Paris-based Galway man caught in the eye of the storm

Friday night, November 13, started out like any other weekend for Paris-based Galway man, Tim McInerney.

The Barna native was with three friends enjoying a meal in Septime, a restaurant in the heart of the 10th and 11th districts of the French capital.

Their Michelin-star eatery was packed and the streets outside in the popular area for cafes, restaurants and bars were bustling.

On the way to Septime, the quartet passed by the terrace of La Belle Equipe. About 20 minutes later that café bar with outside seating was the scene of horrific shootings.

Gunmen opened fire and shot dead 19 people in one of multiple simultaneous terrorist attacks on different Parisian targets in what was the deadliest assault on French soil since World War II.

Mr McInerney (29), who was dining 15 or 20 metres away, describes the panic that gripped once bullet shots were heard.

“What we heard was just noise,” he recalls.

“A very loud noise. People say (the gunshots sounded) like firecrackers. I don’t think it really sounded like firecrackers unless it was very close to you. It sounded to me like barrels, like metal barrels falling from the sky . . .

“I think the panic was curbed a little bit by the fact that nobody knew exactly what was going on. We could only see reactions of other people. We were getting so many different reports that it was difficult to know if any of it was true.

“We didn’t know, of course, that seven different explosions had happened at that point. I would say about half of the people in the restaurant panicked and about half stayed very calm.

“There was nowhere to go. People were panicking. There were several people in floods of tears, there were several older men, totally breaking down but very quietly – we had to stay very quiet and not make a commotion.”

Outside, people were diving under cars for cover, he says. At one point a bus pulled up outside and people got off and ran in the opposite direction of the gunshots. Inside the restaurant, one man recognised the noise as that of a Kalashnikov. Diners initially took cover under the tables and then were advised to hide behind two large concrete pillars, farther back in the restaurant, which would have offered more protection from bullets.

Phones were still working but patrons were in the dark as to what was happening outside. “News came quite late. After going into hiding first, there was no news. The first we learned of it was people running in off the street saying ‘there’re tens of dead people lying on the ground out there’,” says Mr McInerney.

Mr McInerney contacted his sisters, Sarah and Ruth, back in Ireland, and later notified his parents, Dan and Martha, that he was safe.

The terror began shortly before 10pm and at about 2.30am, Septime was evacuated by military, who had swarmed the streets.

“Nobody wanted to leave but we were told to leave. They were clearing the streets systematically. Everyone was terrified of course. There was nowhere to go; no way to get home – there were no taxis, the Metro had been stopped. To walk would mean walking through central Paris. Even though it seemed like everything was over, how was anyone to know really?”

Not only was Mr McInerney so close to the attack last Friday but a fortnight previous he frequented Le Carillon with his visiting sisters for a drink.

Le Carillion – which he describes as an unpretentious, local bar popular with young Parisians, something you might find in Woodquay, Galway – was also attacked by gunmen, with up to a dozen killed.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune – along with a personal piece on the impact of the attack, by France’s Honorary Consul in Galway.