"I still have flashbacks, " he recalls. "There were body parts stuck to the walls.

There could be no horror movie like it. I want the politicians down South to recognise our suffering because our own leaders ignore it."

James Kell, whose brother Trevor was shot dead six years ago, was also on the Shankill bus: "He'd only started taxiing three days earlier. He wanted money for the kids for Christmas. I want to tell the Southern government to stop rewarding terrorists and to pay attention to the victims."

The mood on the bus was optimistic. Nobody believed there would be trouble in Dublin. Aileen Quinton, whose mother was killed in the 1987 Enniskillen bomb, said: "My mother was from Donegal so I've every right to go to Dublin. She was a nurse. All she ever did was help people. My parents honeymooned in Dublin . . . it's a lovely city. The people are very decent."

Sandra Smyth's father Billy was injured in a bomb attack in Belfast's Mountainview Bar said: "He lost the sight in one eye, hearing in one ear, and the use of fingers on his right hand. The Dublin government hasn't ever listened to our story. I want them to now."

But the rally was severely curtailed. Organiser Willie Frazer denied any responsibility for the violence: "Some of the victims crossed the border for the first time in their lives. They were horrified. They'll never be back."