The Brighton bombing in 1984 was the most audacious terrorist attack
ever on the British Government. Certainly it was the most ambitious
since the Gunpowder plot of 1605. The Provisional I.R.A. detonated a
bomb at the Grand Hotel on 12th October 1984. Most of the Government
were staying at the hotel at the time. The Conservative party was
holding its annual conference in the town. Five people were killed in
the explosion, and more than thirty were injured. It came very close to
wiping out most of the Government, including the Prime Minister,
Margaret Thatcher. The I.R.A.'s Patrick Magee had booked into the Grand
Hotel under the false name of Roy Walsh, about a month before. He
planted a bomb with a long-delay timer, hidden under a bath in one of
the rooms. He was given eight life sentences for the crime, but released
from prison in 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement. He served just
fourteen years behind bars.
It was one of two IRA bombs aimed directly at the collective Government
of the day. The other was in February 1991 when, at the height of the
Gulf War security alert, the I.R.A. fired a mortar bomb directly at
Downing Street. The War Cabinet was in session to discuss the threat
from Saddam Hussein. The bomb was only yards from hitting the Prime
Minister and his senior colleagues. The Grand Hotel bombing and the
Downing Street bombing were 'different' to the IRA's other attacks. They
were aimed directly at the heart of the democratically elected
Government of the day, particularly the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Other IRA bombings either caused greater loss of life, resulted in more
injuries or were of a far greater financial cost. For example, attacks
at Omagh in 1998 killed twenty-eight, the explosion in the City in
London in 1993 cost one billion pounds and the Manchester Shopping
Center bomb in 1996 saw two-hundred people hurt. Devastating as these
attacks were, it can be argued that they were aimed at getting
attention, disrupting democracy, costing the country money and bullying
their way to the political decision making process.
