Journalist describes the 'real horror' of Talbot St

Broadcaster and journalist Vincent Browne appeared before the inquest on the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings yesterday to describe the scenes in Talbot Street, Dublin, in the minutes after the bomb exploded there on May 17th, 1974.

Mr Browne had been working as a reporter for Independent Newspapers on Abbey Street, Dublin, at the time of the atrocities.

He had been coming down the stairs of the newspaper's office to meet his brother Malachy, a final-year medical student, when he heard the explosion in nearby Talbot Street.

Both men ran immediately towards O'Connell Street, where they were met by crowds fleeing the scene. Eventually they reached Talbot Street and the "real horror" of the incident, Mr Browne said.

He saw a man outside O'Neill's shoe shop with a large hunk of metal embedded in his leg, who he and his brother lifted from the rubble. There was also a woman outside the shop who they tried to move. "She was also alive and moaning. We tried to lift her but her body simply disintegrated in our arms and we had to put her back down again."

They came across a young woman who was still alive. They stopped a motorist in Marlborough Street to ask him to bring her to hospital. However when they carried her to him, he had gone.

They brought her to Moran's hotel instead. It took ambulances at least 40 minutes to arrive on the scene, Mr Browne said.

The garda in charge of the scene at Monaghan town said he was told about the Dublin bombings almost an hour before the bomb that killed seven people in Monaghan exploded.

Insp Thomas Curran told the inquest he received a call from Drogheda Garda station at 6.10 p.m. on the day of the atrocities informing him of the explosions in Dublin. He immediately put seven cordons in place on all roads between Monaghan town and the south. Nothing suspicious was noted between this time and shortly before 7 p.m., when the Monaghan bomb exploded.

A number of witnesses to the Monaghan bombing appeared before the inquest yesterday, to describe the car which exploded outside Greacen's pub in the centre of the town.

Mr Matt Waters was driving through the town at 6.40 p.m. when he noticed a Hillman Minx parked outside Greacen's pub. The car was green and one of the front wings was dented. The car was later reported stolen from a car-park in Portadown.

A Church of Ireland minister, Rev Brian Johnston, told the inquest he had seen a man trying to open a car without a key in the same car-park earlier that day. He said he had assumed the man had locked his keys in the car.

He described the man as in his late 20s with a slim build and longish hair. He had a moustache and was wearing an ill-fitting three-piece blue suit.

A man with a similar description was seen going into the public toilet in Monaghan town shortly before the explosion.