diamond den™
11-08-2004, 07:15 PM
The Grand Bombing
"Today we were unlucky, but remember we have only to be lucky once; you will have to be lucky always."
This was the Irish Republican Army's chilling statement after they had carried out the most outrageous crime in their history - the attempted murder of the whole British Cabinet at The Grand Hotel, Brighton, on Oct 12th 1984.
Not since Guy Fawkes and the Gun Powder Plot of 1605 had such an audacious crime been attempted in the name of politics.
October is officially "conference month" in the world of British politics, and the week of the 8th to 12th in 1984 was devoted to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton. As per usual, the last day of the conference would be dominated by the leader's speech, and Mrs Thatcher was working late, putting the finishing touches to this task.
Shortly after 2:35am, she was interrupted by her principle Private Secretary Sir Robin Butler, who needed her to look over "just one more paper." And just moments later, as the prime minister sat down in the armchair of her hotel room, with her back to the window, a bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel with devastating effect. The time was 2.40am.
Eyewitnesses to the bombing saw a piercing flash light up the seafront that triggered a chain of awesome destruction. Masonry was flung into the night, ripping the heads off parking meters and shattering a seafront shelter across the street.
A huge chimneystack at the top of The Grand Hotel plunged through ceilings and floors, taking with it sleeping guests who were plunged into the foyer and basement. The devastation was widespread, and many people were trapped in the mangled mountain of wreckage, while others staggered into the street. You can see the devastation in the picture on the right.
The Prime Minister's bathroom had been extensively damaged, but she and her husband Dennis had miraculously escaped unscathed. Many others had not been so fortunate.
John Wakeham, the Tory Chief Whip was trapped in darkness under tons of rubble; "Keep talking to me," he aksed of his rescuers, "keep me alive".
The outspoken Trade and Industry secretary, Norman Tebbit, was also pulled from the rubble grimacing in pain, while his wife Mary was tragically left permanently disabled.
In total, five people had lost their lives to the explosion, and over 30 were left injured. But the next day, in true combative form, Mrs Thatcher looked undeterred as she made her conference speech: "This government will not weaken, this nation will meet the challenge, democracy will prevail".
An old hatred
The plot to bomb The Grand had been hatched some three years earlier as an act of revenge for the hard-line stance Mrs Thatcher had taken over the death of Bobby Sands and other IRA hunger strikers that were fighting for political status in prison. The man entrusted to carry out this destructive crime was one of the IRA's top terrorists, Patrick Magee.
Magee had lived in northern England until 1971 were he had been nicknamed "The Chancer". He was attracted to Northern Ireland by the conflict and a chance to fight, and bombing was his speciality. This violent tendency was soon noticed, and by the height of the troubles in the 1970s, he had been made the IRA's Chief Explosives Officer.
His career was briefly interrupted in 1973, when he served two years at Her Majesty's Pleasure in the Maze Prison after admitting to being a member of the IRA. A prisoner in the Maze, at the same time as Magee, later recalled: "His whole aim in life was to get the Brits out of Ireland".
After successful bombings in Northern Ireland, Police intelligence believes that Magee was sent to London to form an IRA splinter cell. With his English upbringing, technical skill and loyalty to the cause, he made an ideal undercover agent for the IRA on the mainland. And it wasn't long before he made his mark.
Attempts to blow-up a gas holder at Greenwich and a tank of aviation fuel at Canvey Island, were both linked to Magee, but he evaded police capture by escaping to Amsterdam and Dublin, before returning to England to carry out the IRA's most outrageous attack; the attempted assassination of the British Cabinet.
The aftermath
After sifting through tons of rubble from the bombing, police experts were able to exactly identify the type of bomb and the timing device. They could also pinpoint the date on which the deadly package was primed and placed behind the bath panel of Room 629. And barely two months after the blast had sent shockwaves around the political world, the police had identified Magee as the main suspect.
Meticulous undercover work had confirmed that Magee had returned to Holland, but a detailed picture was being built up of his friends and associates, and investigations had discovered a network of false names and documents that were muddying the trail.
The battle to convict the man who bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton was finally won by the scientific skill of forensic officers at Scotland Yard's laboratory in Lambeth. David Tadd, a finger print expert with 18 years experience, had managed to match a palm print and fingerprint of a man called "Roy Walsh", which was extracted from the registration card for Room 629. The same prints were found at the Rubens Hotel in London, where a bomb was discovered and successfully defused. Incredibly, these prints matched those taken from Magee when he was pulled over for a teenage driving offence many years earlier.
