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Sat 05 May 2004Sensitive salute to a traumatised townAnthology: As the Dublin bombs occupied the news on Friday May 17th, 1974, households in Monaghan Town were hurrying the evening tea to go to the annual parish retreat in the Cathedral.At 6.47 p.m. the bomb exploded in Church Square. Shattered windows showered down on the telephonists in the exchange. Blast debris pounded the iron-roofed printing house of the Northern Standard. The doors flew off Mary Berwick's fridge, presses and the cooker in which she was baking meringues for a school cake sale. Pieces of the green Hillman Minx car with the bomb landed in her upstairs drawing room. Shaken by the blast, the arm of the gramophone on the top landing dropped on to an old 78 record and began to play Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Then a 30-year silence.