On This Day / August 27, 1971

Summary: On This Day – 27th August 1971, a bomb at Belfast’s Electricity Offices killed clerk Harry Beggs and injured dozens, while opposition to internment continued to spread. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.

IRA Blast Carnage | On This Day – 27th August 1971

TWENTY three year old Harry Beggs, a clerk, of Ravenswood Park, Belfast was killed and thirty five others shocked or injured when a 15-pound gelignite bomb exploded yesterday in the Electricity Offices at Malone Road, Belfast.

Of those taken to hospital, one was said to be ‘ill’, two had undergone operations and others were suffering from minor injuries.

Early this morning doctors were fighting to save the sight of one young woman, another may have to have a leg amputated and a pregnant woman is in danger of losing her child.

The 600 staff at the Electricity Board offices were filing out after an anonymous phone tip that a bomb had been planted when it exploded.

Cardinal Conway yesterday condemned the explosion and his condemnation was echoed by the Civil Rights Association, Liberal Party and Official IRA.

As horror swept the country, the Cardinal said: ‘I want to condemn in the strongest terms the bomb explosion this morning which resulted in death and injuries to innocent people.

This and similar activities are, I am sure, repudiated by the overwhelming majority of Catholic people.’

‘Army Can’t Solve North’s Problems’

THE British Army cannot solve the North’s problems but it can give the Stormont Government’s reforms a chance to ‘do their healing work’, Mr Geoffrey Johnston-Smith, Under-Secretary of State at the British Defence Ministry said in Belfast yesterday.

Professionals Join Strike

DOCTORS and solicitors will today take part in a one-day strike in Enniskillen to protest against internment.

All Catholic-owned shops, public houses and businesses are also expected to close and farmers have said they will refuse to send their milk to the creameries and will instead distribute it free in the centre of the town.

One of the town’s solicitors, Mr Seamus Kelly, said yesterday that the strike would be ’99 per cent’ effective among the business and professional community and a doctor in Enniskillen said that most of the doctors in the town will be operating on an emergency service only.

Mr Martin O’Brien of the Fermanagh Civil Rights Association said that the proposed county-wide strike would be practically one hundred per cent among non-Unionists.

Workers and employers in the county will today attend an anti-internment rally at the Diamond in Enniskillen.

(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: IN a society not yet accustomed to no-warning bombs, the IRA bombing of this civilian facility, killing one man and injuring up to 30 persons, triggered a wave of revulsion.

Former DUP leader Peter Robinson has recalled that the death of his friend Harry Beggs that day prompted him to enter political life.)

On This Day – 27th August 1971

Further Reading on Irish History:

List of other On This Day columns

Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive

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