page_title: McGurk's Bar bombing
section_title: Remembrance
hierarchical_section_title: McGurk's Bar bombing / Remembrance
caption_attribution_description: English: Cross commemorating the victims of the 1971 McGurk's bar bombing, Great George Street, Belfast
context_page_description: On 4 December 1971, the Ulster Volunteer Force, an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, detonated a bomb at McGurk's Bar in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The pub was frequented by Irish Catholics/nationalists. The explosion caused the building to collapse, killing fifteen Catholic civilians—including two children—and wounding seventeen more. It was the deadliest attack in Belfast during the Troubles.
  Despite evidence to the contrary, the British security forces asserted that a bomb had exploded prematurely while being handled by Irish Republican Army members inside the pub, implying that the victims themselves were partly to blame. A report later found that the police were biased in favour of this view, and that this hindered their investigation. The victims' relatives allege that the security forces deliberately spread disinformation to discredit the IRA. In 1977, UVF member Robert Campbell was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the bombing and served fifteen years.
  The bombing sparked a series of tit-for-tat bombings and shootings by loyalists and republicans, which contributed to making 1972 the bloodiest year of the conflict.
context_section_description: In 2001 a memorial was unveiled on the site of McGurk's Bar to mark the 30th anniversary of the bombing. Relatives of the victims called for an investigation into allegations that British forces helped the bombers. Almost a thousand people attended a service at St Patrick's Church on Donegall Street, after which fifteen wreaths, one for each victim, were carried by relatives leading a silent candlelit procession to a new memorial at Great George's Street.
  Patrick McGurk died on 15 December 2007, having forgiven those responsible for the explosion and having prayed for the men who carried out the attack.
caption: Memorial on Great George's Street
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