A north Belfast man has told how a desperate father tried in vain to shield his baby daughter after a sectarian fire bomb attack on their home more than four decades ago.
Joe Dempsey (22), his wife Jeanette (19) and their daughter Brigeen, aged just 10 months, all died after the loyalist petrol bombing in New Lodge on August 27 1976.
The triple murder, which has been linked to the UVF, sent shockwaves across the north.
Loyalists attacked three homes in the Hillman Street area on the same night.
While arrested have been made over the years, no one has ever been charged.
Details have now been revealed in a family report published by campaign group Relatives for Justice.
Local man Danny McNally recounts how he tried in vain to save the young family after the alarm was raised.
He told how he frantically searched the blazing building.
“I kicked opened the front door of the house and ran up the stairs to the bedrooms,” he said.
“There was no one in the back bedroom.
“I tried to open the front bedroom door, but couldn’t as there was a mattress up against the door.
“I believe Joe and Jeanette may have put this against the door to try and stop the smoke and flames.”
He was faced with a harrowing scene when he eventually found the family.
“I eventually forced the door opened and flames immediately leaped out at me, causing severe burns to my body.
“The image I saw when I opened the door was of Joe holding his child Brigeen in his arms engulfed in flames. I didn’t see Jeanette.”
Mr McNally said the sight of the young father holding his daughter continues to haunt him.
“That image has never left me over all of these years,” he said.
“I still have nightmares about the incident.
“I have often thought about that terrible night, of Joe, Jeanette and their child.
“They were only young people starting out in life.”
Mr McNally himself spent three months in hospital being treated for burns that covered 30 per cent of his body.
The RFJ report reveals that while he made a statement to police, they never visited him in hospital or since.
Although police made multiple arrests, no-one has ever been charged with the murders, which were also the focus of a Historical Enquiries Team investigation in 2012.
In recent years concerns have been raised about the investigation and a complaint has been lodged with the Police Ombudsman.
Paul Butler from Relatives for Justice appealed for anybody with information about the murders to come forward “to give the family some answers as to how their loved ones were killed”.
