Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Police Detonate Bomb in County Kildare

Irish Times:
An Army bomb disposal team made safe a viable improvised explosive device discovered in the hold of a bus in Co Kildare late last night.
The Defence Forces deployed the team in response to a request by the Garda at about 11.10pm, apparently after a tip-off.
The pipe bomb was found in the luggage compartment of a Dublin-bound bus outside the Glen Royal Hotel in Maynooth and made safe following a controlled explosion.
The device was viable but it was not primed.
The scene was declared safe at 1.55am and the remains of the device were handed over to gardaí for their investigations.
The bus carrying 30 passengers had been on its way to the capital from Ballina, Co Mayo.
Sounds like the next few days are going to be pretty crazy.  I think the Gardai will have their hands full:
A sporting venue that has deep symbolic importance for the people of Ireland will be visited by the Queen during her tour of the country.


Croke Park – an 82,000-seater stadium and the scene of a massacre of 14 civilians by British soldiers in 1920 – will be toured by the monarch later this week.


It is the home of Ireland’s Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) which has pledged to give the monarch a warm greeting when she arrives.


The GAA, an amateur organisation set up in 1884 to promote Irish culture, language and sports, has said ahead of the visit it wants to showcase the world renowned arena.........
The landmark stadium on Dublin’s northside is a world renowned symbol of the strength of an amateur organisation with a presence in every village and townland in Ireland.


Its famous terrace, Hill 16, is also rumoured to have been built with the rubble from the 1916 Easter Rising – an armed insurrection in Dublin against British rule.
More on the Croke Park Massacre below:

From Wikipedia, the activity in the afternoon of November 21, 1920, after an IRA operation in the morning which resulted in the deaths of 12 British informers and 2 British Auxiliaries:
The Dublin Gaelic football team was scheduled to play the Tipperary team later the same day in Croke Park, the Gaelic Athletic Association's major football ground. Despite the general unease in Dublin as news broke of the killings, a war-weary populace continued with life. Approximately 5,000 spectators went to Croke Park for the Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary, which began thirty minutes late, at 3:15 p.m.
Meanwhile, outside the Park, unseen by the crowd, British security forces were approaching and preparing to raid the match. A convoy of troops drove in from the northwest, along Clonliffe Road, while a convoy of police and Auxiliaries approached the Park from the south or Canal end. Their orders were to surround the grounds, guard the exits, and search every man in the Park. The authorities later stated that their intention was to announce by megaphone that all males leaving the stadium would be searched and that anyone leaving by other means would be shot. But for some reason, shots were fired as soon as the police convoy reached the stadium, at 3:25 p.m.
Some of the police later claimed that they were fired on first by IRA sentries, but this has never been proven.[11] Correspondents for the Manchester Guardian and Britain's Daily News interviewed eyewitnesses, and concluded that the "IRA sentries" were actually ticket-sellers:
It is the custom at this football ground for tickets to be sold outside the gates by recognised ticket-sellers, who would probably present the appearance of pickets, and would naturally run inside at the approach of a dozen military lorries. No man exposes himself needlessly in Ireland when a military lorry passes by.[12]
The police in the convoy's leading cars appear to have jumped out, pursued these men down the passage to the Canal End gate, forced their way through the turnstiles, and started firing rapidly with rifles and revolvers. Ireland's Freeman's Journal reported that,
The spectators were startled by a volley of shots fired from inside the turnstile entrances. Armed and uniformed men were seen entering the field, and immediately after the firing broke out scenes of the wildest confusion took place. The spectators made a rush for the far side of Croke Park and shots were fired over their heads and into the crowd.[13]
The police kept shooting for about ninety seconds: their commander, Major Mills, later admitted that his men were "excited and out of hand."[14] Some police fired into the fleeing crowd from the pitch, while others, outside the Park, opened fire from the Canal Bridge at spectators who climbed over the Canal End Wall trying to escape. At the other end of the Park, the soldiers on Clonliffe Road were startled first by the sound of the fusillade, then by the sight of panicked people fleeing the grounds. As the spectators streamed out, an armoured car on St James Avenue fired its machine guns over the heads of the crowd, trying to halt them.
By the time Major Mills got his men back under control, the police had fired 114 rounds of rifle ammunition, and an unknown amount of revolver ammunition as well, not counting 50 rounds fired from the machine guns in the armoured car outside the Park.[15] Seven people had been shot to death, and five more had been fatally wounded; another two people had been trampled to death by the crowd. The dead included Jeannie Boyle, who had gone to the match with her fiancé and was due to be married five days later, and two boys aged 10 and 11. Two football players, Michael Hogan and Jim Egan, had been shot; Hogan was killed, but Egan survived, along with dozens of other wounded and injured. The police raiding party suffered no casualties.
Once the firing had been stopped, the security forces searched the remaining men in the crowd before letting them go. The military raiding party recovered one revolver: a local householder testified that a fleeing spectator had thrown it away in his garden. Once the grounds were cleared, the Park was searched for arms: according to Major Mills, none were found.[16
After the shooting at Croke Park, 3 IRA prisoners in Dublin Castle were beaten and killed by their guards, allegedly while trying to escape.

There is never a shortage of places where historic Irish or British actions can provide a rallying point for those with long grievances.  The Queen's visit gives Republican dissidents a lot of targets to gain noteriety.  Hopefully, they fail miserably.

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