THE families of the McGurk's Bar bombing will not stop campaigning for the truth behind the atrocity when the British government's controversial Legacy Bill comes into law next May – and have joined the chorus of growing voices calling on the Irish government to take an interstate case against London.

Well-known community activist Robert McClenaghan’s family are just one of thousands of families who will be impacted by the incoming legislation. Robert’s grandfather Philip Garry was one of 15 Catholics who were killed in the 1971 McGurk’s bar bombing. The bomb was planted by the UVF in the North Queen Street pub but evidence points to the organisation being facilitated in the bombing by undercover members of British security services.

The Andersonstown News spoke to Robert this week in the offices of Relatives for Justice where the family are adding their own patch in memory of their grandfather to  the Relatives for Justice’s (RFJ) Rembering Quilt.

In an emotional interview, Robert fondly recalled the grandfather he knew over half a century ago.

“My grandfather Philip Garry was 73 – he was the oldest (to die in the bombing), when he was killed in McGurk’s Bar on 4 December 1971. Philip wasn’t my biological grandfather, my biological grandfather died when my father was about five or six and my grandmother then remarried. 

“He was a merchant seaman, which is why you have the emblems on the quilt to represent the Merchant Navy. He would be on the boats for six months and then back for six months. When he came home he’d have this wad of money and to us grandchildren it was like Father Christmas come early!

“He was a man’s man, he smoked and he liked a drink which is why the pint of Guinness is on the quilt. All the bars in around the New Lodge would have been his locals and he drank in a lot of them. The picture we’ve used of him is from his Merchant Seaman’s card. 

“The irony is my grandfather was a member of the British Merchant Navy, who came through the Second World War and was on the dangerous Arctic convoys. He did more for Britain than those who killed him.”

Aspects of the quilt summarise Philip Garry's life as a former merchant seaman and road traffic controller
6Gallery

Aspects of the quilt summarise Philip Garry's life as a former merchant seaman and road traffic controller

Robert explained that part of the reason for making the quilt now was also to remember his father Sam who will be 94 this month. With the incoming legislation Robert wanted his father to help make a patch for the quilt as a way of remembering his lifetime of work in the campaign with the other families of the McGurk’s bar bombing.

Robert said: “When the news of the Bill of Shame came out we had a family meeting. My father is 94 this December. From the 1 May under the Bill of Shame all inquests, inquiries and prosecutions will stop. Police Ombudsmen reports will stop and even our civil case which has been ongoing for years will stop.

“We’re trying to get my father ready for all of this to cease and we talked to Relatives for Justice about my father’s legacy and the work he has done campaigning for McGurk’s Bar victims. My father picked the colour of the quilt and the stitching. When my grandfather was murdered he was a traffic control man which is why there’s a lollipop on there as well. There’s also a photo of the bar on there so people will know of his connection to McGurk’s.

“We got access to the old RUC sketchpads at the time after the bombing where they had marked out where everyone in the bar was sitting. My grandfather was sitting just by the window and on the other side of the wall is where the 50 lb bomb was placed in the hallway.

“The symbolism of the pint of Guinness is represented by him liking a drink but also by that pint of Guinness being the last thing he ever saw. He got his pint and sat down on his own in his wee cloth cap and that was the last thing he saw. Fourteen other people were murdered in that bar and 16 were seriously wounded and a number lost limbs."

Andrée Murphy of Relatives for Justice with Robert McClenaghan as he told his story
6Gallery

Andrée Murphy of Relatives for Justice with Robert McClenaghan as he told his story

Robert also noted: “Patrick McGurk wouldn’t allow anyone to curse in the bar. There was a swear box in there and if you swore he’d come over and make you put money in the box. People from both communities used to drink in McGurk’s because of where it was located. You’d have people from all backgrounds drinking in there. It was very much an open house.”

Asked about the impact the bombing had on his family and on his own life, Robert said the bombing caused immense trauma to his family and was also one of the reasons he later went on to join the IRA. Robert said the McGurk’s bombing drove him to feel hatred but also led to his peace work and community activism once he was released from prison and he now campaigns with Relatives for Justice for the right of all victims to get to the truth about their loved one's death.

Speaking on the immediate impact of the bomb Robert said: “I heard the bomb on the Saturday night but we had no idea at all where it was. The next day on Sunday we had the soccer highlights come up on UTV. I was sitting with my mother and father and they interupted the show and listed the casualties from McGurks and they had a list of names come up from the bottom of the screen.

