The 1973 Old Bailey bombing (dubbed as Bloody Thursday by newspapers in Britain) was a
car bomb
A car bomb, bus bomb, van bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles.
Car bombs can be roug ...
attack carried out by the
Provisional IRA
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; ) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland ...
(IRA) which took place outside the
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...
Courthouse on 8 March 1973. The attack was carried out by an 11-person
active service unit
An active service unit (ASU; ) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) Clandestine cell system, 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 i ...
(ASU) from the
Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. The unit also exploded a second bomb which went off outside the
Ministry of Agriculture near
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London, England. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It ...
in London at around the same time the bomb at the Old Bailey went off.
This was the Provisional IRA's first major attack in England since
the Troubles
The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed t ...
began in the late 1960s. One British civilian died of a heart attack attributed to the bombing. Estimates of the injured range from 180 to 220 from the two bombings. Two additional bombs were found and defused. Nine people from Belfast were convicted six months later for the bombing, one person managed to escape and one was acquitted for providing information to the police.
Background
The Troubles
The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed t ...
had been ongoing in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
and to a lesser extent in the
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. ...
since the late 1960s. Rioting, protests, gun battles, sniper attacks, bombings and
punishment beatings became part of everyday life in many places in Northern Ireland, especially in the poorer working class areas of
Belfast
Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
and
Derry
Derry, officially Londonderry, is the second-largest City status in the United Kingdom, city in Northern Ireland, and the fifth-largest on the island of Ireland. Located in County Londonderry, the city now covers both banks of the River Fo ...
. These events and others helped to heighten sectarianism and boosted recruitment into
Irish republican
Irish republicanism () is the political movement for an Irish republic, void of any British rule. Throughout its centuries of existence, it has encompassed various tactics and identities, simultaneously elective and militant and has been both w ...
and
Ulster loyalist
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Unionism in Ireland, Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland (and formerly all of I ...
paramilitary
A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934.
Overview
Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...
groups and the
security forces
Security forces are statutory organizations with internal security mandates. In the legal context of several countries, the term has variously denoted police and military units working in concert, or the role of irregular military and paramilitar ...
; mainly the newly created
Ulster Defence Regiment
The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was an infantry regiment of the British Army established in 1970, with a comparatively short existence ending in 1992. Raised through public appeal, newspaper and television advertisements,Potter p25 their offi ...
.
England had been relatively untouched from the violence up until the beginning of 1973, but the
IRA Army Council had drawn up plans for a bombing campaign to take place in England some time early in 1973. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, loyalist paramilitaries had bombed
Dublin
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
and other parts of the Republic of Ireland a number of times before the IRA began its bombing campaign in England. Following
the Dublin bombings in late 1972 and in January 1973 carried out by Loyalists which killed three people and injured over 150, the media attention these bombings received helped the IRA decide to take its campaign to Britain in return.
Billy McKee explained to journalist Peter Taylor that another reason the IRA brought their campaign to England was that the IRA had decided to bomb England early if there was an emergency in the IRA and it began to weaken in Ireland. The arrest of top IRA personnel in both the Republic and Northern Ireland like
Máire Drumm,
Seán Mac Stíofáin,
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and
Martin McGuinness
James Martin Pacelli McGuinness (; 23 May 1950 – 21 March 2017) was an Irish republican politician and statesman for Sinn Féin and a leader within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) during The Troubles. He was the deputy First Minist ...
in late 1972 helped to convince the IRA to bomb England to take the heat off of the IRA in Ireland.
The IRA selected the
volunteers
Volunteering is an elective and freely chosen act of an individual or group giving their time and labor, often for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergenc ...
who would constitute the ASU for the England bombing operation, which was scheduled to take place on 8 March 1973, the same day that a
border poll – boycotted by Nationalists and Roman Catholics
– was being held in Belfast. Volunteers from all three of the IRA's Belfast Brigade Battalions were selected for the bombing mission, the team included 19-year-old
Gerry Kelly (a future Sinn Féin MLA), 24-year-old
Robert "Roy" Walsh (an expert bomb maker from Belfast),
Hugh Feeney (a Belfast-born IRA volunteer and explosives expert), and two sisters,
Marian, 19, and
Dolours Price, 22, from Belfast who were from a staunchly Republican family, along with five other lesser-known volunteers from Belfast: Martin Brady, 22, William Armstrong, 29, Paul Holmes, 19, William McLarnon, 19, and Roisin McNearney, 18.
Bombing
Several days before the bombing, the leaders of the IRA ASU, which included sisters Marian and Dolours Price, went to London and picked out four targets: the
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...
, the
Ministry of Agriculture, an army recruitment office near
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London, England. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It ...
and
New Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's London boroughs, 32 boroughs. Its name derives from the location of the original ...
. They then reported back to their
Officer Commanding
The commanding officer (CO) or commander, or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually giv ...
in Belfast, and the IRA Army Council gave the go ahead. The bombs were made in Ireland and transported to London via ferry, according to Marian Price.
The
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the ...
warned the British that the ASU was travelling to England, but were unable to provide specifics as to the target.
The drivers and the volunteers who were to prime the bombs woke up at 6:00 a.m. and drove the car bombs to their various targets. Gerry Kelly and Roy Walsh drove their car bomb to the Old Bailey. It was planned that by the time the bombs went off at around 15:00, the ASU would be back in Ireland. The bomb at New Scotland Yard was found at 8:30 by a policeman who noticed a discrepancy in the number plate.
