page_title: William Marchant (loyalist)
section_title: Dublin car bombings
hierarchical_section_title: William Marchant (loyalist) / Dublin car bombings
caption_attribution_description: A J registration 1970 Hillman Avenger GL. This car was gold coloured and had an automatic gearbox.
context_page_description: William "Frenchie" Marchant was a Northern Irish loyalist and a high-ranking volunteer in the Ulster Volunteer Force. He was on a Garda list of suspects in the 1974 Dublin car bombings, and was allegedly the leader of the Belfast UVF unit known as "Freddie and the Dreamers" which hijacked and stole the three cars which were used in the bombings.
  Nine days after the bombings he was arrested and interned at the Maze Prison in relation to the bombings. When questioned by detectives regarding the latter he refused to answer. He was never brought to trial due to lack of evidence. Marchant held the rank of major in the UVF's A Company, 1st Battalion Belfast Brigade. He was shot to death by a Provisional IRA volunteer from a passing car as he stood outside "The Eagle" chip shop below the offices where the UVF Brigade Staff had their headquarters on the Shankill Road.
context_section_description: Marchant was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in about 1948. He grew up in the Ulster loyalist Shankill Road neighbourhood and was brought up as a Protestant. Some time prior to 1974, he joined the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an illegal loyalist paramilitary organisation. He held the rank of major in its A Company, 1st Battalion Belfast Brigade. Marchant's nickname was "Frenchie".
  Two units from the UVF's Belfast and Mid-Ulster Brigades exploded three no-warning car bombs in Dublin's city centre on 17 May 1974, the third day of the Ulster Workers Council Strike. This was a general strike in Northern Ireland called by hard-line unionists, who opposed the Sunningdale Agreement and the Northern Ireland Assembly which had proposed their sharing political power with nationalists and planned a role for the Republic of Ireland in the governance of Northern Ireland. The explosions occurred almost simultaneously during evening rush hour resulting in the deaths of 26 people, mostly young women; close to 300 people were injured, many maimed and scarred for life. According to former British soldier and psychological warfare operative Colin Wallace, the bombings had been organised by Billy Hanna, the Mid-Ulster Brigade's commander at the time. The three cars used in the attacks had been stolen and hijacked that morning in Belfast by a UVF unit known as "Freddie and the Dreamers" (named after the 1960s English pop group) allegedly led by Marchant, and then, according to the 1993 Yorkshire Television documentary The Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre, driven to a farm in Glenanne, County Armagh. This farm, which had been used to make and store the bombs, was owned by Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) reservist James Mitchell of the Glenanne gang. After the cars were delivered to the waiting bomb unit, the latter drove them across the border down to the Coachman's Inn pub carpark. Journalist Joe Tiernan suggested that the cars were driven directly to the North Dublin carpark, with only one stop in Portadown by one of the cars to collect David Alexander Mulholland, one of the alleged bombers. It was at the carpark that the three bombs, which had been transported in a chicken lorry by senior Mid-Ulster UVF member Robin "the Jackal" Jackson, were placed inside the boots of the cars by Hanna and Jackson. The cars – a metallic green 1970 model Hillman Avenger and blue Austin 1800 Maxi – that ended up in Parnell Street and South Leinster Street had been hijacked while the metallic blue mink Ford Escort which detonated in Talbot Street had been stolen from Belfast's docks area. All three cars had retained their original registration numbers. The Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre named Marchant as having been on a Garda Síochána list of suspects as the leader of the gang which obtained the bomb cars.
  Ninety minutes after the Dublin blasts, another car bomb exploded in Monaghan, causing a further seven deaths.  A detective from Dublin's Store Street Garda Station received confidential information that Marchant had masterminded both the Dublin and Monaghan attacks. On 26 May, he was arrested by the Northern Ireland security forces under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provision) Act 1974 and interned at the Maze Prison on an Interim Custody Order partly on suspicion of having participated in the car bombings. He was interrogated by detectives but refused to reply to any questions relating to the Dublin bombings. Marchant and the others who had also been interned as suspects in the attacks, were never brought to trial due to lack of evidence. The RUC Special Branch, in a reply dated 23 July 1974 to an earlier Garda enquiry regarding Marchant, stated that Marchant "was our guest for a number of hours (and CID) but with negative result". The Barron Report which was the findings of the official investigation into the car bombings commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron confirmed that Marchant was named in the Garda files as the leader of the gang which provided the bomb cars. Colin Wallace briefed the media without attribution?, 
caption: A green 1970 model Hillman Avenger was one of the hijacked cars used in the Dublin bombings. It exploded in Parnell Street, killing 10 people
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