Post by Matt McNamara on Mar 8, 2011 21:35:01 GMT
Hi All
As a young boy growing up on O’Higgins Terrace in 1975, I remember the hive of activity when the soldiers from Plunkett Barracks were assembled when the the kidnapped Dr. Tiede Herrema was located in a house in St Evin’s Park Monastervin. The following photographs from local photographer and historian Oliver McCrossan and article from the Time Magazine give an insight into what was at the time world headline news.
On October 3rd 1975 republicans, Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle, abducted and kidnapped a Dutch businessman, Dr. Tiede Herrema, from near his home in Castletroy, Co. Limerick
As reported in Time Magazine USA - 1975
In Ireland, an army helicopter hovered over ruined castles and abandoned farms in the desolate landscape north of Limerick, searching for signs of a kidnap hideout. The hostage was Tiede Herrema, 54, Dutch manager of a foreign-owned steel plant who had been abducted near Monaleen, four miles from Limerick, apparently by Irish Republican Army extremists.
The kidnapers demanded the release of three notorious I.R.A. terrorists, including Bridget Rose Dugdale, 34, the militant heiress and Ph.D. in economics who is serving a nine-year sentence in Limerick prison for hijacking a helicopter and for stealing $20 million worth of paintings from a private collector.
One of the kidnapers was believed to be Eddie Gallagher, known I.R.A. Provo and putative father of Dugdale's ten-month-old son.
Announced Dublin's Minister of Justice Patrick Cooney: "Such demands have to be resisted. The best protection against such kidnaping is to let the people who carry them out ascertain that they are quite futile exercises." Nonetheless, a Dutch representative of Herrema's firm was ready to pay an undisclosed sum as ransom and fly the kidnapers out of Ireland. Even if the terrorists were to give up on the release of Dugdale and the other prisoners, the government would have to agree to give the kidnapers safe passage abroad.
While these decisions were being argued, squads of policemen in Ireland, backed by army units, were combing the countryside and watching the border, ports and airports for Herrema and his abductors. Father Donal O'Mahoney, a priest who is reportedly in contact with the kidnapers, declared that Herrema is "by no means safe and the situation is still critical."
The release of Dr. Herrema was part of a negotiated deal with senior gardai that would ensure Gallagher would get no more than four years in prison, and Coyle two. In the event, they were given sentences of 20 and 15 years respectively.
Matt
As a young boy growing up on O’Higgins Terrace in 1975, I remember the hive of activity when the soldiers from Plunkett Barracks were assembled when the the kidnapped Dr. Tiede Herrema was located in a house in St Evin’s Park Monastervin. The following photographs from local photographer and historian Oliver McCrossan and article from the Time Magazine give an insight into what was at the time world headline news.
On October 3rd 1975 republicans, Eddie Gallagher and Marion Coyle, abducted and kidnapped a Dutch businessman, Dr. Tiede Herrema, from near his home in Castletroy, Co. Limerick
As reported in Time Magazine USA - 1975
In Ireland, an army helicopter hovered over ruined castles and abandoned farms in the desolate landscape north of Limerick, searching for signs of a kidnap hideout. The hostage was Tiede Herrema, 54, Dutch manager of a foreign-owned steel plant who had been abducted near Monaleen, four miles from Limerick, apparently by Irish Republican Army extremists.
The kidnapers demanded the release of three notorious I.R.A. terrorists, including Bridget Rose Dugdale, 34, the militant heiress and Ph.D. in economics who is serving a nine-year sentence in Limerick prison for hijacking a helicopter and for stealing $20 million worth of paintings from a private collector.
One of the kidnapers was believed to be Eddie Gallagher, known I.R.A. Provo and putative father of Dugdale's ten-month-old son.
Announced Dublin's Minister of Justice Patrick Cooney: "Such demands have to be resisted. The best protection against such kidnaping is to let the people who carry them out ascertain that they are quite futile exercises." Nonetheless, a Dutch representative of Herrema's firm was ready to pay an undisclosed sum as ransom and fly the kidnapers out of Ireland. Even if the terrorists were to give up on the release of Dugdale and the other prisoners, the government would have to agree to give the kidnapers safe passage abroad.
While these decisions were being argued, squads of policemen in Ireland, backed by army units, were combing the countryside and watching the border, ports and airports for Herrema and his abductors. Father Donal O'Mahoney, a priest who is reportedly in contact with the kidnapers, declared that Herrema is "by no means safe and the situation is still critical."
The release of Dr. Herrema was part of a negotiated deal with senior gardai that would ensure Gallagher would get no more than four years in prison, and Coyle two. In the event, they were given sentences of 20 and 15 years respectively.
Matt
