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A
Provisional Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...
(IRA) assassination attempt against members of the British government took place on 12 October 1984 at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, East Sussex, England, United Kingdom. A long-delay
time bomb A time bomb (or a timebomb, time-bomb) is a bomb whose detonation is triggered by a timer. The use (or attempted use) of time bombs has been for various purposes including insurance fraud, terrorism, assassination, sabotage and warfare. They are ...
was planted in the hotel by Patrick Magee before
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
and her cabinet arrived there for the Conservative Party conference. Although Thatcher narrowly escaped the blast, five people were killed, including the Conservative MP and
Deputy Chief Whip The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes. United Kingdom ...
Sir Anthony Berry Sir Anthony George Berry (12 February 1925 – 12 October 1984) was a British Conservative politician. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Enfield Southgate and a whip in Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Bar ...
, and a further 31 were injured.


Preparation

During
the Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...
, as part of its armed campaign against
British rule in Northern Ireland British rule in Ireland spanned several centuries and involved British control of parts, or entirety, of the island of Ireland. British involvement in Ireland began with the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. Most of Ireland gained indepen ...
, the
Provisional Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...
(IRA) regularly engaged in violent attacks, including bombings, against British authorities. While these incidents were largely confined to Northern Ireland, the IRA were known to carry out attacks in Britain itself, most recently with the
Balcombe Street siege The Balcombe Street siege was an incident involving members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and London's Metropolitan Police lasting from 6 to 12 December 1975. The siege ended with the surrender of the four IRA members and the r ...
in 1975. By the late 1980s,
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
had come to the top of their list for assassination. In October 1984, Thatcher's Conservative Party was scheduled to hold its conference at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, East Sussex. Patrick Magee, an IRA volunteer, stayed in the hotel under the
pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
"Roy Walsh" on the weekend of 14–17 September. During his stay, he planted a bomb under the bath in his room, number 629, five floors above Thatcher's suite for the conference. The device was fitted with a long-delay timer made from
videocassette recorder A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the reco ...
components and a
Memo Park Timer An egg timer or kitchen timer is a device whose primary function is to assist in timing during cooking; the name comes from the first timers initially being used for the timing of cooking eggs. Early designs simply counted down for a specific per ...
safety device. IRA
mole Mole (or Molé) may refer to: Animals * Mole (animal) or "true mole", mammals in the family Talpidae, found in Eurasia and North America * Golden moles, southern African mammals in the family Chrysochloridae, similar to but unrelated to Talpida ...
Sean O'Callaghan Sean O'Callaghan (10 October 1954 – 23 August 2017) was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s worked against the organisation from within as an intelligence agent for the Irish Gover ...
claimed that 20 lb (9 kg) of Frangex (
gelignite Gelignite (), also known as blasting gelatin or simply "jelly", is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or guncotton) dissolved in either nitroglycerine or nitroglycol and mixed with wood pulp and salt ...
) was used. The device was described as a "small bomb by IRA standards" by a contemporary news report and may have avoided detection by
sniffer dog A detection dog or sniffer dog is a dog that is trained to use its senses to detect substances such as explosives, illegal drugs, wildlife scat, currency, blood, and contraband electronics such as illicit mobile phones. The sense most used by ...
s by being wrapped in cling film to mask the smell.


Bombing

The bomb detonated at approximately 2:54 am (BST) on 12 October. The blast brought down a five-ton chimney stack, which crashed down through the floors into the basement, leaving a gaping hole in the hotel's façade. Firemen said that many lives were probably saved because the well-built Victorian hotel remained standing."1984: Tory Cabinet in Brighton bomb blast"
BBC 'On This Day'. Thatcher was still awake at the time, working in her suite on her conference speech for the next day. The blast badly damaged her suite's bathroom, but left its sitting room and bedroom untouched. She and her husband Denis escaped injury. She changed her clothes and was led out through the wreckage along with her husband and her friend and aide Cynthia Crawford, and driven to a Brighton
police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...
station. At about 4:00 am, as Thatcher left the police station, she gave an impromptu interview to the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's John Cole saying that the conference would go on as usual.
Alistair McAlpine Robert Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine of West Green (14 May 1942 – 17 January 2014) was a British businessman, politician and author who was an advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. McAlpine was descended from the McAlpine baronet ...
persuaded
Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...
to open early at 8:00 am so those who had lost their clothes in the bombing could purchase replacements. Thatcher went from the conference to visit the injured at the
Royal Sussex County Hospital The Royal Sussex County Hospital is an acute teaching hospital in Brighton, England. Together with the Princess Royal Hospital, it is administered by the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. The services provided at the hospital in ...
.


