Families of Dublin bombing victims call for truth ahead of 50th anniversary

Published date01 December 2022
"It is 50 years, but it is the blink of an eye. In my memories it is just yesterday," says Monica Duffy, whose husband Tommy was killed in the first car bombs to explode in the Republic during the Troubles

"Tommy will never go out of my eyes. I always see him."

On the evening of Friday, December 1st, 1972, Monica, then a 22-year-old mother of one expecting her second child, was at home in Artane, north Dublin, when she thought she heard an explosion from town.

Tommy, from Castlelbar, Co Mayo, had been working late at the CIE depot beside Sackville Place, off O'Connell Street. He was supposed to be at home with Monica and their toddler daughter Caroline but he was doing a colleague a favour by swapping shifts.

"A policeman and a doctor came to the door," recalls Monica. "They said Tommy had been caught up in the explosion. My memory is that they wanted to give me an injection to calm me down, but they couldn't because I was pregnant."

Even now, Monica gets upset remembering being brought to see his body in the funeral home. "They had to give me a box to stand up on so I could see into the coffin. They asked me not to touch him. But I gave him a kiss. That was that. It was a big funeral but I really just wanted to be alone and on my own."

Half a century on, Monica says the profound loss to her, her daughter and their son - named Tom after his father whom he never met - "doesn't get any easier".

At midday today, they will gather with others to mark the 50th anniversary.

Fifteen minutes before the Sackville Place...

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