42 years later, coroner reopens inquest into IRA bombings that killed 21 in Britain
It was a Thursday night in Birmingham, England. The year was 1974.
Hundreds of people were packed into the city center’s pubs when two bombs exploded within minutes of each other, killing 21 and injuring 182. At the time, it was the worst terrorist attack on British soil.
Although the bombings were widely believed to have been the work of the Irish Republican Army, the quest for justice proved elusive.
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Six men linked to the IRA — the so-called Birmingham Six — were sentenced to life in prison in 1975, but an appeals court overturned their conviction after nearly 17 years behind bars.
The real killers have never been identified.
On Wednesday, the long campaign for answers by victims’ families received a boost when a coroner reopened an inquest into the bombings.
“It is still possible for an inquest to ascertain how these 21 came by their deaths,” said Louise Hunt, the senior coroner for Birmingham and Solihull, adding that she was aware of “a wealth of evidence” that had never been made public.
She also pointed to significant failings on the part of West Midlands police force. “I have serious concerns that advanced notice of the bombs may have been available to the police and that they failed to take the necessary steps to protect life,” she said in her hourlong statement inside Birmingham coroner’s court.
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The news was greeted first with shock and then joy by victims’ families, who described it as a “seismic” day. Many see the inquest as their final opportunity to find out what happened that night. “I hope our fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers are looking down and they’re proud,” said Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister, Maxine, died in the attack.
She also had a simple message for the bombers themselves: “Come forward; do the right thing.”
Well we are not gonna allow them to die in vain.
— Julie Hambleton
“They ran away like cowards and have been hiding in full daylight amongst their fellow citizens in Ireland, apparently, with their freedom, while our loved ones are well dead and buried. Well we are not gonna allow them to die in vain,” she told reporters.
The 1970s was a fraught period in Britain. At the time of the bombing, the IRA had recently come to the mainland with its violent campaign for the British to withdraw from Northern Ireland.
It was in cities like London and Birmingham that the paramilitaries knew they could generate more awareness for their plight. They frequently placed bombs in public places but typically made warning calls before detonation to minimize civilian casualties. That did not happen in Birmingham on Nov. 21, 1974.
“It was a blunder on the part of the bombers,” Kieran Conway, who was the IRA’s head of intelligence at the time, said in an interview Wednesday with the BBC.
The only warning call that was made went to the Birmingham Post and Mail newspaper and arrived too late.
By the time police arrived at the scene, seven men and 14 women were dead. More than half the victims were younger than 30, and five were in their teens. A third bomb was found intact in the doorway of a business.
“I said I was appalled and personally ashamed to be a member of an organization that could have done a deed like that,” Conway said.
He said that three or four people were directly involved in the attacks and that they were summoned to meet IRA leaders in Dublin to answer for their actions.
They claimed they could not find a working phone to call in a warning, and their explanations were found to be credible, Conway said.
Police homed in on six men from Northern Ireland who lived in Birmingham and had left the city shortly before the bombs went off. The men, who had testified that police beat them until they confessed, were found guilty and sentenced to life.
After they were freed, the activist group Justice 4 the 21 renewed its calls to find the real killers and bring them to justice.
The group lobbied elected officials and urged the coroner to reopen the original inquest.
The West Midlands police force had opposed efforts to reopen the inquest, arguing that the coroner had no legal power to do so. But in a statement Wednesday, the department said it would fully support the inquiry and hoped it would bring peace and answers to the family.
“The Birmingham pub bombings of 1974 are one of the most serious terrorist attacks in the U.K. West Midlands police not only failed to catch those responsible but caused a miscarriage of justice,” said Dave Thompson, the West Midlands police chief.
The format of the inquest has not yet been determined, but victims’ families hope that key witnesses will be called to identify the bombers, potentially leading to criminal convictions.
“I think that at the end of the day, we might really get a result of what did happen,” said Bill Craig, whose 34-year-old brother, James, died in the bombings.
But Conway, the former IRA member who is now a lawyer in Dublin, is not so sure: “The only way there could be convictions would be if the men walked into police stations in the U.K. and confessed to their part in the bombing, and that ain’t gonna happen.”
For her part, Hambleton said she is determined not only to see justice served for her sister, but to deter future attacks.
“What sort of a society are we leaving for future generations where we allow mass murderers to walk free?” she said. “Are we giving a green light to future terrorist organizations to do the same because they know they won’t be prosecuted?”
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Boyle is a special correspondent.
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