Casualties

The bombing killed five, none of whom were Cabinet ministers. A Conservative MP,
Sir Anthony Berry Sir Anthony George Berry (12 February 1925 – 12 October 1984) was a British Conservative politician. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Enfield Southgate and a whip in Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Bar ...
(
Deputy Chief Whip The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes. United Kingdom ...
), was killed, along with Eric Taylor (North-West Area Chairman of the Conservative Party), Lady Shattock (Jeanne, wife of Sir Gordon Shattock, Western Area Chairman of the Conservative Party), Lady Maclean (Muriel, wife of Sir Donald Maclean, President of the Scottish Conservatives), and Roberta Wakeham (wife of Chief Whip
John Wakeham John Wakeham, Baron Wakeham, (born 22 June 1932) is a British businessman and Conservative Party politician. Between 1998 and 2012, he was chancellor of Brunel University, and since then has been its chancellor emeritus. He was a director of E ...
). Donald and Muriel Maclean were in the room in which the bomb exploded, but Donald survived. Several more were permanently disabled, including
Walter Clegg Sir Walter Clegg (18 April 1920 – 15 April 1994) was a British Conservative politician. Clegg contested Ince in 1959 and was elected Member of Parliament for North Fylde in 1966. He became a Lord of the Treasury in 1970 and was successivel ...
, whose bedroom was directly above the blast, and
Margaret Tebbit Margaret Elizabeth Tebbit, Lady Tebbit (; 24 May 1934 – 19 December 2020) was an English nurse who was paralysed from the chest down by the Provisional IRA's 12 October 1984 bombing of the Grand Brighton Hotel, where she was staying with her ...
who fell 4 floors and after undergoing two years of treatment recovered some use of her hands but used a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Thirty-four people were left injured. When hospital staff asked Norman Tebbit, who was less seriously injured than his wife, Margaret, whether he was allergic to anything, he is said to have answered "bombs".


Aftermath


IRA statement

The IRA claimed responsibility the next day, and said that it would try again. Its statement read:


Thatcher's response

Thatcher began the next session of the conference at 9:30 am the following morning, as scheduled. She dropped from her speech most of her planned attacks on the Labour Party and said the bombing was "an attempt to cripple Her Majesty's democratically elected Government": One of her biographers wrote that Thatcher's "coolness, in the immediate aftermath of the attack and in the hours after it, won universal admiration. Her defiance was another Churchillian moment in her premiership which seemed to encapsulate both her own steely character and the British public's stoical refusal to submit to terrorism." Immediately afterwards, her popularity soared almost to the level it had been during the Falklands War. The Saturday after the bombing, Thatcher said to her constituents: "We suffered a tragedy not one of us could have thought would happen in our country. And we picked ourselves up and sorted ourselves out as all good British people do, and I thought, let us stand together for we are British! They were trying to destroy the fundamental freedom that is the birth-right of every British citizen, freedom, justice and democracy."


Approval in Britain

At the time of the bombing, the miners' strike was underway. Morrissey, frontman of the English
alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...
band
the Smiths The Smiths were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1982. They comprised the singer Morrissey, the guitarist Johnny Marr, the bassist Andy Rourke and the drummer Mike Joyce. They are regarded as one of the most important acts to eme ...
, joked shortly after: "The only sorrow of the Brighton bombing is that Thatcher escaped unscathed." David Bret wrote in the book ''Morrissey: Scandal & Passion'' that "The tabloids were full of such remarks; jokes about the tragedy were cracked on radio and television programmes. A working-men's club in
South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and metropolitan county, metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of City of Doncaster, Doncaster and City of Sh ...
seriously considered a whip-round "to pay for the bomber to have another go". In 1986, English punk band the
Angelic Upstarts Angelic Upstarts are an English punk rock / Oi! band formed in South Shields in 1977. AllMusic calls them "one of the period's most politically charged and thought-provoking groups". Angelic Upstarts Biography AllMusic. accessed 3 July 2006 T ...
celebrated the IRA's assassination attempt with their single "Brighton Bomb". They released an album of the same name in 1987.


