Fifty years ago, 19 Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombs exploded across Belfast in little over an hour, killing nine people and seriously injuring 130 others
What happened next?By the time the first bomb in Belfast exploded on Bloody Friday, 59 people had already been killed across Northern Ireland that month.
News headlines from across Northern Ireland on the day said the attack was the worst the city had seen since the Blitz in 1941, with widespread condemnation from both sides of the community. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the time, William Whitelaw, told the House of Commons the bombings were "a wanton attack on innocent men, women and children".Then, at 04:00 on 31 July 1972 the Army moved in to clear "no go" areas set up by republican paramilitaries across Northern Ireland.In Belfast, the Army set up watchtowers in Casement Park in the west of the city.Two teenagers were shot and killed by the Army during the operation in Derry.
Writing in 1996, Gerry Adams, the then Sinn Féin president, stated the IRA "made a mistake in putting out so many bombs".In 2002, on the 30th anniversary of Bloody Friday,In a statement in the republican newspaper An Phoblacht it said it offered "sincere apologies" to the families of those killed on Bloody Friday.
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