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news
The Finnstown Hotel (CC licensed image by Erin Khoo:Flickr)Was huge Dublin bomb intended for attack on Giro d'Italia?
Anti-terrorist detectives in Dublin uncovered a huge bomb that was primed and ready to be detonated on Saturday night, leading to speculation that the bombers’ intended target was stage 3 of the Giro d’Italia, which arrived in Dublin on Sunday.
"This was a deadly, full-size bomb which had been wired up and ready for imminent use. If it had gone off it would have caused total devastation," a source told the Irish Independent.
The bomb was concealed in a milk churn in a car in the car park of the Finnstown Country House hotel in Lucan, Co Dublin. It contained 50lb of explosives made from fertiliser and had a timer attached.
The device was found after a 999 call to gardai at about 8.40pm on Saturday night.
Dissident republicans are suspected of transporting the bomb from Belfast to Dublin recently. It is believed the device was going to be moved from the Lucan car park to its intended target.
Although a man with links to the Real IRA has been arrested, it has not been confirmed that the Dublin finish of stage 3 of the Giro d’Italia was the target. But security sources believe that the bombers may have planned to stage a city centre atrocity to attract worldwide attention.
With hundreds of thousands of fans lining the streets of Dublin for the Giro and a worldwide audience estimated at up to 125 million, an attack on the race would certainly have fulfilled that aim.
According to security sources, the device, made safe by an Army Bomb Squad, was fitted with a Timer Power Unit, a hallmark of all major IRA bombs. Also known as a "safe to arm" switch, the TPU can be set to detonate at a given time, which can range from a few hours to several days or even months after it is set.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
- Rendel Harris 1 hour 2 min ago
As what you have said is demonstrably untrue, given that the event is organised and has been for the last four years by a professional events...
- chrisonabike 1 hour 30 min ago
Accessibility issue. Of course by necessity / co- evolution the Dutch generally provide a fairly "one size fits standard bikes" parking solution -...
- Kapelmuur 1 hour 41 min ago
Thanks for the heads up. I wore it the first time the temperature fell below 10C, with a merino base layer. A short ride of about 90 minutes, I...
- Steve K 2 hours 45 min ago
I'm there now too, if anyone wants a follow/wants to follow me. @cyclingtheseaso
- Shepton 3 hours 21 min ago
I totally agree. I used to commute through Long Ashton and only started getting agro from motorists when the pavement was made to be a shared path....
- Rendel Harris 3 hours 45 min ago
She was still there in Greenwich when I cycled past her on Wednesday!
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It's obviously a very personal thing but if I was in the market at your budget I would take a serious look at the Ribble AllRoad SL Pro, currently...
- Hirsute 5 hours 46 min ago
No driver involved https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/24728452.car-crash-station-way-colch...
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40 comments
yeah whatever.
I'm a massive fan of the Roman Empire and Julius Caesar himself, hence my signature message and my spqr badge (which is roman as well in case you didn't know). Just because i like them doesn't mean i condone bombs and terrorism, Dave also has a team called vini vidi vici does that mean he is the same ?????????????????
Its not implying you support terrorism to simply note that that quote is oddly appropriate for the topic of people aiming to bring about political change via violence. I don't think anyone would assume because you have it as a signature you therefore agree 100% with every possible implication of it.
Apparently in Confucian thought also, it was always held that rebellion against legitimate authority was morally wrong and deserving of any punishment the authority deigned to dish out - but that if you successfully overthrew the authority, that itself proved it wasn't in fact legitimate, so therefore your rebellion was retrospectively OK after all! Apparently the communists found that traditional idea very useful.
Yep point taken, i've misunderstood his comments completely
The bomb doesn't have to be detonated, though. It can be put in place, and then phoned in by the terrorists with plenty of time to safely defuse it. They still cause massive chaos, potentially force the race to be cancelled and get maximum publicity.
Thankfully this one has been caught.
You seem to know and like to comment a lot about bombs and "ancient" history..are you sure you are on the right website? This is a cycling website. That " alleged bomb" was no more meant for the Giro than that dude on Eurovision was meant to be a woman. I actually said it to my father in Belfast on Friday that there would be some bullcrap stirred up over the weekend...
Ehh ... are *you* sure you're on the right website?
Some brainless dope decided to make a name for himself with an alleged bomb, something totally unrelated to cycling, and a major headline on this cycling website is that the dope with the bomb may have been targeting the Giro, but got caught, and then making a big story out of it. Ya, maybe I'm not on the right website. I'm a cycling fan and a cyclist........and the Giro "over here" from Bushmills to Dublin was bloody great. I hope all goes well for the Grand Depart "over there" as well....Stick to cycling stories please.
Oops, forgot: there was another bomb that went off. The IRA blew the top off Nelson's column in O'Connell st - seen as a symbol of English dominion. Was reasonably expertly done, with minimal damage other than to the column. The Irish army then went to finish the demolition and blew up the remaining stump, and took out every window in O'Connell St, the story goes.
It'd be very, very hard to see why dissident republicans would want to set off a bomb in Dublin. There's only every once been a bombing in Dublin, in the 60s, and that was set off by unionists.
madness....fucking madness
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