| Houses of Parliament bombing | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Troubles | |
 Houses of Parliament in 2022 | |
| Location | Houses of Parliament, London, United Kingdom |
| Date | 17 June 1974 08:30 (GMT) |
| Target | Houses of Parliament |
Attack type | Time Bomb |
| Deaths | 0 |
| Injured | 11 |
| Perpetrators | Provisional IRA |
On 17 June 1974 the Provisional IRA bombed the British Houses of Parliament causing extensive damage and injuring eleven people. [1] [2] [3]
The Provisional IRA began a bombing campaign in England in March 1973 when they bombed the Old Bailey court house, injuring over 200 people. [4] The following year was the worst year of the Troubles outside of Northern Ireland: at the beginning of 1974 the IRA exploded a bomb on a coach carrying soldiers and some family members on the M62, killing 12 people including four civilians. [5] A month before the Houses of Parliament bombing, 34 people were killed in the Republic of Ireland in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of May 1974 carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force, the worst single incident of the conflict. [6]
A man with an Irish accent telephoned the Press Association with a warning given just six minutes before the device exploded. London police said a recognised IRA codeword was given. The bomb exploded in a corner of Westminster Hall at about 08:30 am on 17 June 1974. The IRA in a telephoned warning said it planted the bomb that weighed around 20 lb (9.1 kg). The explosion is suspected to have damaged a gas main and a fire spread fast through the centuries-old hall in one of Britain's most security-tight buildings. [2] An annex housing a canteen and a number of offices was destroyed, but the great hall itself received only light damage. [7] The attack signaled the start of a renewed IRA bombing campaign in England that was to last until late 1975 and was to claim the lives of dozens of people. The most notorious attacks of the bombing campaign were the Guildford pub bombings in October 1974 that killed five and injured 60, and the Birmingham pub bombings of November 1974, which killed 21 people and injured 180. [8] [9] [ failed verification ]
The year 1974 ended with the IRA killing 28 people (23 civilians and 5 British soldiers) in bombing operations in England. 21 people were killed in the Birmingham pub bombings and a further 7 were killed in the Guildford and Woolwich Pub bombings. [10] Nearly 300 people were injured from these bombings alone. The IRA called off their bombing campaign in February 1975 but restarted it in August 1975 with a bombing in a Caterham pub which injured over 30 people. A week later the IRA carried out the London Hilton bombing which killed 2 and injured over 60. [11]
The Guildford pub bombings occurred on Saturday 5 October 1974 when the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated two 6-pound (2.7-kilogram) gelignite bombs at two pubs in Guildford, Surrey, England. The pubs were targeted that evening because they were popular with British Army personnel stationed at Pirbright barracks. Four soldiers and one civilian were killed. Sixty-five people were wounded.
The Troubles in Ardoyne lists incidents during the Troubles in the Ardoyne district of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The 1973 Old Bailey bombing was a car bomb attack carried out by the Provisional IRA (IRA) which took place outside the Old Bailey Courthouse on 8 March 1973. The attack was carried out by an 11-person active service unit (ASU) from the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. The unit also exploded a second bomb which went off outside the Ministry of Agriculture near Whitehall in London at around the same time the bomb at the Old Bailey went off.
On Tuesday evening 18 November 1975 an Irish Republican Army (IRA) unit nicknamed the Balcombe Street Gang, without warning, threw a bomb into Walton's Restaurant in Walton Street, Knightsbridge, London, killing two people and injuring almost two dozen others.
The 1987 Rheindahlen bombing was a car bomb attack on 23 March 1987 at JHQ Rheindahlen military barracks, the British Army headquarters in West Germany, injuring thirty-one. The large 300 lb (140 kg) car bomb exploded near the visitors officers' mess of the barracks. The Provisional IRA later stated it had carried out the bombing. It was the second bombing in Rheindahlen, the first being in 1973, and the start of the IRA's campaign on mainland Europe from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. Although British soldiers were targeted, most of the injured were actually German officers and their wives.
The 1994 Heathrow mortar attacks were a series of homemade mortar bomb attacks targeted at Heathrow Airport carried out by the Provisional IRA. Over a five-day period, Heathrow was targeted three times by the IRA, which fired 12 mortar rounds. Heathrow was a symbolic target due to its importance to the United Kingdom's economy, and much disruption was caused when areas of the airport were closed over the period due to the IRA attacks. The gravity of the incident was heightened by the fact that Queen Elizabeth II was being flown back to Heathrow by the RAF on 10 March.
On Thursday 9 October 1975, a bomb attack just outside Green Park Underground station in the City of Westminster, London, left one man dead and injured 20 others. The attack was carried out by volunteers from the Provisional IRA's Balcombe Street Gang. The attack occurred during a period of heightened activity by the IRA in England and in particular London and surrounding areas, since the Caterham Arms pub bombing two months earlier in August 1975.
