Birmingham pub bombings

The Birmingham pub bombings were bombings by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA)^[1] in Birmingham, England on November 21, 1974 which killed 21 people and injured 182^[2]. The devices were placed in two central Birmingham pubs: the Mulberry Bush, at the foot of the Rotunda, and the Tavern in the Town, a basement pub on New Street (now renamed the Yard of Ale). A memorial plaque, commemorating the victims of the bombings, is situated in the grounds of St. Philip's Cathedral, in the centre of Birmingham.

The attacks

At 20:11^[3] a man with an Irish accent telephoned the Birmingham Post newspaper and said that there was a bomb in the 25 storey Rotunda office block housing the Mulberry Bush pub. Police went to the Rotunda to investigate. The police started to check the upper floors of the building but failed to clear the crowded pub which was situated at street level. Just minutes later, at 20:17, the bomb exploded, devastating the crowded bar.^[3]

New Street in central Birmingham facing the cylindrical Rotunda. The Tavern in the Town was in the basement of the building on the right.

Warnings had just reached the equally crowded Tavern in the Town pub nearby,^[1] when at 20:27 a second bomb there exploded. A third device, outside a bank on Hagley Road, failed to detonate.^[4] Collectively, the attacks were the most injurious terrorist attacks in England until the July 2005 London bombings; 21 people were killed (ten at the Mulberry Bush and eleven at the Tavern in the Town) and 182 people were injured. A list of the dead is available on the CAIN website ^[5] In the book Error of Judgement, Mick Murray (a Provisional IRA volunteer arrested later for other bombings) is quoted as telling Paddy Hill and Johnny Walker (two members of the Birmingham Six) that the phone boxes that were supposed to have been used by IRA volunteers to phone in a warning about the bombs were vandalised so they had to find another one some distance away.^[6] Thirty years after the bombings in 2004, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams expressed regret for the loss of life in the attacks, but no apology or admission of responsibility by the Provisional IRA has yet been made. ^[7]

The Birmingham Six

The Birmingham Six^[8][9] were immediately accused of carrying out the attack; they were convicted and served sixteen years in jail before their convictions were overturned after the scientific evidence was discredited, and the documents setting out the confessions were found to be unreliable due to police tampering.^[10][11][12]

External links

• The man behind the pub bombs in Birmingham that killed 21 - article from The Times - includes the names of the people killed in the bombings
• Birmingham999.co.uk - includes witness accounts of the bombings
• On this day report by the BBC on the incident
• On this day report by the BBC on the six men being charged

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Birmingham pub blasts kill 19", BBC News, 1974-11-21. Retrieved on 2007-08-15. 
2. ^ The Birmingham Framework -Six Innocent Men Framed for the Birmingham Bombings; Fr. Denis Faul and Fr. Raymond Murray (1976)
3. ^ ^{a b} Mullin, Chris (1990). "Chapter 1", Error of Judgement, 3rd, Poolbeg, Page 1. ISBN 1 85371 090 3. 
4. ^ Mullin, Chris (1990). "Chapter 1", Error of Judgement, 3rd, Poolbeg, Page 5. ISBN 1 85371 090 3. 
5. ^ CAIN An Index of Deaths from the conflict in Ireland
6. ^ pp 153-154, Error of Judgement, Mullin, Chris, 3rd Edition, Poolbeg Press
7. ^ Adams expresses regret for Birmingham pub bombings Irish Examiner 22 November 2004)
8. ^ http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0128/S.0128.199103150004.html
9. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19980710/ai_n14177272
10. ^ Expert Witnesses And The Duties Of Disclosure & Impartiality: The Lessons Of The IRA Cases In England; Beverley Schurr
11. ^ CAIN:Chronology of the Conflict 1991
12. ^ Guardian Story