire.
Another of the murderers, the troubled thug Torrens Knight, would later became a symbol for loyalism at its most savage and unthinking, when he was seen screaming abuse towards the media like a hyena as he was led to court.
Two women were among the dead at Greysteel.
And even on its own depraved terms – a supposed attempt to make Catholics pay a heavy price for the preceding Shankill Road IRA massacre of Protestants – the attack was a blunder, with the dead including two Protestants, an ex-UDR man, an ex-B Special, and someone from a mixed background.
The community of Greysteel reacted with great dignity to the shooting, and has stayed silent about the nightmare that happened that night 20 years ago, on October 30, 1993.
The massacre is yet another illustration of how bad loyalist intelligence was throughout the Troubles. The British authorities, such as the Army, intelligence organisations and the RUC, knew throughout the Troubles who was who in the upper echelons of the IRA and where they were based, but carefully kept this information well away from loyalist brutes like Knight and Irwin.
You only need to look at the picture of Karen Thompson, an attractive woman and the youngest Greysteel victim, smiling at the camera, like any young person with their life and hopes and future in front of them, to get the full horror of the slaughter.
Even those naive enough to accept terrorists’ assessment of themselves as soldiers must then accept that the many massacres of the Troubles, of which Shankill and Greysteel were only two, were grievous crimes against humanity.
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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