"La Mon house" Petrol Fire-Bomb Massacre
February 17th 1978

Twelve people were "Incinerated" when the Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein left a fire-bomb at "La Mon House", Gransha, a country hotel outside Belfast. Of the twelve people killed seven of the victims were women. All who died were attending the Annual dinner dance of the Irish Collie Club and were Protestant Civilians. Three married couples were amongst the dead. Over 400 people were packed into the La Mon hotel on the night of the bombing. Members of the Irish Collie Club and the Northern Ireland Junior Motorcycle Club were settling down to enjoy dinner dances at the popular hotel.

The people who died at in the "La Mon" fireball explosion were as follows:-

The Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein terrorist left petrol cans attached to window grills with meat hooks.

The horror, the terrible unreality of that night is hard to imagine. Guests stumbled out of the hotel or jumped out of windows with their hair and clothes on fire. Some victims, horribly burned, had skin hanging from them in strips. Others lost limbs in the blast. Survivors, their clothes in tatters, stumbled around the car park in shock. It was one of the most horrific and appalling attacks in the history of the troubles. Others trying to escape the horror, or taking victims to hospital, clogged roads leading from the hotel, making it difficult for the emergency services to get through. Two hours later, after firefighters had brought the blaze under control, the grisly task of removing the bodies began.

The bomb was described as a blast incendiary. The bomb was hung on the grille of a window with a meat hook. After tests the experts said the device consisted of an electrical initiating system, and an explosive charge in a steel container and at least four containers of petrol. When experts later carried out trials to simulate the effect the device was similar to napalm producing a fireball more than 60 feet in diameter.

This atrocity rates as one of the most horrific of the 'troubles' ever carried out. The dead were burned beyond recognition and over thirty people were injured in the attack many suffering horrendous burns which required treatment over twenty years later.

Left on a 58-minute timer, the bomb was designed to sweep the room like a flame-thrower. As the plastic explosive detonated, it blew out the glass of the window, vaporised the plastic containers and sprayed the room with blazing petrol. The petrol had been mixed with sugar to make sure it stuck to whatever it touched.

Alex Withers was a station officer with the Fire Service on the night of the La Mon bombing. He still recalls the scene which greeted him as he fought to get through to the blazing hotel. "Some appliances were already there, but the hotel was a roaring inferno," he said. "The road was very narrow and there were a lot of people trying to get away. I had some difficulty getting past them to the scene. "It was very windy and that fanned the flames. People were wandering around in a daze, but the most seriously injured had already gone."

In the confusion, it was difficult to determine how many people were still inside the ruined building. "Some people had taken wounded away and others had left the scene," Mr Withers said. "As the scene unfolded, one of the problems we faced was finding out who was missing."

It was two hours before the fire was under control and rescuers could enter the ruined shell of the La Mon to search for bodies. They found them, under a pile of hot ash, charred beyond recognition. The corpses had to be hosed down before they could be put into body bags and removed.

The rescuers - who included many off-duty members of the security forces who had rushed to the scene to help - saw scenes of horror that they could never forget.

Mr Withers, who is now a deputy senior fire safety officer , said he will take the memory of that terrible night with him to the grave. "I can only speak personally, but you really did run the whole gamut of emotions. "Your training kicks in at first and you get on and deal with it. Then as the full horror of it sinks it you feel a great anger. Why did this happen to all these innocent people?"

A senior police officer at the time of the attack, who has since retired from the force, said there had been "absolute confusion" at the scene. The officer, who prefers to remain anonymous, recalled how police had been told there were further devices in the car park. "There were people standing at the edge of the flames, looking in," he said. "They knew people were in there when the bomb went off, but I think a lot of them hoped they had gotten out. "We of course were trying to get them back, but it was very difficult."

"Below are some of the victims of the IRA/Sinn Fein petrol firebomb - The police know Gerry Adams was involved but the British Government says there will be no public inquiry. Again we see how the British Government view the Protestants of Northern Ireland as there are any number of inquires for republicans' but none for the Protestants of Northern Ireland"

Mrs Christine Lockhart	Mrs Carol Mills	Mrs Sandra Morris

Among those members of the public who rushed to the scene was Michael Stone, who later went on to murder three people at Milltown Cemetery in 1988. If the Provisional IRA had not committed this and other atrocities would there have been as many Protestants in Jail who is sheer frustration turned to paramilitaries for help and guidance?

Mrs Sally Cooper	Mr Gordon Crothers and his wife Joan
Mr Thomas Neeson	Mr Ian McCracken and his wife Elizabeth

The Rev. Roy Magee speaking at the funeral of Paul Nelson and his wife Dorothy said "Try to picture the scene at 4-30pm on Saturday when two young girls were still waiting in vain for their parents to come home." All of the victims who died were attending the annual dinner dance of the Irish Collie Club. Many of the people killed in the fireball explosion were seated close to the window where the device exploded. When Thomas Neeson service was taking place his three daughters wept uncontrollably during his service. When one of his daughters seen a newspaper picture of their father one of the little girls said "Daddy has died and just gone to heaven."

