| Remembrance Day bombing | |
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| Part ofthe Troubles | |
 The aftermath of the bombing | |
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| Location | 54°20′40″N07°38′05″W / 54.34444°N 7.63472°W /54.34444; -7.63472 Enniskillen,County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland |
| Date | 8 November 1987; 38 years ago (1987-11-08) 10:43 (GMT) |
Attack type | Time bomb |
| Deaths | 12[a] |
| Injured | 63 |
| Perpetrator | Provisional IRA |
TheRemembrance Day bombing (also known as theEnniskillen bombing orPoppy Day massacre)[1][2] took place on 8 November 1987 inEnniskillen,County Fermanagh,Northern Ireland. AProvisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded nearthe town's war memorial (cenotaph) during aRemembrance Sunday ceremony, which was being held to commemorateBritish military war dead. Eleven people (10civilians and apolice officer) were initially killed, many of them elderly. A twelfth man was fatally wounded, entering a coma from which he would later die, and 63 were injured. The IRA said it had made a mistake and that its target had been the British soldiers parading to the memorial.
The bombing was strongly condemned by all sides and undermined support for the IRA andSinn Féin. It also facilitated the passing of the Extradition Act, which made it easier toextradite IRA suspects from theRepublic of Ireland to theUnited Kingdom.Loyalist paramilitaries responded to the bombing with revenge attacks on Catholic civilians.[3] The bombing is often seen as a turning point inthe Troubles,[3] an incident that shook the IRA "to its core",[4][5] and spurred on new efforts by Irish nationalists towards a political solution to the conflict.[6]
The IRA said that the bombing was an attempt to kill British soldiers. It has also been suggested that it was partly a retaliation for the alleged harassment of republican memorial services by the security forces.[7] A week before the bombing, theRoyal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) clashed with mourners at the funeral of IRAvolunteers Eddie McSheffrey and Paddy Deery. When an IRA gunman fired athree-volley salute over the coffins, policebaton charged and firedplastic bullets into the crowd. One of the coffins was knocked to the ground and a number of civilians and officers were injured.[8][9][10]
The bombing was thought by the British and Irish security forces to have involved at least two IRA units, from both sides ofthe border.[11] Although IRA units were given "a degree of operational autonomy" at the time, they believed that such a bombing must have been sanctioned byIRA Northern Command.[5][failed verification] However, a high-ranking IRA member said that it was suggested by IRA men at the local level and sanctioned by a "middle level" officer.[12]
Denzil McDaniel, author ofEnniskillen: The Remembrance Sunday Bombing, later interviewed security and IRA contacts, putting together an account of the bombers' movements.[11] He wrote that the 40-pound (18 kg) bomb was made inBallinamore,County Leitrim, and brought to Enniskillen by up to thirty IRA volunteers, moving in relay teams to avoid security patrols. It is thought to have taken over 24 hours to transport the bomb.[11] On the night of 7 November, the bomb, hidden in a sports bag, was left at the gable wall inside the town's Reading Rooms, and set to explode at 10:43 am the next day,[5][failed verification][13][full citation needed] minutes before the ceremony was to start.[14] The security forces searched the route of the planned military parade for explosives, but did not search the Reading Rooms as it was thought to be a "secure area".[15]
The bomb exploded as a parade ofUlster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers was making its way to the memorial[11] and as people waited for the ceremony to begin.[3] It blew out the wall of the Reading Rooms, where many of the victims were standing, burying them under rubble and hurling masonry towards the gathered crowd.[5][failed verification] Bystanders rushed to free those trapped underneath. Evidence indicated that the bomb used in the attack was made fromSemtex supplied by the Libyan government underMuammar Gaddafi.[16][17][18][19]
Eleven people were killed, including three married couples. The dead were Wesley and Bertha Armstrong (aged 62 and 55), Kit and Jessie Johnston (aged 71 and 62), William and Agnes Mullan (aged 74 and 73), John Megaw (67), Alberta Quinton (72), Marie Wilson (20), Samuel Gault (49) and Edward Armstrong (52).[3] Edward Armstrong was a serving RUC officer and Gault had recently left the force.[20]Gordon Wilson, whose daughter Marie died in the blast and who was himself injured, went on to become a peace campaigner and member ofSeanad Éireann.[21] The twelfth fatality, Ronnie Hill, died after spending 13 years in a coma (aged almost 69). Sixty-three people were injured, including thirteen children, some of them permanently.[22]Ulster Unionist politiciansSammy Foster andJim Dixon were among the crowd; the latter received extensive head injuries but recovered.[5][failed verification] A local businessman captured the immediate aftermath of the bombing on video camera. His footage, showing the effects of the bombing, was broadcast on international television.[21] All the victims wereProtestant.[11]
A few hours after the blast, the IRA called a radio station and said it had abandoned a 150-pound (68 kg) bomb inTullyhommon, 20 miles (32 km) away after it failed to detonate.[12][23] That morning, a Remembrance Sunday parade (which included many members of theBoys' andGirls' Brigades) had unwittingly gathered near the Tullyhommon bomb.[23] Soldiers and RUC officers had also been there,[23] and the IRA said it attempted to trigger the bomb when soldiers were standing beside it.[12] It was defused bysecurity forces and was found to have a command wire leading to a firing point across the border.[12][23]