Apprehended
Magee was finally caught when he returned to the UK and a team of armed police swooped on a flat in Glasgow that had been the centre of his terrorist operation. Police also found a stockpile of weapons, bombs and timers very close nearby.
Magee was tried and convicted as the architect of the IRA's most audacious attack on the British establishment, and he received eight life sentences at the Old Bailey in 1986. Justice Boreham duly sentenced him to a minimum of 35-years behind bars, labelling him a man of exceptional cruelty and inhumanity. In response, Magee simply lifted his clenched fist, and shouted, in Gaelic, the Irish Republican slogan "Tiochfaidh ar La" - our day will come.
Magee only served 14 years of his 35-year sentence, and was released early under the terms 1998 Good Friday Peace Accord. During his prison term he married an American woman whom he met as a pen pal, and completed a doctoral thesis on fiction related to the conflict. Had the IRA bomber served the sentence recommended by Justice Boreham, he would have still been in prison as a pensioner in 2020.
Understandably, his early release caused wide spread revulsion across the UK, with an official spokesman for Number 10 describing his release as being "very hard to stomach."
Now that the IRA has declared a ceasefire, Magee views his failure to kill Mrs Thatcher as important to the outcome of the continuing peace process. In his opinion, the fatal blast has in fact paved the way for peace: "The awareness that it could have been worse actually gave the IRA more leverage than if they had actually killed Mrs Thatcher. In fact, if half of the British Government had been killed it might have been impossible for a generation in the British establishment to come to terms with us."
Although he now regrets the killings he carried out, he views them as necessary; "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? After Brighton, anything was possible, and the British for the first time began to look very differently at us."
Although the threat of an IRA attack has perhaps subsided, it has been replaced after September 11th with an even greater peril. The bombing of The Grand Hotel has permanently changed the face of party political conferences, with tight military style security now a formality at such conference events. And no matter where they are held in Britain, with or without a ceasefire, this kind of high profile security is likely to remain.
However, the true lesson to be learnt from the Brighton Bombing is how vulnerable we are to acts of terrorism, and that no amount of security and money can stop a determined terrorist from achieving their ultimate goal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/caseclosed/grandbombing.shtml
"Today we were unlucky, but remember we have only to be lucky once; you will have to be lucky always."
This was the Irish Republican Army's chilling statement after they had carried out the most outrageous crime in their history - the attempted murder of the whole British Cabinet at The Grand Hotel, Brighton, on Oct 12th 1984.
Not since Guy Fawkes and the Gun Powder Plot of 1605 had such an audacious crime been attempted in the name of politics.
October is officially "conference month" in the world of British politics, and the week of the 8th to 12th in 1984 was devoted to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton. As per usual, the last day of the conference would be dominated by the leader's speech, and Mrs Thatcher was working late, putting the finishing touches to this task.
Shortly after 2:35am, she was interrupted by her principle Private Secretary Sir Robin Butler, who needed her to look over "just one more paper." And just moments later, as the prime minister sat down in the armchair of her hotel room, with her back to the window, a bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel with devastating effect. The time was 2.40am.
Eyewitnesses to the bombing saw a piercing flash light up the seafront that triggered a chain of awesome destruction. Masonry was flung into the night, ripping the heads off parking meters and shattering a seafront shelter across the street.
A huge chimneystack at the top of The Grand Hotel plunged through ceilings and floors, taking with it sleeping guests who were plunged into the foyer and basement. The devastation was widespread, and many people were trapped in the mangled mountain of wreckage, while others staggered into the street. You can see the devastation in the picture on the right.
The Prime Minister's bathroom had been extensively damaged, but she and her husband Dennis had miraculously escaped unscathed. Many others had not been so fortunate.
John Wakeham, the Tory Chief Whip was trapped in darkness under tons of rubble; "Keep talking to me," he aksed of his rescuers, "keep me alive".
The outspoken Trade and Industry secretary, Norman Tebbit, was also pulled from the rubble grimacing in pain, while his wife Mary was tragically left permanently disabled.
In total, five people had lost their lives to the explosion, and over 30 were left injured. But the next day, in true combative form, Mrs Thatcher looked undeterred as she made her conference speech: "This government will not weaken, this nation will meet the challenge, democracy will prevail".
