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The Birmingham pub bombings were bombings by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Birmingham, England on November 21, 1974 which killed 21 people. 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).

The attacks

At 20:14 a man with an Irish accent telephoned the Birmingham Post newspaper and said that there was a bomb in the 17 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 twelve minutes later, at 20:25, the bomb exploded, devastating the crowded bar.

Warnings had just reached the equally crowded Tavern in the Town pub nearby, when at 20:27 a second bomb there exploded. A third device, outside a bank on Hagley Road, failed to detonate.

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.

In the book 'Error of Judgement' Mick Murray (a 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.

Six innocent men, the Birmingham Six, were later accused of carrying out the attack, convicted and served sixteen years in jail before they had their convictions overturned due to police tampering with evidence.

Thirty years after the bombings in 2004, the Provisional Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams expressed regret for the loss of life in the attacks.

Memorial

A memorial plaque, commemorating the victims of the bombings, is sited in the grounds of St. Philip's Cathedral, in the centre of Birmingham.

External links

• http://birmingham999.co.uk
• 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. pp 153-154, Error of Judgement, Mullin, Chris, 3rd Edition, Poolbeg Press
2. http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0128/S.0128.199103150004.html
3. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19980710/ai_n14177272
4. CAIN:Chronology of the Conflict 1991
5. Adams expresses regret for Birmingham pub bombings Irish Examiner 22 November 2004)

• 1974 in the United Kingdom
• History of Birmingham, England
• Terrorist incidents in the 1970s
• Public houses in Birmingham, England
• Terrorism in the United Kingdom
• Provisional IRA actions