On This Day / September 30, 1971

Summary: On This Day – 30th September 1971, two men were killed and 25 people injured in a bomb attack on the Four Step Inn, while Jack Lynch described the Chequers talks as an important breakthrough. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.

Two Die in Shankill Bomb | On This Day – 30th September 1971

TWO men died and 25 other customers were injured – some seriously – when a gigantic 50 pound to 100 pound gelignite bomb exploded in the hallway of a Shankill Road public house late last night, collapsing walls and blowing off part of the roof.

The explosion at the Four Step Inn came at 10.20 p.m. when the bar was crowded with Linfield supporters who had been at the match with Standard Liege at Windsor Park earlier in the evening.

Pandemonium followed the massive blast. Firemen, the security forces and civilian volunteers tore at the tons of debris to free trapped customers.

As tension mounted in the area, the Rev Ian Paisley arrived and spoke to the crowd who later dispersed.

Dublin Summit Follows Talks

THE tripartite talks at Chequers, just ended, are to be followed by discussions between Mr Jack Lynch, the Taoiseach, and SDLP leaders from the North.

Mr Lynch warned, on his return from London, that unless the SDLP MPs were brought into talks on the NI crisis, ‘people would look to the IRA’.

On the talks, Mr Lynch said he regarded their discussions as ‘quite satisfactory’. He said it was an important breakthrough in Anglo- Irish relations.

He, as Taoiseach, was now involved in the political evolution of the North.

Bishops Blame Injustice

THE Bishops of Ireland said yesterday they could not accept the view that the sole cause of the present NI upheaval lay in the activities of those who were promoting violence.

Meeting at Maynooth, the Hierarchy blamed several factors. However, they were convinced that force was not the answer.

The Bishops said: ‘The end of injustice and the distrust which has built up over the past fifty years and which had been reinforced by recent trends within the ruling political party in NI, deeply felt anxiety at certain aspects of the administration of justice there, the memory of the terrible events of August 1969, the reaction to internment and to the one-sided and inhuman way in which it has been exercised…’.

Leaders at Maynooth Mass

PRESIDENT de Valera, the Fine Gael leader Mr Liam Cosgrave and a representative of the Labour Party were among 400 people attending Mass celebrated by more than ten bishops at the Royal College of St Patrick, Maynooth last night.

(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: The IRA’s no-warning bombing of the Four Steps Inn was widely condemned as a deeply provocative and sectarian act.

Meanwhile, following a conference with Heath and Faulkner – the first since 1925 – Lynch had established the principle that the Irish government had a right to be consulted about the situation in the north.)

On This Day – 30th September 1971

Further Reading on Irish History:

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