Commemoration marks 46 years since Narrow Water bomb attack by IRA which killed 18 soldiers
A commemoration has taken place to mark the 46th anniversary of one of the largest atrocities of the Troubles - the IRA Narrow Water bombing near Warrenpoint.
The IRA bombers targeted a convoy of vehicles transporting Parachute Regiment soldiers from Ballykinler barracks to Newry on 27 August 1979, killing 18 soldiers.
There was also a 19th victim – Michael Hudson, who had been visiting the Republic of Ireland from London, who was killed by army gunfire across the river following the blasts.
The incident came just hours after Lord Mountbatten, two members of his family and a Co Fermanagh teenager had been killed by the IRA in a boat bomb in Co Sligo.
A commemoration at the scene was attended yesterday by members of the Parachute Regiment, a representative of the Veterans Commission and TUV representatives.
Timothy Gaston MLA said: “Today I was privileged to join a TUV delegation at the roadside memorial at Narrow Water, 46 years to the day when 18 soldiers were brutally murdered by the IRA. Twelve of them were killed in a second bomb, deliberately timed to slaughter those who ran to the aid of their comrades.
“We also remembered the innocent civilian who died at Narrow Water, along with Lord Mountbatten, his grandson Nicholas, Nicholas’s grandmother Lady Doreen Knatchbull, and 15-year-old Paul Maxwell – all murdered by the IRA in a separate attack that same day.
“The cold, calculated manner of these 22 murders marks 27th August 1979 as a day of particular Provo barbarity, even by their bloody standards.”