Remembrance Day bombing
| Remembrance Day bombing | |
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| Part of the Troubles | |
The aftermath of the bombing
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| Location | Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland |
| Coordinates | 54°20′39″N 7°38′3″W / 54.34417°N 7.63417°WCoordinates: 54°20′39″N 7°38′3″W / 54.34417°N 7.63417°W |
| Date | 8 November 1987 10:43 (GMT) |
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Attack type
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Time bomb |
| Deaths | 12 |
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Non-fatal injuries
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63 |
| Perpetrator | Provisional IRA |
The Remembrance Day bombing (also known as the Enniskillen bombing or Poppy Day massacre) took place on 8 November 1987 in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. A Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded near the town's war memorial (cenotaph) during a Remembrance Sunday ceremony, which was being held to commemorate British military war dead. Eleven people (ten civilians and a police officer), many of them old age pensioners, were killed and 63 were injured. The IRA said it had made a mistake and that its target had been the British soldiers parading to the memorial.
The bombing was strongly condemned by all sides and weakened the IRA's and Sinn Féin's support for its campaign. It also facilitated the passing of the Extradition Act, which made it easier to extradite IRA suspects from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom. Loyalist paramilitaries responded to the bombing with 'revenge' attacks on Catholic civilians. The bombing has been described as a turning point in the Troubles and an incident that shook the IRA "to its core".
The IRA said that the bombing was an attempt to kill British soldiers. It has also been suggested that it was partly a retaliation for the alleged harassment of republican memorial services by the security forces. A week before the bombing, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) clashed with mourners at the funeral of IRA volunteers Eddie McSheffrey and Paddy Deery. When an IRA gunman fired a three-volley salute over the coffins, police baton charged and fired plastic bullets into the crowd. One of the coffins was knocked to the ground and a number of civilians and officers were injured.
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