A FLUTE band dedicated to a well-known I.R.A member will lead the march for the Annual Republican Commemoration next Monday.
The Republican Flute Band is named after Edward O’Brien, a Wexford Provisional Irish Republican Army (I.R.A) volunteer who died after the bomb he was carrying exploded prematurely on a London bus.
O’Brien grew up in Gorey before joining the I.R.A in 1992. He was described in an Irish Republican memorial book as ‘a thoughtful and strong-willed young man who very serious about his commitment but frustrated about not playing a more active role in Irish republicanism.’
Soon after, he went to England to engage in paramilitary activity in an active service unit. Documents later recovered from O’Brien’s residence indicated he was working for the IRA in Britain early as August 1994, collecting information on targets, and assembling bomb-making equipment during a seventeen-month ceasefire.
O’Brien died on February 18 1996, when an improvised explosive device he was carrying detonated prematurely on a number 171 bus in Aldwych, in central London.
The two kg semtex bomb detonated as he stood near the door of the bus. A pathologist found O’Brien was killed “virtually instantaneously” having lost his legs, while two passengers and the driver (left permanently deaf) were injured in the explosion. Evidence suggested that the bomb exploded whilst O’Brien stood at the bottom of the stairs of the double-decker bus.
During a police search of his London address 15 kg of semtex, 20 timers, four detonators and ammunition for a 9mm Walther revolver were discovered, along with an incendiary device. The Walther pistol was discovered on him after his death. The inquest into his death heard that O’Brien was likely responsible for a planting a similar bomb in a London telephone box on February 15, but it was later deactivated by the police.
The explosion occurred nine days after the London Docklands Bombing in which two people died. O’Brien was the first IRA volunteer to lose his life in the aftermath of the Docklands bombing, that signalled the end of the “cessation of military operations” ordered by the IRA leadership in 1994.
O’Brien is buried in St Michael’s Cemetery in Gorey, County Wexford, Ireland. His relatives and the Catholic Church requested that republicans stay away from his funeral service, but several dozen Sinn Féin and I.R.A members ignored these pleas.
The march in his name will take place next Monday, when the commemoration will assemble at 2 p.m at RafterBridge, before setting off at 2.30 p.m for St. Mary’s Cemetary. The return route will be via Nunnery Road and Main Street terminating at Market Square, where Amhráin na bFiann will be playing.
The oration will be delivered by Sandra McLellan T.D.