The Balcombe Street Gang was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) active service unit (ASU) who carried out a bombing campaign in southern England in the mid-1970s. The majority of their attacks and attempted attacks took place in London and the rest in Surrey, Hampshire and Wiltshire. Between October 1974 and December 1975 they carried out approximately 40 bomb and gun attacks in and around London, sometimes attacking the same targets twice. The unit would sometimes carry out two or more attacks in one day; on 27 January 1975 they placed seven time bombs in London.
The Rose & Crown Bar bombing was a bomb attack carried out against a Catholic-owned pub in Belfast. The attack was carried out by the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) just less than two weeks before the start of the Ulster Workers' Council strike of May 1974 which brought down the Sunningdale power sharing agreement and just 15 days before the UVF carried out the Dublin and Monaghan bombings which killed 34 and injured 300 people, the highest casualty rate in a single day during The Troubles in either Ireland or Britain.
The Lichfield gun attack was an ambush carried out by the Provisional IRA (IRA) on 1 June 1990 against three off-duty British soldiers who were waiting at Lichfield City railway station in Staffordshire. The attack resulted in one soldier being killed and two others badly wounded.
On Friday 28 February 1992, the Provisional IRA (IRA) exploded a bomb inside London Bridge station during the morning rush hour, causing extensive damage and wounding 29 people. It was one of many bombings carried out by one of the IRA's London active service units. It occurred just over a year after a bomb at Victoria station.
On 18 February 1991 two Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombs exploded at London mainline stations, one at Victoria station and the other at Paddington station, killing one person and injuring 38 other people at Victoria station. It was the IRA's second major attack in London in February 1991 after the Downing Street mortar attack eleven days earlier which was an attempt to assassinate the British War cabinet and the British prime minister John Major. It was also the first IRA attack against a civilian target in England since the 1983 Harrods bombing, marking a strategic change in their bombing campaign in England.
On 25 and 27 November 1974 the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) placed several bombs in pillar boxes and one in a hedge behind a pillar box. This was a new tactic used by the IRA in England, although a similar tactic had been used in Northern Ireland during The Troubles several times previously. 40 people were wounded from five explosions in several districts.
The Belturbet bombing occurred on 28 December 1972 when a car bomb planted by Loyalist paramilitaries exploded in the main street in the border town of Belturbet in County Cavan in the Republic of Ireland. The bomb killed two teenagers Geraldine O'Reilly (15) and Patrick Stanley (16). Nobody claimed responsibility for the bombing but security services believe the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) carried out the attack. The attack happened just a few weeks after two people were killed and 127 injured when two car bombs exploded in the centre of Dublin, Republic of Ireland on 1 December 1972. On the same day as the Belturbet bombing, two other bombs exploded in border counties, the first in Clones, County Monaghan which injured two people and the second in Pettigo in County Donegal which caused injury to a single female victim. The three bombs all exploded within 49 minutes of each other, all three bombings were believed to be part of a co-ordinated attack attributed to a single organization.
In the late hours of 3 February and the early hours of 4 February 1973, six men, all of whom were Catholics, were shot and killed in the New Lodge area of north Belfast:
The Central Bar bombing was a bomb attack on a pub in the town of Gilford near Portadown in County Down in Northern Ireland on 31 December 1975. The attack was carried out by members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) using the covername "People's Republican Army" although contemporary reports also said the "Armagh unit" of the "People's Republican Army" had claimed responsibility. Three Protestant civilians were killed in the bombing.
The following is a timeline of actions during The Troubles which took place in the Republic of Ireland between 1969 and 1998. It includes Ulster Volunteer Force bombings such as the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in May 1974, and other loyalist bombings carried out in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, the last of which was in 1997. These attacks killed dozens of people and injured hundreds more. Also actions carried out by Irish republicans including bombings, prison escapes, kidnappings, and gun battles between the Gardaí (police) and the Irish Defence Forces against Republican gunmen from the Irish National Liberation Army, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and a socialist-revolutionary group, Saor Éire. These attacks killed a number of civilians, police, soldiers, and republican paramilitaries.
The Chelsea Barracks bombing was an attack carried out by a London-based Active Service Unit (ASU) of the Provisional IRA on 10 October 1981, using a remote-controlled nail bomb. The bomb targeted a bus carrying British Army soldiers just outside Chelsea Barracks. The blast killed two civilians and injured 40 people, among them 23 soldiers.
This is a timeline of the events and actions during the Troubles that were carried out in Great Britain, the vast majority of which were carried out by Irish Republican paramilitaries mainly the Provisional IRA were by far the most active but both the Official IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army, also carried out a number of attacks, which included bombings and shootings. Ulster Loyalist paramilitary groups also carried out a small number of violent actions.
