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54°20′39″N 7°38′3″W

Remembrance Day Bombing
Location	Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Coordinates	54°20′39″N 7°38′3″W
Date	November 8, 1987 10:43 a.m. (UTC)
Target	Remembrance Sunday commemoration ceremony
Attack type	Bomb
Deaths	12
Injured	63
Perpetrators	Provisional Irish Republican Army

The Remembrance Day bombing, also known as the Enniskillen bombing or the Poppy Day massacre, refers to a bomb explosion in the County Fermanagh town of Enniskillen, Northern Ireland which was undertaken by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The bombing took place on 8 November, 1987 at the town's war memorial during Remembrance Sunday commemoration ceremonies for those killed in all conflicts involving the British Army. It has been described as a key turning point in the troubles, due to the extreme and provocative nature of the attack, and an "unparalleled calamity" that shook the IRA "to its core".

The Target

The Bomb was thought by British and Irish authorities to have been prepared by up to three units of the IRA from both sides of the border, with coordination, organisation and magnitude such that it could only have been done with sanction from IRA Northern Command. The IRA and Sinn Fein deny this, with Danny Morrison describing himself as "shattered" on hearing that the IRA was involved. It is suggested that Martin McGuinness had prior knowledge of the attack, that he was stopped travelling through County Donegal with three other IRA members three days before the bombing and that he traveled to Fermanagh in the hours subsequent to the bomb to "question members of the local IRA unit to find out what had gone wrong".. The IRA released a statement stating it was a "Crown Forces patrol" who were the target but it has been alleged that the bomb was intended to kill Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers who were parading to the memorial, with the civilian deaths deemed acceptable collateral. On the same day a bomb four times larger than the Eniskillen bomb was placed at a similar but smaller parade 20 miles away at Tullyhommon, where the parade was conducted by members of the Boys Brigade, Girls Brigade and "three of four members of the security forces in uniform there to lay a wreath". Former UDR Major Sammy Foster and Jim Dixon were amongst the crowd, the latter recieving extensive head injuries.. The device, having been made in Ballinamore, County Leitrim and transported to the town over 24 hours by up to 30 IRA men, was placed the evening before against the gable wall of the inside of the towns Reading Rooms, and exploded at 10:43am. The explosion destroyed the wall, blowing masonry toward the gathered crowd, many of whom were standing by the wall as a favored vantage point.

Casualties

Eleven people were killed in the bombing; all except one were civilians. One of the dead, Marie Wilson, was the daughter of Gordon Wilson. Wilson went on to become a peace campaigner and member of the Seanad Éireann. One further person, Ronnie Hill, died after spending 13 years in a coma. 63 people were injured. Local business man Raymond McCartney captured the immediate aftermath of the bombing on video camera while at the scene. The footage was shown on television stations throughout the world within hours showing the devastation caused by the bomb. All the victims were Protestants.

Reactions

The bombing led to a public outcry in the Republic of Ireland, the UK, and elsewhere. In the aftermath of the attack the IRA insisted that its leadership had not sanctioned the bombing. The Fermanagh Brigade of the IRA was stood down after what was one of the most horrific and brutal attacks of Northern Ireland's Troubles.

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Tom King told the House of Commons,

“ It is clear from the location chosen for the bomb and the absence of any warning that those responsible for this monstrous act set out deliberately to kill and maim ordinary members of the public: people from both communities who had come together on a sunday morning, young and old, like thousands upon thousands of others throughout the United Kingdom, to honour the memories of those who had died in two world wars and since. In all the tragedy of the terrorist campaign, this outrage stands out in its awfulness. To perpetrate such an outrage against people, for many of whom the occasion was already one of sorrow and remembrance, betrays a total lack of human feeling. Nor could there have been a more deliberately provocative act, more calculated to stir up sectarian hatred, than this outrage on this special and solemn day. ”

The Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Brian Lenihan, told Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament):

“ I am quite certain there is no Member of this House who does not share a profound sense of horror at this atrocity by the men of violence in Enniskillen last Sunday — a sense of outrage and horror which is shared by all decent Irish men and women throughout the island and throughout the world. There can be no question but that those who planned and perpetrated this act did so in the clear knowledge that many civilians would be attending the ceremony and would be killed or maimed. We all recognise something obscene in the fact that this attack was planned and carried out on a day which many ordinary Irish men and women had gathered to commemorate those of their families and friends who had died in two World Wars. There is a long Irish tradition of respect for those paying tribute to our dead. This outrage is the latest and most horrific example of the pattern of violence of the IRA — a pattern which shows clearly their contempt for the sanctity of human life and for a sense of human decency. ”

The leader of the The Workers Party, Tomás MacGiolla, told the Dáil:

“ …[what had] occurred was entirely consistent with the strategy that the Provisional IRA have been pursuing for the past 18 years — sectarian warfare. The objective of this is to provoke an all-out civil war between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. ”

In Seanad Éireann Senator Maurice Manning told the House:

“ In the long catalogue of horror over the past 17 years on this island, few events can have generated such total revulsion as the massacre of innocent, decent Irish people, gathered together to solemnly honour their dead in Enniskillen last Sunday. Our hearts and our prayers go out to the families and friends of those so shamefully slaughtered in the name of Irish unity. ”

The bombing has come to be seen as a major tactical error by the IRA. In killing people honouring their war dead the IRA created a backlash which was perceived to have undermined its claim to be a non-sectarian organisation defending nationalists. The bombing also had a negative impact on Sinn Féin's electoral support. In 1989, in the first local elections held in Fermanagh after the bombing, it lost four of its eight council seats and was overtaken by the SDLP as the largest Nationalist party. It was not until 2001, 14 years after the Enniskillen bomb, that Sinn Féin support returned to its 1985 level.

In reaction to the bombing Bono, of the Irish rock band U2, paused during the singing of his famous protest song about the Troubles, Sunday Bloody Sunday, to denounce the violence and the Irish-Americans supporting it, saying:

“ And let me tell you something: I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven't been back to their country in twenty or thirty years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home; and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution - fuck the revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead, under the rubble of the revolution that the majority of the people in my country don't want. No more! Sing no more! ”

Bono can be seen delivering the quote in the rockumentary Rattle and Hum.

In 1997 Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams apologised for the bombing.

See also

• The Troubles in Enniskillen

External links

• [http://www.emigrant.ie/article.asp?iCategoryID=200&iArticleID=9388 Irish Emigrant newspaper report of the