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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.
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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...
What a prat.
At least in Dublin a soldier can walk down the street without having his head sawn off by some Muslim fundamentalists.
And you say 'fuck them'? You need to look a LOT closer to home...
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.
Yep point taken, i've misunderstood his comments completely
Classic example of Betteridge's Law of Headlines.
Helping crappy journalists post crappy stories since forever.
I don't agree with that rule and as a journalist, that's not why I use a question mark on a headline. I use question marks either because there's an element of doubt, or because something unproven, or as a legal get out. In this last instance, the question mark means it's possible to raise an issue, without actually saying that's the case. The exclamation mark is used by journalists for the same reason - 'Freddie Starr ate my hamster!' - which basically says that the journalist doesn't believe a word of this spurious claim either but is running the story because it'll grab attention and sell issues. Betteridge's law is out of date.
I've just come back from a long weekend trip to Northern Ireland to cycle and watch the Giro.
Whilst I am not suggesting we bury our heads in the sands about the issues that still exist, these types of articles give off a completely wrong impression of the area and Road.cc should think about the damage it may cause before publishing stuff like this, I'm not interested in journalism or freedom, this is a cycling web site which should promote and not damage.
I can hand on heart say that the weekend was amazing and I've never had such a friendly welcome and made to feel special. From the local shop keeper, to other cyclists, bar staff, people in the street, all genuinely interested in where we had come from and thanked us for supporting Northern Ireland.
The place is beautiful, the roads smooth and quiet, when we did see a car they moved as far over to the other side of the road as possible, it was a fantastic experience, we never saw any trouble, we drank in Belfast city centre, a lovely friendly place with lots of happy drunks including us.
So well done to Northern Ireland and thanks a million for giving us a brilliant time.
Hear hear.
Looks like the Indo has changed it's angle on the story :
http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/irish-newspaper-that-linked-dubl...
Too late though-the damage has already been done
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