A retaliatory IRA bombing and shooting on a loyalist pub in Belfast killed five people and injured over fifty during the Northern Ireland Troubles.
Key Facts
- Date
- 13 August 1975
- Deaths
- 5 (4 Protestant civilians, 1 UVF member)
- Injured
- More than 50
- Location
- Aberdeen Street, Shankill area, Belfast
- IRA unit leader
- Brendan McFarlane
- Sentences
- McFarlane and two others sentenced to life imprisonment
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The attack was carried out as retaliation for the Miami Showband massacre of late July 1975, in which UVF members shot dead musicians from the popular Dublin-based band at a fake military checkpoint. The IRA stated the Bayardo Bar was targeted because it was frequented by UVF members.
On 13 August 1975, a Provisional IRA unit led by Brendan McFarlane launched a combined bombing and shooting attack on the Bayardo Bar on Aberdeen Street in the loyalist Shankill area of Belfast. The assault killed four Protestant civilians and one UVF member and wounded more than fifty others.
McFarlane, Peter Hamilton, and Seamus Clarke were convicted for the attack and sentenced to life imprisonment. The incident deepened sectarian violence during the Troubles and illustrated the cycle of retaliatory killings between republican and loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland during this period.