Colonel William A. Phillips

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On 12 October 1992, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a bomb that had been planted in the gents' toilets in the Sussex Arms pub in Upper St Martins Lane near Long Acre, London, killing a man and injuring seven other people.[1]

Background

The bomb attack occurred at a time of heightened IRA activity in England, especially in London. Back in April they bombed the Baltic Exchange with a truck bomb killing three people, injuring 91 and caused £800 million worth of damage (the equivalent of £1,730 million in 2024),[2] £200 million more than the total damage caused by the 10,000 explosions that had occurred during the Troubles in Northern Ireland up to that point.[3] There were a number of sporadic attacks during the summer, there were six incidents in June, in one of the incidents two IRA Volunteers Paul Magee & Michael O'Brien shot dead Special Constable Glenn Goodman and injured the other police officer with him on the A64 near Tadcaster after a routine police stop.[4] In the days before the Sussex Arms bomb there had been several IRA bombings. On 7 October a litter bin bomb exploded near Picadilly, injuring five people, later a small bomb exploded near the Centre Point in Flicroft Street in London. The day after, on the 8, another two bombs went off in London, first one person was injured when a bomb exploded under a car on Tooley Street, later another device detonated under a car on Melcombe Street. On the 9 October two more devices exploded under cars, first at the Royal British Legion in Southgate and then another at Arnos Grove underground station. A bomb went off in a telephone box outside Paddington Green police station on 10 October, this was the last IRA bombing in England before the Sussex Arms bomb.[5]


Bombing

A telephone call to a radio station was made at 1:21 pm, nine minutes before the bomb exploded, saying a bomb had been placed "in the Leicester Square area";[citation needed] a tourist-frequented spot nearby.

The bomb exploded at 1:30pm, injuring eight people. One of the wounded - thirty-year-old nurse David Heffer - died from his injuries in hospital.[6] It was the eighth IRA bomb in London in a six-day period.[7]

Aftermath

A week went by after the Sussex Arms attack before the IRA restarted their bombing campaign in the British capital, on the 19 October two more people were injured when a bomb exploded on Oxended Street, the same day a small bomb exploded outside Novatel in Hammersmith. Two days later, on the 21 October, five more people were injured by two bombs, first, two people were hurt by a bomb at a railway line near Silver Street railway station, three more people were injured when a bomb exploded at the Princess Louise Territorial Army Centre on Hammersmith Road, a third device went off on a railway line near Harrow Road, causing damage but no injury. Two more bombs went off in London on the 22 and 25 October causing damage but no injury, finally on the 30 October, a small bomb in a stolen minicab exploded outside the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, causing minor damage but no injury, bringing to end the IRA's most intense month of bombing in London since the mid-1970's.[8]

In November two large IRA van bombs were defused. Also that month a police officer was shot and injured by an IRA unit that he had stopped while the IRA unit was transporting a van bomb on the Stoke Newington Road.[9] Shortly afterwards police arrested one man, Irish lorry driver Patrick Kelly, a member of the Provisional IRA, who was alleged to have been driving the lorry.[10]

In the run-up to Christmas 1992, the IRA planted a number of bombs throughout December around England, in the worst incident on 3 December 1992, two bombs in Manchester injured 65 people.[11] On the 10 December, 11 people were injured by an IRA bomb which went off in Wood Green Shopping Centre in London. On 16 December four people were injured by two separate bombs near Cavendish Square.[12]

1992 was the worst year of the Troubles in England for civilians since 1975 when eight civilians were killed and over 200 injured,[13] four civilians were killed in 1992 and over 200 injured.[14]The majority of the injuries from 1992 came from the 1992 London Bridge bombing, the Baltic Exchange bombing in April, the December 1992 Manchester bombings, and from the October & December bombing offensives.

See also

References

  1. ^ Robinson, Eugene (13 October 1992). "BOMB IN LONDON PUB INJURES SEVEN" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
  2. ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  3. ^ De Baróid, Ciarán (2000). Ballymurphy And The Irish War. Pluto Press. p. 325. ISBN 0-7453-1509-7.
  4. ^ McGladdery, Gary (1 February 2006). The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign 1973-1997 (1st ed.). Irish Academic Press. pp. 248–249. ISBN 9780716533733.
  5. ^ McGladdery, Gary (1 February 2006). The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign 1973-1997 (1st ed.). Irish Academic Press. p. 249. ISBN 9780716533733.
  6. ^ "IRA pub blast victim dies of his injuries". Independent.co.uk. 14 October 1992. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022.
  7. ^ and, William E. Schmidt (13 October 1992). "5 HURT IN LONDON BY ANOTHER BOMB". The New York Times.
  8. ^ Gary, McGladdery (1 February 2006). The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign 1973-1997 (1st ed.). Irish Academic Press. pp. 236–250. ISBN 9780716533733.
  9. ^ Tendler, Stewart (6 October 1993). "Policeman an inch from death". The Times. London.
  10. ^ "Bomb rips Northern Ireland town, London cache found".
  11. ^ "1992: Bomb explosions in Manchester". BBC. BBC News Online. 3 December 1992.
  12. ^ Gary, McGladdery (1 February 2006). The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign 1973-1997 (1st ed.). Irish Academic Press. p. 250. ISBN 9780716533733.
  13. ^ McGladdery, Gary (1 February 2006). The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign 1973-1997 (1st ed.). Irish Academic Press. pp. 240–242. ISBN 9780716533733.
  14. ^ McGladdery, Gary (1 February 2006). The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign 1973-1997 (1st ed.). Irish Academic Press. pp. 247–250. ISBN 9780716533733.

51°30′44″N 0°07′36″W / 51.5121°N 0.1268°W / 51.5121; -0.1268

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sussex_Arms_pub_bombing