The Guardian of McGurk’s Bar Massacre Lies

50 years ago today, on Christmas Eve 1971, the Guardian newspaper published a heinous piece of disinformation about the victims of the McGurk's Bar Massacre.

Less than 3 weeks after the Loyalist explosion at McGurk's Bar, which claimed the lives of 15 civilians, including 2 children, the Guardian newspaper published this in its throw-away Miscellany section:

"Blown off course

Security men and forensic scientists have finished the grisly investigation of the explosion in Paddy McGurk's Bar, which killed at least 15 Belfast Catholics this month.

If the are to be believed - and in this case - they probably are - this figure will have to be revised upwards.

They claim to have established that 5 men were standing around the bomb when it went off, inside the crowded bar in North Queen Street. All five wer blown to pieces.

The scientitsts have been able to identitfy one of them as a senior IRA man who was an expert on explosives and was on the Government's wanted list.

Of all the conflicting theories about the explosion, the security men are now convinced that the bar was a transfer point in the IRA chain between makers and the planters of the bomb. Something went wrong and the bomb exploded."

Guardian Disinformation

We know, of course, that the Guardian printed lies that criminalised innocent victims. The forensic report was not finished till February 1972 and at no point did it ever say that 5 were stood around the bomb when it exploded and it blew them apart. It said that a couple of the victims were hit with splinters, which proved that a solid wood door was in between them at the bar and the bomb. It was placed in the porch entranceway with the heavy, closed door in front of it.

We now know too that the British authorities knew within hours from the British Army's own Ammunition Technical Officer that the seat of the explosion was clearly the entranceway where an eyewitness saw it planted and lit by the bomber before he escaped in a car.

The Guardian printed lies that were created by the British Armed Forces and can be traced directly back to Brigadier Frank Kitson and the Royal Ulster Constabulary just over 4 hours after the explosion.