Two German aircraft bombed Dublin shortly after midnight on May 31, 1941. They had apparently become disorientated while on a bombing mission over either the Mersey, or the Bristol area, both of which were bombed that night.
About 30 German aircraft were sighted around Dublin. The first plane arrived shortly after midnight. A flare was sent up to denote neutral territory, but the plane dropped a bomb off the North Circular Road; it fell on soft waste ground and did little more than excavate a huge crater. Other bombs were dropped in the Phoenix Park, where they caused great excitement among the animals in Dublin Zoo.
Most damage was done by another aircraft, which dropped four bombs in the North Stand area, leaving a 1,000-yard swathe of destruction, and killing 28 people with hundreds injured. Twenty houses were demolished, and some 55 others rendered virtually uninhabitable. More than 400 people were left homeless.
Bomb damage on North Strand Rd.
The bombs were promptly identified as German and a diplomatic protest was lodged in Berlin. The Germans explained in reply that if their aircraft were responsible it was an accident as “there can be no question of any intentional attack on Éire territory”.
“Nazi planes dropped their loads of death over a wide area of Dublin, killing and wounding more than a hundred people,” Pathé News, the movie house newsreel, reported.
The reason for the bombing had never been explained, but there have been plenty of theories. One theory was that the British had “bent” the radio beams that the Germans were using to locate their targets.
The British were certainly trying to interfere with those radio signals. It was therefore possible that some of the German aircraft involved in bombing Bristol or Liverpool had become disorientated and arrived over Dublin.
It was a clear night, and Dublin was lit up, so it should not have been mistaken for a British city, which were all blacked out.
No evidence has been found among German documents to suggest that the bombing was a deliberate attack on Dublin. Germany ultimately accepted responsibility for the Dublin bombing. In 1958, the Bonn government paid £327,000 in compensation for the destruction of life and property.
