servile-masses-arise:

“The procession was led by four men carrying black, furled flags, and a band, which played the “Dead March” as it reached the embassy. The crowd stayed put in spite of the lashing rain, and after a few minutes the first petrol bombs began to hit the building. They were lobbed over the heads of a force of about 200 Irish policemen, some wearing white helmets, who would have been powerless against the crowd. Some of the petrol bombs landed in the road, causing minor injuries to police and onlookers.

Three coffins draped in black were placed on the embassy steps, two Union Jacks were burned, and an effigy of a British soldier was set on fire. Then, after about half an hour, three men managed to reach the first floor of the embassy by jumping from the balconies of buildings nearby. Some of them flew a tricolour at half mast from the embassy flagpole, and another, equipped with a small axe, hacked at the shutters on three of the first floor windows. After they descended to the street, police moved into the crowd to find them, but were forced back.

Then the rate of petrol bomb throwing doubled, and bombs began to land inside the building. Shortly after 5 o’clock, the embassy was well alight. It was the third time that crowds had tried to fire the building as anti-British feeling, and a sense of total shock and outrage, has grown steadily since the shootings in Derry on Sunday. There were protest marches throughout the country all yesterday and hundreds of thousands of people attended special services in Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, and in synagogues.

All shops, offices, banks, schools, hotels, and factories were closed in memory of the 13 killed on Sunday, and only a minimal bus service ran through Dublin. The day of mourning has been almost totally observed, at any rate to a much greater extent than was expected on Tuesday. Black flags were draped on buildings everywhere, many with the figure 13 in white.

Outside the Post Office in O’Connell Street, members of the Provisional wing of Sinn Fein collected money for the IRA, and three men in black berets stood at attention opposite a tricolour. British offices and airline headquarters were boarded up and protected by the police.”

The Guardian, Thursday 3 February 1972