At approximately 5.30 p.m. on May 17th, 1974, three car-bombs exploded in Dublin city centre. The bombs were strategically located and timed to kill as many civilians as possible. In Parnell Street, Talbot Street and South Leinster Street that Friday rush hour, 26 people died and more than 200 were injured.
Ninety minutes later a car-bomb exploded on North Street, Monaghan. Seven people died and more than 40 were injured. The Dublin-Monaghan bombings remain the worst act of violence in the 30 years of conflict on this island. No warnings were given. No charges were brought. The killers remain at large.
Dublin had not known such carnage since Easter week 1916. Having largely escaped the ferocity and slaughter of the Troubles, Dublin now suffered its own Bloody Friday, the worst single atrocity on this island since the second World War.
Vincent Browne's moving article, filed on the night of the bombing and appearing in the next day's Irish Independent, evokes the confusion, shock and fear of Dubliners that Friday rush hour. Browne witnessed the aftermath of the Talbot Street explosion, which ripped the junction of Gardiner Street and Talbot Street apart as hundreds made their way to Connolly Station after work.
"Three or four bodies were strewn across the pavement outside Guiney's store. A human torso protruded from a shop window. In one store front there were two bodies - a man and a woman, both alive - but only just.
"The man was covered in blood but still conscious. We went over to him and he asked quietly: `Am I going to die?'. A piece of metal was stuck in his side. We lifted him with the help of two others and took him into Moran's Hotel.
"On the way he complained slightly about a pain in the left leg and cried: `My two little boys, my two little boys'."
Three hundred metres away in Parnell Street the dead lay covered with newspapers and blankets, broken plate glass lay strewn across the pavement and what one newspaper called "the pathetic litter of victims' belongings" was everywhere.
In the south of the city, crowds rushing for Pearse Station and students from Trinity College teeming out of lectures met the third explosion at the junction of South Leinster Street and Lincoln Place.
Dr John Cooper, an anaesthetist at Belfast's Mater Hospital, who was visiting Dublin that day, said the bombings were comparable with the worst blasts he had experienced in Belfast.
To this day the families of the 33 dead and the hundreds injured do not know who was responsible. A vacuum exists which has been filled with speculation and rumour. Many perceive the Dublin-Monaghan bombings as a powerful symbol of injustice.
For peace and reconciliation to be permanent and immutable, the eradication of such perceptions through the exposure of truth and the just apportioning of guilt is as important as the decommissioning of weapons, demilitarisation and the entente across the political spectrum and sectarian divide.
As the State seeks the truth with regard to its citizens infected with hepatitis C and as the Air India and Lockerbie atrocities have been doggedly pursued abroad, we should fearlessly seek the truth in relation to the Dublin-Monaghan bombings.
In the absence of such efforts only speculation, rumour and the continued perception of injustice can thrive.
The families of the dead need closure. Only truth and justice will bring it.
This concept was recognised in the Good Friday agreement, and in its aftermath the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform founded the Victims Commission which examined the case of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings under the chairmanship of the former Tanaiste, Mr John Wilson. The report of the commission recommended that a private inquiry be established to "sift out fact from fiction and strong probability from mere speculation".
On the basis of this report the present Government established an Independent Commission of Inquiry. Initially, a former chief justice, Mr Liam Hamilton, was sole member of the commission. Today, following Mr Hamilton's untimely death, Mr Henry Barron, a former Supreme Court judge, continues in his place.
The commission works in private to enable people to give evidence and information which they would not be prepared to give in a public forum. Since early 2000 the Independent Commission has collected testimony, examined documents and interviewed people in relation to the bombings. The commission will produce a final report which will go before Cabinet and the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights.
Hopefully the contents of this report will aid the quest for truth and justice in the case.
In the meantime, we should take a little time to remember the dead.
The victims of the Dublin bombings were: John O'Brien (23); Anne O'Brien (22); Jacqueline O'Brien (17 months); Anne Marie O'Brien (5 months); Anne Massey (21); Anne Byrne (35); Simone Chertrit (30); John Dargle; Patrick Fay (47); Antonio Magliocco (36); Anne Marren (20); Colette Doherty (21); Christina O'Loughlin (51); Edward O'Neill (39); Marie Phelan (20); Maureen Shiels (44); Breda Turner (21); Marie Butler; Breda Grace (35); Mary McKenna; Siobhan Rice (19); Dorothy Morris; John Walsh (27); Elizabeth Fitzgerald (59); Josephine Bradley (21) and Concepta Dempsey (65).
The victims of the Monaghan bombing were: John Travers (29); Margaret White (46); Thomas Campbell (52); Patrick Askin (53); George Williamson (73); Archibald Harper (72) and Thomas Croarkin (35).
May they rest in peace.
David Andrews TD is a former minister for foreign affairs
Breda O'Brien is on leave