Bomb aftermath was 'a scene of a complete chaos that I'll never forget'

Fifty years ago James Kane was about to have his dinner when he heard a huge bang and the ground shook.

He knew immediately that it had to be a bomb.

When he arrived at the aftermath of the Hillcrest Bar bombing it was "a scene of a complete chaos that I'll never forget".

Kane owned the Bar and the auto-supplies shop that was next door to the bar at the time.

Four people were murdered, including two children, after a no warning bomb planted by the UVF exploded at the bar in Dungannon on St Patrick's Day, 1976.

Thirteen-year-old James McCaughey died along with his friend Patrick Barnard, who was also 13. Both boys were playing outside when the bomb exploded.

Local men Andrew Small, 62, and Joseph Kelly, 57, were also killed in the explosion.

Immediately after he heard the blast his house phone started to ring.

"Another local man told me I better get up the town quick because that was my pub that just blew up," he tells BBC News NI.

When he arrived the emergency services were just getting to the scene and it was "very clear there were serious casualties".

"Inside the pub was pitch dark, it was hard to see because the electric had gone off, there was rubble everywhere and I just remember seeing the bodies."

About 40 people were injured in the explosion.

All four of the victims that died were Catholics.

Five years after the bomb, Dungannon UVF member Garnet James Busby received a life sentence after admitting his role in the bombing and other terrorist offences.

He was released on life licence in February 1997.

A new memorial plaque is being officially unveiled later on Sunday ahead of the 50th anniversary of the bomb which occurred on St Patrick's Day 1976.

The plaque reads: "In memory of the innocents cruelly killed and injured in a bomb explosion on 17th March 1976".

'I'll never forget it, it never leaves you'

Pat McElhetton was working a late shift as a porter in South Tyrone Hospital on the day of the bomb.

The hospital is around half a mile from what was the site of the Hillcrest Bar.

"A nurse came into the ward and said she needed all health staff to go to casualty quickly," he remembers.

"A short time later the dead and injured arrived at the hospital. It was horrific, people were crying and screaming, the injured people covered in glass and shrapnel, it was a horrific scene," he adds.

He added: "Part of my job was bringing the deceased to the mortuary, something like that stays with you I'll never forget it, it never leaves you."

Independent Mid Ulster Councillor, Barry Monteith, has been working with some of the relatives to erect a new plaque near where the Hillcrest Bar was.

Speaking before the memorial he says that while St Patrick's Day, for many, is a day of celebration, it is "also a day of sadness in Dungannon".

He adds that for some who did survive, their injuries their "lives were changed forever".

"This new plaque remembers those who died and is a recognition to those that were left with life-changing injuries," he explains.

'We had no warning at all'

In the archives of Armagh's Cultural Heritage Centre is a microfilm copy of the Tyrone Courier from March 24 1976.

Exactly a week after the Hillcrest Bar bombing the headline reads "Stop this bloody madness!'

The picture of three of the deceased victims stare back from the front page of the paper.

The Courier states how the attack had caused "revulsion and great shock throughout the entire community".

It outlines how bomb had caused "extensive havoc and damage" and that when the paper's reporter arrived at the scene the area was "one of desolation".

Warning: This contains details some readers may find distressing.

The paper quotes manager of the bar, Jackie Fee who was upstairs in the lounge when the bomb went off.

"Everything simply erupted around us, we had no warning at all," he told the paper.

Mr Fee also spoke to the BBC the day after the bomb.

In grainy archive footage he said: "I was in the bar and I smelt something burning so I went up the stairs to see and next minute the place just landed in round me.

"I ran down and there were people lying everywhere. I tried to get as many out as I could and there was one man dead, so I went in for the rest and I went out on the street and there were children lying here and there."

Mr Fee was asked by the BBC reporter why he thought the bar had been targeted and who he thought was responsible.

He replied: "I don't know, I can't figure it out at all, because Protestants and Catholics go to it.

"I think the UVF did it, in my opinion, because it's their hall mark, no warning or nothing."

Bereaved families took legal action against the PSNI for failing to complete an overarching review of the activities of the so-called Glenanne gang.

Its members are suspected of involvement in about 90 attacks during the Troubles, including the Hillcrest Bar bombing.