IRA involvement in Claudy atrocity

The Provisional IRA in the city have continually denied any involvement in the bombings. One theory that has consistently been forwarded in the 38 years since the attack is that whilst because Operation Motorman had effectively nullified the IRA in the city that morning their cohorts in the south of county were determined to 'show their strength'.

However, what is thought to have been an attempt at a major propaganda exercise went disastrously wrong when it was discovered that warnings could not be given because the IRA had already blown up telephone exchanges in both Claudy and Dungiven.

Another train of thought is that the refusal of the IRA to accept responsibility for the bombings was because five of the nine innocent people murdered were actually from a Catholic background.

During the inquest into the attack, counsel for the Ministry of Home Affairs said that a car bomb exploded outside a public house on Main Street at 10.20am. A police sergeant and other officers discovered a second bomb in the back of a minivan at the Post Office. As people were being moved away from that area towards the Beaufort Hotel, a third device had been placed in another van.

It is thought by the time the killers had driven 10 miles to Dungiven to give a warning the first bomb had exploded. Counsel said that 15 minutes after the first explosion a woman went into Dungiven RUC station and said she had been asked to tell police that three bombs had been planted in Claudy. Counsel also said that by the time RUC headquarters in Londonderry received the warning the first bomb had gone off and by the time the message was relayed back to Claudy the second device had been discovered.

An RUC detective-chief inspector told the inquest that his inquiries revealed the bombers had tried to make a phone call from Dungiven but a callbox there was out of order because of damage to the local exchanges.

The officer said a warning was given by the bombers to shop assistants in Dungiven but, again because of damage to the telephone system, one of them had to go personally to Dungiven RUC station to deliver the warning.

The officer said: "By this time the warning was too late, for the first bomb had exploded and the other two bombs went off as the warning was being passed to Dungiven police."

The depth of the atrocity even seemed to strike a chord with the head of the IRA at the time, although many would still doubt the sincerity of his statement.

In his book 'A Revolutionary in Ireland', the IRA's 'chief of staff', Sean McStiofain said: "I turned on RT. The news was appalling. A terrible tragedy had struck the small town of Claudy in Co Derry. Three car bombs had exploded there. Six people had been killed outright. Over 30 were injured, and some subsequently died. My heart and everything I had inside me just seemed to tighten up in a knot and sink slowly to the bottom of my stomach. 'Holy Mother of God,' I thought. 'Who is responsible for this?' "

McStiofain said that he 'investigated' the attacks within the IRA and that local units denied any involvement. He said the denials were 'carefully investigated and subsequently borne out in a court of inquiry.'