Woman saves club from bomb

Press, 7 August 1976, Page 7

Woman saves club from bomb

NZPA Belfast A woman saved a golf club from a terrorist bomb yesterday when she carried the device from the building to a hedge 10m away, the Press Association reported. The heroine at Belfast’s Balmoral Golf Club was the wife of former British Open golf champion, Fred Daly. Mrs Jean Daly was in the professionals’ shop when three men, one qrraed, walked in demanding money. She refused and one of the men left a bag containing a bomb at the back of the shop, which is attached to the main clubhouse. As they ran off, Mrs Daly did not hesitate to take the bomb outside. “It never entered my head that it might go off,” she said. “I did it on the spur of the moment. It felt like a heavy bag of shopping. I was going to carry it to the car park, but a man who saw me told me to drop it and I put it down beside a hedge.”

The bomb exploded about 15 minutes latdr and the only damage was some shattered windows.

The shop is run by the couple’s son Robin, aged 25. Mr Daly, aged 65, is head professional at the club and won the British Open in 1947. Mrs Daly’s grandson, Frederick, was in the shop at the time.

Mrs Daly said her action was spurred by the fact that the shop was her son’s livelihood. “I was thinking of him and 1 had to do it,” she said. After the unsuccessful robbery attempt the terrorists ran to a waiting car and drove away. In other incidents in Belfast yesterday, a bomb was planted in a'warehouse full of gas cylinders in Grosvenor Road, West Belfast. No-one was injured in the explosion but it started a big fire and gas cylinders exploded in the heat. Some were blown up to a quarter of a mile away. Families living nearby were moved out as the fire spread. Terrorists also struck at an office block in Castle Lane, less than 100 m inside the city centre’s main security gates.

A bomb exploded in the doorway of Thompson Buildings and damaged the ground floor. A warning was given and there were no injuries