How the IRA planned the Bombing in England

Sean MacStiophain was opposed to the campaign in England from the beginning. There were repeated arguments at army council level in the early years over this issue, especially in August 1971 after internment, in Feb 1972 after Bloody Sunday and, more particularly, in August 1972 after Operation Motorman. Several members of the IRA army council believed at the latter time that the most effecitve response to the massive British operation in Northern Ireland then would be a bombing campaign in England.

It was only towards the end of 1972 that MacStiophain finally conceded and the planning of a bombing operatoin in London finally got underway. This was to reesult in the March 8, 1973 bombings in London, for which the Price sisters and seven others were later to be convicted. The basic strategy of that opertation was to take the British police by surprise - the bombs would be planted in cars in four strategic locations in central London, the bombers would be back in Ireland before the explsions occurred. But clever police work frustrated the escape - one of the cars was identified some hours before the explosions were to take place, arrests were made at london airport and the team was caught.

But it was not just a question of the team being caught but of the strategy being of a once off nature. Following these bombings there was considerable pressure from members of SInn Fein based in England to be allowed conduct a bombing capaign of their own. This was agreed to by the leadership - MacStiophain was by then in jail - and there then began two years of bombings conducted almost entirely by Irish people living in Britain. The campaign was amateurish and often reckless but however hamfisted the bombers were, the British police were even more maladriot. Literally hundreds of bombings were conducted during these years under the noses of the British police. Those involved in the campaign were well known to the authorities but almost nothing was dine to apprehen them.

This was all the more extraordinary, givven the security breaches which the bombers themselves were guilty of. There were regular instances of bombers boasting of their exploits in pubs. The names of the bombers were common knowledge in the Sinn Fein circle and its fringe in London, Mangester and Birmingham. In one case a fellow who had planted a bomb in the centre of Manchester on a Saturday evening returned later that night with his pals from a local pub to show them the devastation he had caused. That person, hardly surprisingly, was later caught and convicted of another bombing.

Bu t the bombers weren't all naive amateurs.. One of them, Martin Coughlin of Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham,was as professional as the IRA had known. He was born in 1941 in Dublin and had gone to England in his teens looking for work. In 1957 he jined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment but left in 1960 and set up a painting company with a John Molloy. Coughlin, although he had had no formal educatuion, was a very astute and a natural leader. He recruited into an IRA unit in the Birmingham and Manchester area several key operatirs and he was responsible for mringing devastation to that area of a quite horrific kind, for Coughlin built a unit around himself which was to include  other highly competent operators, including Gerry Small, Edward Byrne, a Tipperary man, Patrick Joseph Guilfoyle, James McDade and two younf sisters, Bernadette and Eileen Gillespie.

On April 26, 1974 this group ran into its first serious problem when Guilfoyle accidentally set off explosives in a house in Manchester - incredibly, he was smoking while making incendiary devices. Byrne, who was with him, was. badly burned and later arrested in hospital. The conflagration which resulted from the explosion put the police on the trail of the Gillespie sisters and they were arrested trying to board a boat for Dublin. THe others, however escaped.

The Gillespie sisters were later sentenced to along term of imprisonment for various bombings. In fact-they had never been on active service and the involvement they had was with Guilfoyle in that house in Manchester when he set off the incendiary devices.

The others were caught three months later in  Manchester when police discovered a bomb factory. Coughlin wasn't present when the initial arrests were made but on hearing rumours of them he set out to confirm them and walked straight into the arms ofthe police.

On November 14, 1974 James McDade was killed while placing explosives outside a in Manchester. His death was to be followed by events Which were to shock the world and cause the Provisionals to switch their tactics for the England bombing campaign. For on the night of November 21 in a series of explosions in Manchester, 21 people - all civilians - were killed and 162 injured, many appalingly. The IRA at first denied any complicity in the operation - it was a lie. Later, David O'Connell, the senior member of the IRA headquarters staff, announced that there would be a thorough enquiry within the movement.
There was never any enquiry into the incident and even people who were in senior positions in the movement then are still not sure what happened.

Some facts are evidentshowever:

* there was high emotion that day when police people attending the funeral of James McDade. We have been informed however that the people responsible for the Manchester bombings were not at McDade's funeral and therefore could not have been motivaated personally by anything that happened there.
* contrary to the Provisional IRA denial, it was the Provisional IRA which was responsible for the bombings.
* In the weeKs prior to the bombings a decision had been taken by the IRA army council to switch targets in England from commercial to military and that no warnings should be given in respect of military targets. There appears to have been some confusion in Manchester on November 21 over whether warnings should be given or not when the warnings were eventually given, it Was too late.