Read below statements from people who were there at the time of the fireball blast

A witness said "I heard an explosion, then a ball of flame and intense heat. He said some people were in flames, the lights went out, and there were a lot of fumes, "I was on fire and I dropped to the floor and rolled in a ball trying to get air."

A waitress said "People were on fire, actually burning alive. I watched men pulling long curtains off the rails and wrapping people up in them to try to put out the flames. I could smell the burning flesh. I didn't realise at the time what I was smelling but I realised later what that dreadful stench was. I could never describe it."

Another witness said "People started being brought out without legs and arms and I knew it was far worse than I first thought."

When the bodies were being recovered some of the corpses had shrunk in the intense heat and it was thought that the bodies included a number of children.

On the right is the shocking poster released by the RUC detectives hunting the killers

Christine Lockhart (32), from Annareagh in Richill, was married to well-known country and western singer Terry Nash. She had an artificial leg after an amputation 11 years before the attack and walked with the aid of crutches. Her body was identified by a metal belt used to hold the limb in place.

A report from the Newtownards Chronicle stated "Evidence of the intense heat and the blast became evident when the bodies were found huddled against a brick wall directly opposite the bomb position. It was gruesome, people with their clothes and flesh on fire trying to get out of the burning building which was a raging inferno in a few minutes. For those who were there to see this holocaust it was sickening. Sickening to see pieces of a human body, limbs and other parts of the body being lifted. Many of them were just pure red flesh so indistinguishable that even forensic science experts found difficulty in sifting out their identification. It was only by getting down to some of the most minute details - teeth, hair, steel items belonging to the victims - that it was possible to arrive at identification."

At the inquest on the bodies of dead, three of the men and two of the women were finally identified only after extensive studies of blood type from living relatives. Two other bodies could not be identified at all except by a process of elimination.

In the aftermath of this bombing twenty five people were arrested in West Belfast among those arrested was Gerry Adams the present leader of Sinn Fein/IRA.

At a memorial service in 1998 twenty years later a woman who was injured in the firebomb attack was still receiving treatment for severe injuries from the blast .

At the funeral of Ian and Elizabeth McCracken the minister said "History will record these events and wonder if they were human or brute beasts who perpetrated them."

The minister at the funeral of Gordon and Joan Crothers who had a two and a half year old child said "What makes men behave in a fashion worse than the animal creation about them? Animals kill only to eat when they are hungry and, within that law, they are clean. But when men kill in wrath, brutally and without mercy and consideration from some misguided sense of racial hatred, then they are worse than the mad dogs. They are without mercy and deserve none in return."

The Rev. Magee, at a 1998 anniversary interview said "I actually felt that it would be a watershed, that things couldn't get any worse, that surely the fact that people had been killed who were unquestionably innocent would mean that everyone would take a step back and begin to look at their actions. Unfortunately there have been many others killed in a senseless way since then."

The Untold Story of one Survivor

Joe Morrison was in the La Mon house at the time of the fireball explosion when he and his late wife arrived there was only one table left at the window. When the bomb went off Joe was covered in a fireball along with his wife Sandra.

After the explosion Joe said " my wife was gone" there was nothing I or anyone could have done to save anyone in the room that night.

For many years Joe shielded his children from the truth of how their mother died in the La Mon House massacre.

He said "I tried to hide the actual events of the bomb but other people just weren't as thoughtful as I was."

When their mother died Joe's children were three and five years of age. Joe said when "Keith the youngest heard what had happened to his mother, his mental torture began. Keith came as close to a nervous breakdown as a child could come to. My wee boys would have been always talking in their sleep. Their young minds were just tortured.

The unfortunate thing is that Keith fought this hard - but lost the battle when he was 26 yrs of age. " Keith took his own life on 3rd November 2000.

Joe Morrison has been unable to to sleep with the aid of alcohol or sleeping tablets since the massacre at La Mon house.

Joe a grandfather of two said he used to go to church and pray to God that he would live long enough to see his boys into adulthood.

He said "I prayed to God that my two boys would not be left orphans. I had two faces - one for the public and my boys and another face for when I was on my own. I led a double life for years and it has taken its toll on me. I would not like any other family to go through what we have been through."

12th February La Mon firebomb Commons campaign launched

A campaign for MPs to support demands for a public inquiry into the La Mon House Hotel massacre has been made in the House of Commons. Strangford MP Iris Robinson called for the inquiry by tabling an Early Day Motion in Parliament on Monday. February 17 marks the 24th anniversary of the massacre in which 13 people were killed when the IRA launched a no-warning fire bomb attack on the Co Down hotel.

Mrs Robinson said colossal amounts of public money have been spent on inquiries into the deaths of nationalists in Londonderry and other places while those suspected of masterminding the bombing at La Mon “have been elevated to positions of Statesmen and have not been investigated fully”. “The 24th anniversary of this bombing is almost upon us and I am hoping that fellow Members of Parliament will support my call for public inquiries into this and other similar atrocities carried out by the Provisional movement,” she said.

She added: “While Sinn Fein/IRA are placed in government in Northern Ireland, while the IRA's terrorist prisoners are released from jail and their MPs are given offices in the House of Commons, relatives of those killed by IRA terrorists are forgotten and tossed to the side by the Government. “We cannot let their deaths go unsolved.” www.NewsLetter.co.uk