The memorial in Belturbet, titled ‘Geraldine and Patrick’, erected 2007 and designed by Mel French.

Taoiseach pledges to seek answers on Belturbet Bombing

Geraldine Grennan

Published: Wed 16 Dec 2020, 4:25 PM

Last updated: Wed 16 Dec 2020, 4:28 PM

Describing the Belturbet bombing as “a reprehensible crime” in the Dail this week, An Taoiseach, Michéal Martin, made a commitment to pursue both the British and Northern Irish authorities for further information in relation to the atrocity.

The Taoiseach was responding to questions from Cavan-Monaghan Fianna Fail TDs Brendan Smith and Niamh Smyth, who raised the issue in the wake of the RTE Investigates programme 'Belturbet; The Bomb That Time Forgot' which aired on Monday night.

Noting that the Garda investigation into the 48-year old case remains “open,” the Taoiseach accepted in the Dail that the families of both 15-year old Patrick Stanley from Clara, and 16-year old Belturbet teenager, Geraldine O’Reilly had been left with “no answers and no closure” as a result of the events on December 28, 1972.

In raising the issue, Deputy Brendan Smith said the least that the Stanley and O’Reilly families deserved was “the truth” about what happened to their innocent teenagers in Belturbet on the night of the no-warning bomb.

He said new evidence had emerged in relation to the Belturbet bombing, and other bombings in border counties, as a result of research carried out by the University of Nottingham, which pointed to collusion between British state forces and loyalist paramilitaries. That evidence, he added, had been presented to the Dail last September, and he called for action to be taken on the findings.

Deputy Niamh Smyth said the RTE Investigates programme has shown the “horror, trauma and the tragedy” of the Belturbet bombing, and said it was “utterly wrong” that, 48 years later, the families had not been given access to the Garda files into the bomb attack that had killed their loved ones.

Local TD, and Clara native, Deputy Barry Cowen, also raised the Belturbet bombing in the Dail on Tuesday under Topical Issues and called for the establishment of a long-awaited Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

He was told by Minister of State with responsibility for law reform, James Browne TD, that any new evidence or information that emerges in relation to the bombing will be “thoroughly investigated” and was assured that the Minister for Justice is to seek an urgent update into the case.