Mcgurk's Bar Bombing

On the cold night of 4th December 1971, British extremists from the UVF attacked McGurk’s Bar, a family-run pub in North Belfast. A bomb they left on the doorstep ripped through the building and killed 15 men, women and children, making it the country’s most devastating massacre of innocent civilians since the Nazi Blitz. Nevertheless, these victims were to become the forgotten victims of a dirty war .

Government, British military and RUC police sources immediately blamed the bombing as an Irish Republican own-goal even though the full weight of evidence, including a witness who saw the bomb being planted, proved it was a terrorist attack. As the families prepared to bury their loved ones, the State drip-fed black propaganda into the intelligence stream, media and public consciousness.

Since then the families have fought tirelessly and constitutionally to clear the names of their loved ones – for their only crime was the faith they followed.

Ciarán MacAirt’s grandmother, Kitty Irvine, was one of those murdered in the McGurk’s Bar Massacre. His painstaking, meticulous and immensely detailed research has uncovered historic documents hidden in archives which cast a cold light on collusion and cover-up by the State. It is a paper trail that goes to the highest levels of the Government, police and military and proves that society today must learn from the lessons of history.