'On Bloody Friday I was in town on my way to Corporation Street dole office when the bombs started to go off around me.'

'On Bloody Friday I was in town on my way to Corporation Street dole office when the bombs started to go off around me.'

Rosemary recalls a frightening experience of being in town during the bombings of Bloody Friday in February 1972.

Rosemary McCloskey

Trinity College Dublin

1972

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Rosemary McCloskey

Adolescence and Early Adulthood

Life Story

Belfast

1970's

Suffice it to say that I worked in Drumoghill from 1st February 1972 until around June of that year. I spent that summer at home in Brookvale Avenue and was not very happy at all. I had no job and was signing on the dole. On Bloody Friday I was in town on my way to Corporation Street dole office when the bombs started to go off around me. I kept on walking, signed on and returned home by way of New Lodge Road where I was pulled into a house in Bruslee Way by a woman, Kathleen Steele, with whom I used to work in McKenna's bar at the corner of Ardilea Street. She saw me coming and grabbed me, as she was aware of what was going on that day. The news flashes on the television were coming in fast, telling of the atrocities which were happening all over the city. I was oblivious to this until I entered her house. I had to remain there until things subsided. She took me out and escorted me to the hole in the 'Barrack' wall on to Lepper Street On the way up through the maze of Carlisle Square, I saw two men walking with another caught between them I heard a click, and Kathleen told me that they were taking this man up to the top of the flats to knee cap him. I remember walking on up home to Brookvale and when I got into the house I was physically sick with the shock and horror of what I had come through and the thought of what might have happened to me. My mother had been frantic. There were no mobile phones that time to contact anyone, and she only waited and prayed for my safe return.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)