Earlier on Friday, 17 May 1974, John and Anna O’Brien had attended the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin with their infant daughter, Anne Marie. Her treatment was progressing well. They left the hospital with Anne Marie and her sixteen-month-old sister, Jacqueline, and began walking home.
At approximately 5.28 p.m., a car bomb exploded without warning in Parnell Street. John, Anna and their two daughters, a complete family, were among those murdered.
Two minutes later, a second car bomb exploded in Talbot Street. A third detonated in South Leinster Street at approximately 5.32 p.m. The bombs had been positioned in crowded streets at the height of the Friday evening rush. There had been no warning and no opportunity to escape.
At 6.58 p.m., another car bomb exploded in Monaghan.
In the course of ninety minutes, thirty-four people including an unborn child were murdered. Almost 300 others were injured. Families were destroyed, survivors were permanently scarred, and the largest loss of life on any single day of the Troubles had taken place – not in Belfast, Derry or Armagh, but on the streets of Dublin and Monaghan.