All IRA victims including security forces are owed an apology: Garda who survived bombing

Jim Cannon, now 85, was left badly wounded in an explosion which completely destroyed one of his colleagues, after the IRA lured them to an isolated home on the Co Laois / Co Offaly border in 1976.

He was reacting to comments made by Sinn Fein party president Mary Lou McDonald, concerning the killing of a member of the Irish Defence Forces (the Republic’s official army) in 1983.

Following her much-publicised interview with the Sunday Independent (where she said the IRA campaign was “justified” and “inevitable”, and that she herself may well have joined in) Ms McDonald went on to be interviewed by LMFM Radio.

During that broadcast she condemned the 1983 killing of Pvt Patrick Kelly during his efforts to free an IRA hostage (an operation which also cost the life of trainee Garda Gary Sheehan).

She told LMFM this week: “The loss of a serving member of the defence forces... was wrong, was absolutely wrong, should not have happened in any set of circumstances.”

Mr Cannon, who still had trouble with his legs thanks to his extensive injuries, was one of a five-strong team of police who responded to a fake tipoff about a gang hiding in a home near Portarlington in 1976.

They approached the house in the middle of the night, and as Garda Michael Clerkin searched the darkened rooms he stood on a large landmine. It totally obliterated him, and buried other members of the search party.

With their radio destroyed and colleagues wounded, Sgt Cannon ran with bleeding legs and his uniform in tatters across fields and barbed wire fences to raise the alarm at the nearest house.

That was his 42nd birthday.

Regarding Ms McDonald’s comments, Mr Cannon said: “I read the article in the Sunday Independent. I can appreciate why Fine Gael and Fianna Fail don’t want to go in with Sinn Fein.

“Who would agree with killing anybody? We’re all human beings.

“I think she should apologise to all the victims of violence, north and south.”

This should include security forces too, he said.

He recalled that on January 29, 2013, Gerry Adams had apologised in Dail Eireann to families of “members of the State forces who were killed by republicans in the course of the conflict”.

He was later quoted as extending his apology to Mr Cannon specifically.

Asked what he had made of Mr Adams’ apology, Mr Cannon laughed and said: “I didn’t make much of it.”

READ MORE ON THE PORTARLINGTON MURDER HERE:

Buried alive: Garda remembers ‘miracle’ escape from fatal IRA bomb

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