The IRA apologised, saying it had made a mistake and that the target had been the security forces patrolling the parade.[21][11][24]
Denzil McDaniel, author ofEnniskillen: The Remembrance Sunday Bombing, commented: "I don't believe the IRA set out to specifically kill civilians. I think they made mistakes, probably with their intelligence on the timetable for the service, but the IRA was reckless about civilian life".[11] RUC Detective Chief Superintendent Norman Baxter said: "Their intention was to inflict casualties. The only mistake in the operation was that the bomb went off before the parade arrived".[25] ManyIrish nationalists and republicans were horrified by the bombing and described it as a blow to the republican cause.[5][failed verification] Sinn Féin's weekly newspaper,An Phoblacht, criticised the bombing, calling it a "monumental error" that would strengthen the IRA's opponents.[24] The IRA disbanded the unit responsible.[21][11]
The bombing led to an outcry among politicians in theRepublic of Ireland and theUnited Kingdom. British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher said: "It's really desecrating the dead and a blot on mankind".[26] TheSecretary of State for Northern Ireland,Tom King, denounced the "outrage" in theHouse of Commons,[13] as did the IrishMinister for Foreign Affairs,Brian Lenihan inDáil Éireann (the lower house of theOireachtas, the Republic's legislature), while inSeanad Éireann SenatorMaurice Manning spoke of people's "total revulsion".[27] Many public figures used terms such as "barbarism" and "savagery" to describe the bombing.[28]
The bombing was seen by many Northern Irish Protestants as an attack on them, andloyalist paramilitaries retaliated with attacks on Catholic civilians. The day after, five Catholic teenagers were wounded in a shooting inBelfast, and a Protestant teenager was killed by theUlster Defence Association after being mistaken for a Catholic.[29] In the week after the bombing, there were 14 gun and bomb attacks on Catholics in Belfast.[30]
Irish bandU2 were holding a concert inDenver, Colorado, US the same day. During a performance of their song "Sunday Bloody Sunday", singerBono passionately condemned the bombing, stating "fuck the revolution" in his mid-song speech, as well as criticising the armchair republicanism of manyIrish-Americans and stating that the majority of people in his country did not want "the revolution".[31] The footage is included in U2'srockumentaryRattle and Hum.[32]Simple Minds had a number 1 single in the UK with "Belfast Child", inspired by the bombing.[33] Irish singer-songwriterChris de Burgh wrote the song "Remembrance Day" about the Enniskillen bombings which he only performed twice in a solo piano version. The song contains the line "Whatever you believe in, whatever flag you wave, let us not forget what happened on Remembrance Day".
At the time, the British and Irish governments were negotiating anExtradition Act that would make it easier toextradite IRA suspects from the Republic to the UK.[34] The Act was to come before the Irish parliament less than a month after the bombing.[34] The Irish government wanted the British to reform the justice system in Northern Ireland (such as by abolishingDiplock courts) before it would pass the Act. Many in the Republic insisted that the Act should only be passed after the reforms took place.[34] However, after the bombing, opposition to the Act dwindled[24][15] and it was passed by the Irish Parliament, albeit with some changes.
The bombing is often seen as a turning point in the Troubles. It undermined support for the IRA's campaign, both locally and internationally. Crucially, Libya, who supplied explosives used in the attack, withdrew its support and with it the supply of weapons and ammunition to the IRA.[35] The bombing also harmed Sinn Féin's electoral support.[21] In 1989, in the first local elections held after the bombing, Sinn Féin lost four of its eight seats onFermanagh District Council and was overtaken by theSDLP as the biggest Irish nationalist party there.[21][36] It was not until 2001, fourteen years after the bombing, that Sinn Féin support returned to its 1985 level.[37] The bombing drove new efforts by Irish nationalists towards a political solution to the conflict.[6] It led to the resumption of talks between Sinn Féin leaderGerry Adams and SDLP leaderJohn Hume, paving the way for formal talks between the two parties and the beginnings of theNorthern Ireland peace process.[35] In 1997, Adams apologised for the bombing on behalf of therepublican movement.[38]
Enniskillen's Remembrance Day service was re-staged two weeks after the bombing, and attended by about 5,000 people, including British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher.[39] The site of the bomb, which was owned by theCatholic Church,[11] was rebuilt asThe Clinton Centre, a youth hostel, in 2002. The hostel was opened by and named after formerUS PresidentBill Clinton.[40]
Under thethirty-year rule, a letter sent after the bombing was released by the Irish Government in 2018. The author was anonymous but claimed to be working forMI5, and the letter was sent to thenTánaiste andMinister for Foreign Affairs,Brian Lenihan. Without providing any evidence, it claimed that MI5 had advance knowledge of the Remembrance Day bombing but allowed it to go ahead, so that the public could turn against the Provisional IRA and new security measures could be justified.[41]
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