All of these non-fiction ingredients are incorporated in a new book by the editor of Eyewitness Bloody Sunday: The Truth, Don Mullan, in a new work which examines the case of the Dublin Monaghan Bombings in 1974. The bombings claimed the lives of 33 people. The book, The Dublin Monaghan Bombings: The Truth, the questions and the victim's stories, published by Wolfhound Press is now available in bookstores in Ireland.

As one reads the accounts of the victims, victims family members and friends, one cannot but be struck by the sense of confusion and abandonment experienced by them from those who are sworn to uphold the defense and protection of citizens, police, army, judiciary, and elected representatives.

"Thirty-one Irish people," writes Mullan, "together with a French and an Italian citizen, were murdered, and hundreds were maimed. After a quarter of a century the bereaved and injured consider themselves doubly wounded because of their treatment by the Irish State and its agents. They want to know the truth. This book," he states, "is not conclusive nor is it definitive, Just as with Bloody Sunday, it will be several years before a definitive work on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings can be produced. I have merely pierced the surface of a very disturbing event. We should be very clear that, if true, the suspected involvement of British Military Intelligence in assisting loyalist paramilitaries to place no-warning bombs in the Republic of Ireland dwarfs Bloody Sunday in its implications." [Emphasis ours. -- Ed.]

Incredulous as it may render the reader, Mullan quoted sources which state that forensic evidence collected from the bombings were handed over to a British intelligence officer who did not deliver them to Dr. R.A. Hall of the Northern Ireland Department of Industrial and Forensic Science for a full eleven days after he received them.

This officer was later identified, according to Frank Doherty of the Irish Business Post by G2 (Irish Military Intelligence) as the man thought to have planned the attacks. Dr. James Donovan of the Irish State Laboratory, interviewed by Mullan, stated "he believed that the State Laboratory was competent and experienced enough to do the analysis and admitted to having felt 'shunned in that there we were able to do something and that something was whipped away form us to another jurisdiction'."

It is clear that there are strong political forces at work which have hampered if not actively disrupted the efforts of victims and family members in their efforts to find truth and closure.

During February 1999, the bereaved and wounded wrote to every member of the Oireachtas (Irish Congress) who, the previous year, had packed the D·il and Seanad chambers (Irish congress and Senate chambers) to rush through tough emergency legislation following the Omagh bombing. The letter invited patronage for their campaign and support for a public tribunal of inquiry in both houses.

Little more than 20 per cent of members responded positively: 36 TDs (Members of the House) from all parties, excluding the Progressive Democrats, and12 senators. No reply was received from 101 TDs (60 per cent) and 45 senators (75 per cent). The question now, as it was in 1974, is why?

Perhaps the frustration and abandonment is best summed up by Martha O'Neill [no relation to the author] who's two sons Edward Jr. and Billy, were seriously wounded and whose husband, Edward O'Neill, was killed in the Parnell Street explosion.

"In the light of the Omagh bombing. I think people should be aware that this also happened in our very own twenty-six counties... I mean in Enniskillen they have had apologies. Warrington, they've had everything done, like Mary Robinson going over. That was brilliant. It shows people that we, care, that we don't accept what's happened. Omagh was absolutely dreadful. I've cried for all the people of Omagh because I understand. I saw a poor woman on the news this morning. You should have seen her injuries: her face, her eyes, the whole lot. I was just thinking there was no camera there to see my son's face, to see his ear. They never even knew he was deaf. They never even took an ear test and the child had a perforated eardrum from the whole lot and he was left with that until the school discovered it and he was only four when that happened. There was no one there to see Billy's feet; half of his toe gone and his kneecap practically blown off him...

"I don't know what's so wrong about the Dublin Monaghan bombings that they will not allow us a public inquiry...

"I want to see justice before I die, I really do."

On January 31, 2000, Mr. Justice Hamilton established an 'Independent Commission of Inquiry' into the Dublin Monaghan bombings the terms of reference of which included: the nature and extent and adequacy of the Garda investigation, including the co-operation with and from the relevant authorities in Northern Ireland; the handling of evidence, including the scientific analyses of forensic evidence; and the reasons why no prosecution took place, including whether and, if so, by whom and to what extent the investigations were impeded...

On October 3, Justice Hamilton resigned, citing health reasons. He was replaced by Justice Barron, who retired from the Supreme Court in May. It is expected that hearing will resume in the early part of next year when Justice Barron will have had time to review the material collected to date.

On the twenty-sixth anniversary of the bombings six members of the United States Congress wrote to the Taoiseach calling for a public tribunal of inquiry.

Joint Chairperson to the Justice for the Forgotten Campaign, Michele O'Brien described the intervention of the members of Congress as 'by far the most important international support we have received in our long and lonely 26-year campaign for Justice.'

In conclusion author Don Mullan states, "The full story may not be told unless and until all that was said and decided at the meetings of the Government, and its various departments and committees, in the days and weeks following the bombings, is revealed.

"These are not matters to be considered in a 'private inquiry' or simply left to Mr. Justice Hamilton's 'Independent Commission of Inquiry.' They are matters which require a sworn cross-jurisdictional public tribunal of inquiry.

"Nothing less is acceptable."

People in the United States may purchase the book from The Studio in New York City.Ý The cost, including shipping and handling is US$20 or Can$30. Ý

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