Royal Portrush is a quiet haven nowadays but the Open venue brings back memories of bombings
A quarter before midday on Thursday 5 August 1976, two men walked into the pro shop at Balmoral golf club in south Belfast, one carrying a package in a plastic shopping bag, the other a gun. Fred Daly, the 1947 Open Champion, was the head pro at Balmoral, and his wife, Jean, was working in the shop that day, which was usually run by their son, Robin. She had her 13-year-old grandson there with her too. One man asked her for money, and when she told him they did not have any, the other put his bag down on the floor and said: “That’s a bomb.” Then they both ran back out the door.
Jean Daly paused for a second. “I thought it was real because they sped off so quickly,” she said later. “The shop is my son Rob’s livelihood, I was thinking of him and I had to do it,” she said, “it was a spur of the moment thing.” So she bent over and picked it up. “It felt like just like a heavy bag of shopping.” She carried it back out the door. “I was going to carry it out to the carpark but a man who saw me told me to drop it because it might go off so I set it down by the hedge.” Word had spread, and the course had been evacuated. It exploded 15 minutes later.
Written by Andy Bull at Royal Portrush
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jul/20/open-golf-portrush-bombings-memories under the title “When the Troubles intruded on the quiet world of golf in Northern Ireland | Andy Bull”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