“I remember my mother screaming in my ear and my daddy jumped up and ran out of the house to McGurk’s.

“My daddy then had to go to the morgue with my uncle Bobby and the bodies were on the gurneys. There were just rags there, there was nothing left just pieces of clothing because of the 50 lbs of gelignite in the bomb. My father lifted a piece of clothing and a key fell out, they travelled back to Unity Flats and put the key in the door and it opened. That’s how they identified my grandfather.

“On Tuesday it was the funerals in St Patrick’s Chapel on Donegall Street and they had them all together. There were 15 coffins laid out and you just saw the enormity of it. This wasn’t just our family, this was the entire community that was affected.”

Robert opened up on the toll the bombing took on his family and his own life
6Gallery

Robert opened up on the toll the bombing took on his family and his own life

Robert explained that he was 13 at the time of the funerals and what happened on the way back from the church had a lasting impact on him.

“When we left and we were all accompanying the coffins we walked from Millfield towards Divis and at the bottom of the Shankill there was a huge crowd and you could hear all this mumbling. 

“This wasn’t young people either and there were hundreds of them all waving Ulster flags and Union Jacks. They were waving the flags at the coffins as they were going past and when I stopped and listened to the mumbling I made out what they were singing – it was ‘Bits and Pieces’ by The Dave Clark Five which was in the charts at the time. They were singing ‘Bits and Pieces’ about my grandfather and the others who had just been blown up in a bomb.

“Political conciousness has to start somewhere, I was 13 and I remember thinking after experiencing that that there is something seriously wrong with this state. This was when the younger me learned to hate. People would come and say ‘The Orangies killed your granda’ and I hadn’t a clue what an ‘Orangie’ was but this was where I learned to hate. 

“This was when I started wanting revenge and to lash back and when you take a decision to join a military organisation like I did – I was either going to end up in the cemetery or in prison and I was one of the lucky ones who ended up in prison. Our family have never gotten over McGurks, on so many different levels. My mother and sister Mary have both passed on now and they were very involved in the campaign for McGurk's. I’m the next oldest so it’s up to me now."

In 1991 Robert was released from prison and joined Sinn Féin.

"I began working for prisoners to be released and I called for all prisoners to be released, including loyalists, because you couldn’t be hypocritical or sectarian but it was hard knowing that by doing that I would be calling for the release of Robert Campbell, the only one who was ever convicted of the McGurk’s bombing. I remember telling my father about it and calling for loyalist prisoner releases too and he just said ‘that’s the right thing to do.’"

Robert previously outside the memorial plaque to the victims of the bombing which was erected on the site
6Gallery

Robert previously outside the memorial plaque to the victims of the bombing which was erected on the site

He added: “Relatives for Justice was formed in 1991, the same year I got out of prison and the campaign for the families of McGurk’s was formed. We’ve been working very closely ever since and RFJ have helped us get our cases to Europe and to take action against the British government. 

“My journey since 1991 has been about finding truth and justice with the hundreds of families who are under the umbrella of the RFJ and it doesn’t matter whether you’re from a Protestant, loyalist, UDR or British Army community it’s about truth. Truth belongs to everybody.

“When we heard the news our call for a fresh inquest was rejected by the Attorney General I was very emotional. We’d been fighting for this the whole way since 1991 and I remember trying not to cry in front of my father because I couldn’t break it to him but we had a family meeting and I told him because the case was under his name.

“He just said to me, ‘life’s not fair son' and it was so emotional because it just hit me then. My daddy had been campaigning for 52 years and he still has that presence of mind. That’s the journey my father has been on and it will end on the 1 May when the British Bill of Shame comes in."

Robert said families are now asking for the Irish government to immediately take an interstate case against the British government to the European courts, a course which Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said his government is still considering.

“After 1 May we are moving into completely different territory with regards to the case. Before the Irish government took the British government to court over the torture of the Hooded Men and got a judgement that it was torture. 

“We are campaigning now for the Irish government to do the same thing today to challenge this Bill of Shame. For us families to challenge this Bill it will take years and years but if the Irish government challenge it then it will speed up that process. 

A section of the quilt made by victims' families
6Gallery

A section of the quilt made by victims' families

Robert added: “The quilt represents the unity all of us families have, whether they’re Protestant, Catholic, Loyalist or Republican. It’s a symbol that we’re here and we’re saying three simple words: Time For Truth.”