Page 254 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

We both fled back up the hill, heading once again towards New Street, and
somehow got separated. I reached the Wine Lodge where I was met by a very
nervous barman, who led me up some flights of stairs, to where there was a door
accessing the roof. It’s amazing how people react to situations, when feeling the full
force of fear. When I actually got on to the roof, it was dark, but I could make out
two figures standing at the far end. It was the licensee and his wife, who having
heard the explosions and believing it was their premises being attacked, had
phoned the police, before thinking the safest place to be, would be on the roof.
I left Yates’s Wine Lodge in search of Mike Davey, and soon found him, or rather his
voice, coming up from the pavement just outside the entrance to the Tavern in the
Town, which was then in total darkness. He was calling for me to retrace our steps
when earlier we had gone there to visit the licensee.

At first it was difficult, slowly making the descending stairs without any light, but I soon
found myself standing at the bottom of the steps, a little disorientated, but
managing to focus on the back of Mike Davey’s mackintosh, as he crouched over
something on the floor. The strong sickly smell of cordite seemed to fill the air. There
was nothing visible that resembled the Tavern’s appearance on the last occasion I
had been inside that same room, just a few minutes beforehand.

Now, all I could see was a dust cloud and bodies lying all over the floor, some
moaning and others, motionless and silent. We were very quickly joined by firemen
and taxi drivers, who helped us to carry the injured up the stairs, into the street,
where we made them as comfortable as possible on the damp pavements. At one
stage I stopped to look at a line of casualties, all with serious injuries, lying on the
floor with their backs resting against shop frontages. Everybody provided what First
Aid they could, but it was obvious many of the victims had to be hospitalised
quickly. The taxi drivers, who to my mind were the real heroes of that night, not that
any of us wanted to be dubbed with that label, soon began to transport the injured
to the local hospitals, returning very quickly to pick up more of those poor and
unfortunate people.

There was no time to dwell on emotions, although both anger and sorrow come to
mind, as we continued lifting the injured out of that place of carnage. Young men
and women mostly, some with horrific life-threatening injuries, others more fortunate.
But all suffering severely from shock. When we eventually left the Tavern in the Town,
we were completely satisfied there was no one showing any sign of life, left inside.

Only then, did we learn that the other bomb had been exploded inside the Mulberry
Bush. Eventually, other police officers began to appear at the two crime scenes,
relieving those members of the public who had so gallantly helped us and those
victims, whose lives would never again be the same. A total of 21 people lost their
lives that night, ten in the Mulberry Bush and another eleven in the Tavern.

Tensions were already running high, as we were still carrying people out on to the
pavement. A small group of people, standing towards the bottom of New Street,
were shouting and screaming out, what could only be described as anti-Irish
slogans, before the re-enforcements arrived. Page254