Six people, all of whom were arrested on their way to Ireland to take part in McDade's funeral, were arrested later that night. All alleged that they were beaten by police and forced to sign confessions - there was independent medical evidence to support this contention. All subsequentally and ever since have protested their innocence. All were sentenced to life imprisonment.

While the horror of the Manchester bombings caused alarm within the Provisionals and serious repercussions within the movement in terms of loss of popular support, there was no question then of calling off the campaign in England. In fact, preparations were in hand for a new phase to the carppaign, which was to prove even more devastating. That was to send a special service unit to London comprised of four men, Joe O'Connell, Eddie Butler, Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty. All these were experiennced and mature operators. Their job was to lie low in Lonndon until suitable targets became available. The targets were to include not alone property but prominent individuals and top business people in particular.

In fact this group was already in Britain byt the time that the Manchester bombings occurred. Their operation took place in October 1974 and for the next years they were to wreak havoc over a large part of south east England, including the centre of London. In fact one of their first operations was the Guildford bombings of early October 1974.

Later in October they bombed the Victoria ex-Servicemen's club in London and Brook's Club in St James. In November they bombed a pub frequented by soldiers in Woolich.

The Provos called a cease fire during the Christmas of 1974. This broke down in early 1975 and the London unit again went into action. They bombed again during their interegnum between the breakdown of that first ceasefire and the calling of another which was to last for several months.

When the campaign resumed again during tile latter part of 1975, the London four resumed their campaign. They were finally apprehended in the Soho district of London, firing from a car into an expensive restaurant. They were, pursued by police and they took over an apartment in Balcome Street where they were besieged for several days before surrendering.

Those arrests were a serious blow to the Provisionals but immediately they set about replacing this unit, but with little success. One unit got caught when they shot up a restaurant having been refused more drink, another unit was trapped when they Sbot at a police car, having broken a traffic light. A volunteer of another unit killed himself, while playing Russian roulette with a revolver during a period of boredom.

There have also been other serious set-backs. The most serious of these was the arrest of Brian Keenan in Banbridge in 1979 and his conviction of charges related to bombings in England. A fingerprint had been found on explosives in Southampton. Keenan was the-co-ordinator of the bombings in England and he was also chief of staff of the IRA for a while. He had given up a secure job at Grunndig outside Belfast to devote himself full timeto the IRA. He was a first class explosives expert and had great respect within the movement.

So serious was his loss that the IRA decided to spring him from prison in London. A team, including two well known Belfast republicans, Dickie Glenholmes and Bobby Campbell, weresent to London to mastermind and execute his escape. The plan was to spring Keenan from prison by helicopter. Dummy runs had been done on the helicopter but within a week of the deadline for the operation, the team was captured. Apparently, the police had a tap on a phone in Belfast from where a call was made to Britain saying that Bobby Campbell would be calling on one of his cousins - the police simply trailed Campbell and Glenholrnes and then swooped.

The army council decided to call off the bombing campaign in England during the course of the hunger strike in the-latter part of 1980 and most-of 1981. The campaign resumed with ferocity last October however with exploosions outside the Chelsea Barracks and on the Gas station. It appears that it was the same unit which was responsible for the bombings on July 20.

The English campaign is now very much more sophisticated than it has been. The bombers are now very well trained, they have an expert knowledge not alone of explosives but of complicated electronic devices.

The calibre of the explosives used in England is very much better than that used in Northern Ireland - gelignite is always used in England, while all sorts of explosive mixtures are substituted in the North: The reason for this is that the IRA manufactured explosives have to be packed in bulk before they make any significant impact and bulk exxplosives are obviously out of the question in terms of the very tight security situation operating in Britain.

A sustained campaign in England is very determinedly the objective of the IRA but this has enormous logistical difficulties. One of these is simply the need to acquire explosives. Another is to secure the cover of the operating team. Then there are problems of contact with the leaderrship at home etc.

But these problems seem to have been resolved now, at least for the time being. The British police have failed to make any headway in detecting the IRA unit since the campaign resumed in October of last year.

The ferocity of the outrage which the recent bombings have evoked, serve only to fuel the IRA's determination to continue the campaign. There is no reason to believe that it will not continue and with further devastating effects for several years to come.