The bomb squad started lifting out bags of explosives and separated them, so that if the bomb did go off, the force of the explosion would be greatly reduced. The bomb squad eventually found the detonating cord leads, which ran under the front passenger seat of the car; Peter Gurney, a senior member of New Scotland Yard, cut the detonator cord leads, defusing the bomb. The bomb at New Scotland Yard weighed 175 lbs of gelignite explosive and the core of the bomb was wired to a time-fuse.
However, at the Old Bailey the bomb exploded, injuring many and causing extensive damage. Scotland Yard stated it had warned the
City of London Police
The City of London Police is the territorial police force#United Kingdom, territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, England, including the Middle Temple, Middle and Inner Temple, Inner Temples.
The for ...
at 14:01 to search near the Old Bailey for a green
Ford Cortina
The Ford Cortina is a medium-sized family car manufactured in various body styles from 1962 to 1982. It was the United Kingdom's best-selling car of the 1970s.
The Cortina was produced in five generations (Mark I through to Mark V, although of ...
; the car was not located until 14:35 and exploded at 14:49 while police were evacuating the area.
A shard of glass from the explosion is preserved as a reminder, embedded in the wall at the top of the main stairs. Several more people were injured by the car bomb near the Ministry of Agriculture, which brought the total number injured to over 200. A British man, 60-year-old Frederick Milton, died of a heart attack.
Dolours Price wrote in her memoir: "There were warnings phoned in but people had stood about, curious to see... If people ignored the warnings and stood around gawking, they were stupid. The numbers of injured came about through curiosity and stupidity."
The ASU was caught trying to leave the country at
Heathrow Airport
Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...
prior to the explosions, as the police had been forewarned about the bombings and were checking all passengers to Belfast and Dublin. All ten gave false names that did not match their documents and they were detained. The IRA Volunteer who gave a warning about the bombs an hour before they exploded was the only one not captured.
Court and sentence
The IRA volunteers had to be tried at Winchester Crown court sitting in
Winchester Castle
Winchester Castle is a medieval building in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1067. Only the Great Hall still stands; it houses a museum of the history of Winchester.
History
Early history
Around AD 70 the Romans constructed a ...
as the Old Bailey was wrecked by the car bomb there. The trial took 10 weeks and was set amid extremely strict security. William McLarnon pleaded guilty to all charges on the first day of the trial. On 14 November 1973, a jury convicted six men and two women of the bombings. The jury acquitted Roisin McNearney in exchange for information and she was given a new identity. As her verdict was handed down, the other defendants began to hum the
"Dead March" from ''Saul'', and one threw a coin at her, shouting "Take your blood money with you" as she left the dock in tears.
Six of the nine people convicted admitted to
Provisional IRA
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; ) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland ...
membership.
At the court, the judge sentenced the eight to life imprisonment for the bombings and 20 years for conspiracy, while 19 year old William McLarnon whose family was forced out of their home in August 1969 was sentenced to 15 years,
when his sentence was read out he shouted "Up The Provisional IRA".
As the eight were led to the cells below the court, several gave
raised fist salutes to relatives and friends in the public gallery, who shouted "Keep your chins up" and "All the best". The Price sisters immediately went on hunger strike, soon followed by Feeney and Kelly, for the right not to do prison work and to be repatriated to a jail in Ireland. The bombers on hunger strike were eventually moved to jails in Ireland as part of the
1975 IRA truce agreed with the British. Kelly took part in the 1983
Maze Prison escape and became part of an IRA ASU in the Netherlands; he was recaptured three years later by the Dutch authorities and extradited.
In 1984 Patrick Brady (36), a civilian milkman and brother of London bomber Martin Brady was murdered by the
Ulster Freedom Fighters in Belfast. The Home Office in London refused to allow Martin Brady to attend his brothers funeral at Miltown cemetery in Belfast.
Further IRA bombs in England
The Old Bailey bomb was the beginning of a sustained bombing campaign in England. The next major bombing by the IRA in England was the
King's Cross station and Euston station bombings which injured 13 people and did widespread damage. Another significant attack that year was the
1973 Westminster bombing which injured 60 people. Two more people would die in England from IRA bombings in 1973, bringing the total to three for the year in that part of United Kingdom. The next year 1974, was the bloodiest year of the Troubles outside of Northern Ireland with over 70 people being killed in the Republic of Ireland and England combined. 21 from the
Birmingham pub bombings, 12 from the
M62 coach bombing and several people were killed by the IRA's
Balcombe Street Gang.
One of the Old Bailey bombers Marian Price explained the IRA's reasoning for bombing England.
"It doesn't seem to matter if it's Irish people dying." So if the armed struggle was to succeed then it was necessary to "bring it to the heart of the British Establishment" Hence symbolic targets such as the Old Bailey: "the targets were carefully chosen".
Sources
CAIN project*Ed Moloney
''Voices From The Grave: Two Men's War In Ireland''*Peter Taylor
''Behind The Mask: The IRA and Sinn Fein''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Old Bailey bombing, 1973
1973 building bombings
1973 in London
Provisional IRA bombings in London
1970s crimes in London
Car and truck bombings in the 1970s
Old Bailey
Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1973
March 1973 in the United Kingdom
Car and truck bombings in London
History of the City of London
Building bombings in London
Attacks on government buildings and structures in the United Kingdom
Attacks on courthouses