Dublin bombings survivor who woke up in the morgue

Fourteen-year-old Derek Byrne left his home just off Talbot Street in Dublin at 8.45am on May 17th, 1974, to walk to work at the Westbrook Motor Company just around the corner on Parnell Street.

He was just two weeks into his first job and he worked through his dinner hour that day as he was saving to buy a new pair of football boots. He loved football and was to travel to England that night for a tournament. He also had a trial coming up with an English club.

At about 5.25pm, a car pulled in and Byrne began to fill it up. “This will be the last one in,” he thought to himself. Moments later, the first of four UVF car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan went off about 10 feet away from him.

“I was blown against the petrol tank on the other side of the road,” he recalled yesterday at a wreath-laying ceremony on Talbot Street where the second car bomb detonated moments after the first.

“I remember waking up and the priest was giving me absolution. I remember being put in an ambulance,” said Byrne.

‘Decapitated’

“I remember the pains. I remember the screaming. I remember the Italian man out of the chipper. He was decapitated. His head was gone. There had been a family there but all I could see was the pram. I found out later that the whole family was killed.

“I still had the nozzle in my hand, and it went straight through it, cutting all the tendons. I didn’t lose consciousness until the second bomb went off. I don’t know whether it was the shock or the loss of blood or what.”

Byrne was brought to Jervis Street Hospital by ambulance and was pronounced dead on arrival. His body was wheeled into the morgue, but three hours later he awoke. “I was brought straight to theatre and spent the next 18½ hours there,” he said.

"They thought I was dead. They had no name for me and couldn't identify me until that Sunday when a local priest came across me. I was there for about three months and then brought out to the National Rehabilitation Hospital where I was for 18 months."

The bombing has had a catastrophic effect on Byrne, his quality of life, and his ability to hold down in a job in the 42 years since the explosion. He has had 33 operations to date and is still regularly attending hospitals.

“I’m still having shrapnel taken out of my body,” he says. “I’m waiting to get the left knee done. Then, after that, they’re going to do the right knee and the hip. There’s shrapnel in there that has to be taken out. I’m on the waiting list.

"I was left-handed and I had to learn how to write with my right hand. I always wanted to be a tradesman but I never got the opportunity to train. I did go back to work. I was with Dublin City Council but I had to give that up because of my health.

‘Constant pain’

“I was working in the drains but I couldn’t get down them so I had to retire 12 years ago. I couldn’t get a job because nobody would take me on. I was in and out of hospital the whole time. I’m in constant pain and on painkillers all my life.”

At the ceremony, attended by about 150 people, Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said the Government would press the British government to grant access to all documents pertaining to the bombings, which killed 33 people and injured 300 more on the single deadliest day of the Troubles.