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Incorporating The Irish Fire Service Preservation Group
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Belfast Blitz


Picture
Paddy O'Flaherty in Dublin Fire Brigade Museum. The helmet was worn in Belfast in 1941 by District Officer Michael Rogers. On Easter Tuesday, April 15, 1941, hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers began what became known as the Belfast Blitz. 
Ireland remained neutral during World War II but Taoiseach Eamonn De Valera decided to send firemen to help the stricken city. Volunteer crews travelled from Dublin, Dun Laoghaire, Drogheda and Dundalk. They found much of  the city devastated after the four-hour bombing raid.
Reporter Paddy
  O'Flaherty discovered a few surprises as he researched the story. It was already  part of his family history. His maternal grandfather, Patrick Rooney, drove the  Dundalk fire engine that arrived first in Belfast. But the full story  has never  been told. The record books held by the Dublin Fire Brigade Museum make  no mention of the fact that the city's firemen made a life-saving dash to  Belfast. The event was not officially recorded, partly because of fear of  repercussions from Germany. There were also concerns about the question of  responsibility in the event of a southern fireman being killed or seriously
  injured. O'Flaherty was also surprised to find there is no official list of the names of all the firemen who travelled north. They became the hidden heroes. 

The request for help was made by the Stormont Minister for Public  Security, John McDermott, who later became Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. As flames engulfed large parts of Belfast he asked Deputy Prime  Minister Basil Brooke for mission to request assistance from Dublin. Brooke agreed and the message reached De Valera, possibly via the railway telegraph because telephone lines had been destroyed. About 200 tons of bombs were  dropped on the city which was largely unprotected. Before Germany invaded France  it was thought that Belfast was beyond the range of the Luftwaffe. It
became an  easy target for aeroplanes leaving from the Brest Peninsula in north-western  France. Nearly a thousand people were killed in the Blitz. Outside  London, this was the greatest loss of life in a single night air raid during the  war. About 100,000 people were left homeless. The main  targets were the  Harland & Wolff shipyard, the Short Brothers aircraft
factory and James  Mackie's engineering factory. The city had few air  raid shelters. Some  people, Catholics and Protestants, took refuge in the crypt at the Redemptorist  Monastery at Clonard in West Belfast. O'Flaherty visits the crypt and sees the  event recorded in the monastery diary. Among the blitz survivors he meets  91-year-old Rita Brown. She was at a concert in the Ulster Hall in the centre of  Belfast when the blitz began. The star was the Connemara singer Delia Murphy. As  the air raid warning sounded some people fled but most remained in the hall. Delia continued to sing as the bombing started
- and she went on  singing until the raid ended. Rita says Delia calmed the crowd and undoubtedly  saved lives by persuading people not to leave the hall, which escaped the bombs.  As she walked home, Rita, like the firemen, was  appalled by the horrific scenes  of destruction.

Belfast City Hall

Rembering the Belfast Blitz,  
 70 Years on, May 2011 .
Members of Dublin Fire Brigade, Dundalk Fire Brigade, Drogheda Fire Brigade, Retired Members of both Dublin Fire Brigade and Dun Laoghaire Fire Brigade and members of the Fire Service Trust  travelled to Belfast to attend the Commeration.

Drogheda

Rembering the Belfast Blitz, 
70 Years on,  2011 .
Members of  Northern Ireland Fire Service , Northern Ireland Fire Services Historical Society,
Dublin Fire Brigade, Dundalk Fire Brigade,  Drogheda Fire Brigade, Retired Members of both Dublin Fire Brigade and Dun  Laoghaire Fire Brigade and members of the Fire Service Trust attended the Commeration


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