Red Lion Pub bombing

Since the introduction of internment began in August 1971,[1] the violent conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles intensified to heights not seen since the Irish Civil War. Along with IRA attacks against the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), a pattern of tit-for-tit attacks between republicans and loyalists began around September 1971. The first of these pub bombings happened in the Protestant Sandy Row area of Belfast on 20 September 1971 when the IRA placed a bomb outside the Bluebell Bar injuring 27 people; it was reported that none of the injuries were serious.[2] Just over a week later on 29 September, another IRA bomb exploded in the Four Step Inn bar in the Protestant Shankill Road area of Belfast; that bomb killed two men, Alexander Andrews (60) and Ernest Bates (38). The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) carried out a retaliation attack a week later, bombing a pub along the Catholic Falls Road in Belfast. The UVF wanted to kill Catholics but instead killed Winifred Maxwell (45) a Protestant woman.[3]

The IRA chose to bomb a pub frequented mostly by Protestants on the Ormeau Road in Belfast. Armed IRA volunteers entered the pub and placed a time bomb inside the pub, one of the IRA men shouted "you have ten seconds to get out"; the bomb went off a few seconds later.[4] The power of the blast brought the roof crashing down on the people inside the pub.[5] The blast killed three people, two men and a woman, all Protestant. Around 30 people were wounded in the blast, some of them seriously. The pub was right beside Ballynafeigh RUC station; a second bomb was planted on in a drapery shop on the other side of the RUC station, in which a huge amount structural damage was inflicted and injured more people. Those killed in the bombing were John Cochrane (67), Mary Gemmell (55) and William Jordan (31).[6]

The pub bombings continued. The climax of the tit-for-tat pub bombings occurred with two major bombings in the space of a week. First on 4 December 1971 the UVF carried out McGurk's Bar bombing, in which 15 people were killed; it has the highest death toll from a single action in Belfast during the Troubles.[7] A week later, the IRA carried out a revenge attack for the McGurk's bombing - the 1971 Balmoral Furniture Company bombing - in which four people were killed, including two baby girls.[8]

• CAIN project
• ISSUU: The Troubles 7
• Aaron Edwards - UVF Behind The Mask
• Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack - UVF: The Endgame

• List of terrorist incidents, 1971