News Letter bomb: family’s pride in RUC officer’s selfless actions

The passage of 50 years has not diminished the memory of a husband and father who died trying to protect others MARK RAINEY reports
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

Fifty years on from the Donegall Street bomb blast that blighted seven bereaved families and maimed dozens of innocent civilians, the family of a murdered police officer remembers his selfless actions with pride.

Constable Ernest McAllister, 31, was one of two RUC officers who put themselves at mortal risk while trying to protect members of the public from the IRA bombers.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He died alongside his colleague Brendan O’Neill as they responded to misleading warnings around the location of the bomb.

The funeral of RUC constable Ernest McAllister in LisburnThe funeral of RUC constable Ernest McAllister in Lisburn
The funeral of RUC constable Ernest McAllister in Lisburn

His widow Florence, along with daughter Gillian and other close family members, visited the RUC Garden of Remembrance on the March 20 anniversary to commemorate the life that was taken all too soon.

Florence said she will also reflect on the pain and suffering of the others who died that day in 1972.

“There were six other people killed that day – six other families torn apart. I often think of the people who had to deal with the aftermath of all these incidents and the impact it had on their lives too. So many people were affected by it.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“You hear about Derry (Bloody Sunday), which was awful, and other events that are regularly headline news while the likes of Donegall Street and many other incidents are just never mentioned. It was all brushed under the carpet.”

News Letter image of RUC constables Bernard O'Neill (left) and Ernest McAllister - March 1972News Letter image of RUC constables Bernard O'Neill (left) and Ernest McAllister - March 1972
News Letter image of RUC constables Bernard O'Neill (left) and Ernest McAllister - March 1972

On the day of Constable McAllister’s funeral, Florence was comforted by her friend Violet Corry, whose own police officer husband Stan Corry had been shot dead by the IRA while investigating a burglary in west Belfast just four months earlier.

“He had been best man at our wedding and he was murdered along with his colleague Constable Russell in the Andersonstown area,” Florence said.

“Those were unbelievable times, because you just didn’t know what you were walking into when you went out. We know that there will never be anybody brought to justice for it. It’s just too far down the line. I remarried and we got on with our lives.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Florence and her second husband Tom went on to have a daughter, Wendy.

News Letter front page the day after the bombNews Letter front page the day after the bomb
News Letter front page the day after the bomb

“If you don’t swim you sink. You just get on with life,” Florence added.

“I had a supportive family and really good friends, some of whom I still have today. As a family we are going to visit the Memorial Garden [at PSNI headquarters] on the anniversary. It was a long time ago but we never forget.”

Gillian said it is a strange feeling to have loved someone, to have lost them, and to be grieving for them, but without actually remembering them.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I was only 18-months-old at the time. A friend of mine, whose father was a friend of daddy’s and who was killed in January 72, said that he doesn’t remember his daddy either, but he knows what I mean when I say you can love someone and miss them, but you don’t actually know them.”

“Probably as the years go on you just become accustomed to everything. I think as we have all got older we feel some anger – particularly because there were so many [murdered officers] after daddy.

“If you look at that [RUC] montage – all of those men and women who were killed afterwards. And how many more were injured, or took their own lives, because of what they had seen. We are very mindful about that.

“Mum was from Fermanagh and she met daddy when he was at the Depot (Police Training College) in Enniskillen. Daddy was from Holywood, Co Down and had two sisters, Maureen and Anne. My Granny McAllister had died in September 1971 and then for the family to lose Daddy just six months later must have been devastating for them. Anne had moved to Canada some years earlier and Maureen lived in Lisburn with her family.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Gillian’s mum was four months pregnant with her sister Jacqui at the time of the bombing.

“I have photographs of myself with daddy but Jacqui has none of that, so I always wanted to keep those photographs hidden away. I just thought that if Jacqui doesn’t have that, then I will just forget that I have them,” Gillian said.

“It wasn’t until about five or six years ago when I said to Jacqui about how I felt, and she said ‘oh no, get those photographs of daddy out and let’s look at them.’

“I was just wanting to protect her really – I was thinking that I had something that she will never have and didn’t want to make too much of it. But I have no memories, no recollection at all, of him.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Gillian said her mum was fortunate to meet someone else and to go on to have a long and very happy marriage.

“We were lucky that mum remarried, and that brought a sense of normality back to our lives, we are very blessed.”

“We have been left thinking that the very people who were here protecting us, and who picked up the pieces, are now being blamed in the wrong. The RUC are being portrayed as the bad guys in an attempt to rewrite history.

“I find that very hard, because we hold the RUC in the very highest regard. Where on Earth would we have been in this country only for that service and the sacrifice of so many.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“No one was ever brought to justice but we understand just how difficult it was back then with the Troubles still in their early stages and the police still learning how to cope with the upsurge in violence. And members of the public weren’t as vigilant to watch out for people potentially leaving car bombs. That was all relatively new in March 1972.

“We still think about all those who were injured that day too. Life can’t have been easy for them as many sustained life-changing injuries.

“As a family we feel an immense sense of pride in daddy’s work. He would have been 82 years of age this year, so maybe we wouldn’t have had him now, but he certainly didn’t need to be taken at 31 at the hands of somebody else.

“He was only married four years and he and mum were very much looking forward to Jacqui’s arrival, so there was a lot taken away from him, and that is what hurts me the most. He was denied all that.

“He was out serving the community.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Gillian added: “Daddy was killed serving alongside a Catholic RUC officer and I’m quite sure that when he went out that morning he was more than happy to have Barney O’Neill at his side and vice-versa.

“They were in the area when they got the call to say that a car bomb had been left in Church Street. They then went to Church Street to evacuate people to safety in Donegall Street and were in the process of doing so when the bomb went off.

“We are planning, to go to the RUC Memorial Garden to mark the anniversary. “We just want to visit and have a walk around, and reflect. We were there some years ago when daddy’s sister Anne and her family were home on holiday from Canada. It is very peaceful, and has been very thoughtfully and respectfully designed.

“We met the O’Neill family once but that was about 25 years ago, and I don’t know anyone from any of the other families, we have never had any contact with them but they are all very much in our thoughts at this time”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We will never see justice – we don’t ever expect to. I don’t think anybody is going to come forward now after fifty years and say ‘this has been on my mind all these years’.” I believe that we will all be judged in the end and maybe then they will spare a thought about the consequences of their actions”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

——— ———

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdowns having had a major impact on many of our advertisers — and consequently the revenue we receive — we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Ben Lowry, Editor