An old hatred
The plot to bomb The Grand had been hatched some three years earlier as an act of revenge for the hard-line stance Mrs Thatcher had taken over the death of Bobby Sands and other IRA hunger strikers that were fighting for political status in prison. The man entrusted to carry out this destructive crime was one of the IRA's top terrorists, Patrick Magee.
Magee had lived in northern England until 1971 were he had been nicknamed "The Chancer". He was attracted to Northern Ireland by the conflict and a chance to fight, and bombing was his speciality. This violent tendency was soon noticed, and by the height of the troubles in the 1970s, he had been made the IRA's Chief Explosives Officer.
His career was briefly interrupted in 1973, when he served two years at Her Majesty's Pleasure in the Maze Prison after admitting to being a member of the IRA. A prisoner in the Maze, at the same time as Magee, later recalled: "His whole aim in life was to get the Brits out of Ireland".
After successful bombings in Northern Ireland, Police intelligence believes that Magee was sent to London to form an IRA splinter cell. With his English upbringing, technical skill and loyalty to the cause, he made an ideal undercover agent for the IRA on the mainland. And it wasn't long before he made his mark.
Attempts to blow-up a gas holder at Greenwich and a tank of aviation fuel at Canvey Island, were both linked to Magee, but he evaded police capture by escaping to Amsterdam and Dublin, before returning to England to carry out the IRA's most outrageous attack; the attempted assassination of the British Cabinet.
The aftermath
After sifting through tons of rubble from the bombing, police experts were able to exactly identify the type of bomb and the timing device. They could also pinpoint the date on which the deadly package was primed and placed behind the bath panel of Room 629. And barely two months after the blast had sent shockwaves around the political world, the police had identified Magee as the main suspect.
Meticulous undercover work had confirmed that Magee had returned to Holland, but a detailed picture was being built up of his friends and associates, and investigations had discovered a network of false names and documents that were muddying the trail.
The battle to convict the man who bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton was finally won by the scientific skill of forensic officers at Scotland Yard's laboratory in Lambeth. David Tadd, a finger print expert with 18 years experience, had managed to match a palm print and fingerprint of a man called "Roy Walsh", which was extracted from the registration card for Room 629. The same prints were found at the Rubens Hotel in London, where a bomb was discovered and successfully defused. Incredibly, these prints matched those taken from Magee when he was pulled over for a teenage driving offence many years earlier.
Apprehended
Magee was finally caught when he returned to the UK and a team of armed police swooped on a flat in Glasgow that had been the centre of his terrorist operation. Police also found a stockpile of weapons, bombs and timers very close nearby.
Magee was tried and convicted as the architect of the IRA's most audacious attack on the British establishment, and he received eight life sentences at the Old Bailey in 1986. Justice Boreham duly sentenced him to a minimum of 35-years behind bars, labelling him a man of exceptional cruelty and inhumanity. In response, Magee simply lifted his clenched fist, and shouted, in Gaelic, the Irish Republican slogan "Tiochfaidh ar La" - our day will come.
Magee only served 14 years of his 35-year sentence, and was released early under the terms 1998 Good Friday Peace Accord. During his prison term he married an American woman whom he met as a pen pal, and completed a doctoral thesis on fiction related to the conflict. Had the IRA bomber served the sentence recommended by Justice Boreham, he would have still been in prison as a pensioner in 2020.
Understandably, his early release caused wide spread revulsion across the UK, with an official spokesman for Number 10 describing his release as being "very hard to stomach."
Now that the IRA has declared a ceasefire, Magee views his failure to kill Mrs Thatcher as important to the outcome of the continuing peace process. In his opinion, the fatal blast has in fact paved the way for peace: "The awareness that it could have been worse actually gave the IRA more leverage than if they had actually killed Mrs Thatcher. In fact, if half of the British Government had been killed it might have been impossible for a generation in the British establishment to come to terms with us."
Although he now regrets the killings he carried out, he views them as necessary; "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? After Brighton, anything was possible, and the British for the first time began to look very differently at us."
Although the threat of an IRA attack has perhaps subsided, it has been replaced after September 11th with an even greater peril. The bombing of The Grand Hotel has permanently changed the face of party political conferences, with tight military style security now a formality at such conference events. And no matter where they are held in Britain, with or without a ceasefire, this kind of high profile security is likely to remain.
However, the true lesson to be learnt from the Brighton Bombing is how vulnerable we are to acts of terrorism, and that no amount of security and money can stop a determined terrorist from achieving their ultimate goal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/caseclosed/grandbombing.shtml