Claudy bombing: Families to lead commemoration on 50th anniversary tomorrow

They will gather with the wider community tomorrow, Sunday at 3pm at a public memorial in the centre of the village, to mark the anniversary.

The Service has been organised to remember the nine victims who lost their lives through the Claudy bombings, on July 31 1972, and all those injured or who provided support and care through the emergency services.

Following the Service there will be a Reception event in The Diamond Centre with food provided and the launch of a new Claudy publication, including a Schools Arts Project.

The morning of July 31, 1972 began much as every other Monday morning did for the people living in and around Claudy. Within hours, however lives would be forever changed after three IRA car bombs ripped through the heart village, killing nine innocent local people, the youngest a girl of just nine, wounding dozens more and leaving a trail of devastation still felt keenly by the families of the victims, the wounded and the local community 50 years on.

Despite the scale of the horrific events, which also left around 30 people with serious injuries, and the long campaign for justice spearheaded by relatives, what happened in Claudy remains, five decades on, an often forgotten tragedy over-shadowed by other events during the bloody years of the Troubles.

The victims were men and women, boys and girls, Protestant and Catholic, innocent and robbed of the chance to grow up or see their families do so. They were Elizabeth McElhinney (59), Joseph McCloskey (38), Kathryn Eakin (9), David Miller (60), James McClelland (65), Willie Temple (16), Rose McLaughlin (52), Patrick Joseph Connolly (15) and Arthur Hone (38).

They died when shortly before 10am, in a street bustling with shoppers, the bombs detonated outside McElhinney’s pub on Main Street, another nearby and a third outside a hotel.

Back in 2010 the then Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson reported that the RUC had obtained significant investigative opportunities in relation to late Catholic priest Father James Chesney’s alleged involvement in the atrocity.

He reported: “Rather than act on these opportunities a senior RUC Officer sought the Government’s assistance in December 1972, through their engagement with senior figures of the Catholic Church, to ‘render harmless a dangerous priest’.”

He concluded that this contact had compromised the investigation. “The consequence of their acquiescence was that the investigation was further compromised. The decision failed those who were murdered, injured and bereaved in the bombing. The police officers who were working on the investigation were also undermined,” said Mr Hutchinson.

South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF), who have been working with the families, said a range of projects and events designed to honour the memory and legacy of the dead and wounded are planned this weekend.

SEFF’s Director of Services Kenny Donaldson said: “The bombings of Claudy were an attack upon the full community of the area and so it proved with nine innocents dying, young and older, male and female, Protestant and Roman Catholic - these neighbours died together and Claudy as a small village was forever changed.”

The bereaved families have shared their lived experiences over recent months with an appointed project facilitator, culminating in the production of a publication which will be launched this Sunday, the day of the anniversary.

Schools have also developed a digital-based project, looking at the past within Claudy, the present and what they desire for the future.

Plans are also being drawn up for a fresh development of the existing Memorial, “ensuring its longer-term sustainability as well as making the space more intimate for bereaved families and others visiting to pay respects”, Mr Donaldson said.