Patrick Magee

Once investigators had narrowed the seat of the blast to the bathroom of Room 629, police began to track down everyone who had stayed in the room. This eventually led them to "Roy Walsh", a pseudonym used by IRA member Patrick Magee. Magee was tailed for months by
MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
and special branch, and finally arrested in an IRA flat in
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
. Despite days of interrogation he refused to answer questions – but a fingerprint on a registration card recovered from the hotel ruins was enough to convict him. He was arrested on 24 June 1985 with other members of an IRA
active service unit An active service unit (ASU; ) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) cell of four to ten members, tasked with carrying out armed attacks. In 2002, the IRA had about 1,000 active members of which about 300 were in active service units. T ...
while planning further bombings in England. Many years later, in August 2000, Magee admitted to ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' that he carried out the bombing, but told them he did not accept he left a fingerprint on the registration card, saying "If that was my fingerprint I did not put it there". In September 1985, Magee (then aged 35) was found guilty of planting the bomb, detonating it, and of five counts of murder. Magee received eight
life sentence Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
s: seven for offences relating to the Brighton bombing, and the eighth for another bomb plot. Justice Sir
Leslie Boreham Sir Leslie Kenneth Edward Boreham (19 October 1918 – 2 May 2004) was an English barrister and judge. He presided over two high-profile court cases, of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe (1981) and Brighton bomber Patrick Magee (1986). ...
recommended that he serve at least 35 years, describing Magee as "a man of exceptional cruelty and inhumanity." Later
Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
Michael Howard lengthened this to "whole life". However, Magee was released from prison in 1999 under the terms of the
Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...
, having served 14 years (including the time before his sentencing). A British Government spokesman said that his release "was hard to stomach" and an appeal by then Home Secretary
Jack Straw John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
to forestall it was turned down by the Northern Ireland High Court. In 2000, Magee spoke about the bombing in an interview with ''The Sunday Business Post''. He told interviewer Tom McGurk that the British government's strategy at the time was to depict the IRA as mere criminals while containing
the Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...
within
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
: Of those killed in the bombing, Magee said: "I deeply regret that anybody had to lose their lives, but at the time did the Tory ruling class expect to remain immune from what their frontline troops were doing to us?"


Attitudes towards security

'' Daily Telegraph'' journalist David Hughes called the bombing "the most audacious attack on a British government since the
Gunpowder Plot The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby who sough ...
" and wrote that it "marked the end of an age of comparative innocence. From that day forward, all party conferences in this country have become heavily defended citadels".


In popular culture

The bombing is depicted in the 2011 biographical film '' The Iron Lady''. Jonathan Lee's 2015 novel ''High Dive'' is a fictionalised account of the bombing, written largely from the alternating perspectives of the hotel manager, his teenage daughter, and an IRA bombmaker who helps Magee. Rights to the book were purchased and it is in development as a potential feature film. The third novel in Adrian McKinty's "Troubles Trilogy", '' In the Morning I'll Be Gone'', features his RUC detective protagonist Seán Duffy trying to prevent the Brighton bombing and saving Thatcher. In the third season of the alternate history TV series ''For All Mankind'', an opening news reel reports that Margaret Thatcher was killed in the attack.


See also

* Carlton Club bombing *
1981 Irish hunger strike The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special C ...
* Assassination of Spencer Perceval * Chronology of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions (1980–89) *
Downing Street mortar attack The Downing Street mortar attack was carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 7 February 1991. The IRA launched three homemade mortar shells at 10 Downing Street, London, the headquarters of the British government, in an ...


References


Sources


Text of the BBC television news report on the morning of the attack

BBC News photo journal of the attack

BBC News report on Straw's attempt to prevent the early release of Magee




* ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/10/newsid_2510000/2510649.stm BBC report on Magee being convicted of the bombing


Further reading

* Charles Moore, ''Margaret Thatcher: At Her Zenith'' (2016) 2: 309–16. * Kieran Hughes, ''Terror Attack Brighton – Blowing up the Iron Lady'' (2014). * Steve Ramsey, ''Something Has Gone Wrong – Dealing with the Brighton Bomb'' (2018). {{The Troubles, state=collapsed 1984 in British politics 1984 in England 1984 murders in the United Kingdom 1980s building bombings 20th century in Brighton and Hove 20th-century mass murder in England Attacks on buildings and structures in 1984 Attacks on hotels in Europe Building bombings in England Crime in Brighton and Hove Failed assassination attempts in the United Kingdom Hotel bombing History of the Conservative Party (UK) Hotel bombings Improvised explosive device bombings in 1984 Mass murder in 1984 Murder in East Sussex October 1984 crimes October 1984 events in the United Kingdom Provisional IRA bombings in England Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1984 Political violence in England