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Brighton hotel bombing
Part of the Troubles
The Grand Hotel on the morning after the bombing
Location	Grand Hotel, Brighton, East Sussex, England
Date	12 October 1984 (1984-10-12) 2:54 am (BST)
Target	Margaret Thatcher
Attack type	Bombing
Weapons	Time bomb
Deaths	5
Injured	31
Perpetrator	Provisional IRA

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Background

The Troubles in the late 1970s and 1980s

• Assassination of Airey Neave
• Assassination of Mountbatten and the Warrenpoint ambush
• The Hunger Strikes and not giving the IRA political prisoner status ("Crime is crime is crime. It is not political, it is crime")

Thatcher's Northern Ireland policy, 1979-1984

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Following the hunger strikes: "Thatcher herself emerged from this episode as a republican hate-figure of Cromwellian proportions ('that unctuous, self-righteous fucker', 'the biggest bastard we have ever known', in Danny Morrison's evocative phrasing)."

Patrick Magee, the IRA and the England unit

Patrick Magee, seen in 2014

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IRA 'policy' on Thatcher - bombing was a reaction to the hunger strikes etc

Build-up

Planning and preparation

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In nunc lacus, efficitur non dapibus nec, iaculis in metus. Suspendisse egestas semper nibh aliquet sodales. Aenean in lobortis tellus, a faucibus tortor. Proin imperdiet non augue sed ultricies. Fusce fermentum, dui sed tincidunt sollicitudin, mauris orci laoreet nulla, eget pretium velit elit eu tellus. Maecenas augue urna, tempus vitae magna id, ultricies placerat tellus. Fusce tristique ex diam, id imperdiet quam egestas interdum. Aliquam placerat eleifend magna, eget ullamcorper tellus pharetra at. Donec consequat risus vitae purus tincidunt varius. Nam pellentesque id dui a convallis. Morbi sit amet lectus tortor. In sit amet tincidunt nibh, ac rutrum tellus. Duis tincidunt ac est ut tristique. In justo nisl, mattis id fringilla at, scelerisque ut erat.

Fusce interdum turpis in odio posuere, venenatis viverra tortor posuere. Sed lacus lorem, finibus a mattis in, congue ut justo. Phasellus luctus mi vitae ligula tempus varius. Donec dignissim nibh in est lacinia, vel accumsan diam venenatis. Praesent porttitor massa vitae quam feugiat finibus. Phasellus nec sagittis nisi. Nulla tempus dignissim leo et hendrerit. Aenean ipsum nibh, pulvinar non sem at, posuere aliquam leo. Duis congue auctor urna et lacinia.

Salcey Forest surveillance

Planting the bomb

On 15 September 1984—some four weeks before the Conservative Party Conference—Magee registered at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, under the name "Roy Walsh". The pseudonym was the name of the IRA bomber who was convicted for his part in the IRA's 1973 Old Bailey bombing. When he completed the hotel's registration card, Magee gave a false address (27 Braxfield Road, London, SE4), stated he was English, omitted his passport details, and paid £180 for three nights' stay. He was given room 629, which was on the sixth floor facing the sea. Magee had chosen a high-level room as he thought that would be where Thatcher would have had her room, a high level for additional security, in case the striking miners occupied the hotel.

Magee had lunch at the hotel's restaurant on the day he arrived, where he ate with another man. The man visited Magee over the three days but did not stay overnight. Two female IRA couriers delivered bomb materials to the room; neither they, nor the other man, has ever been identified. According to the journalist Rory Carroll, who wrote a history of the bombing, considers that "It is unlikely that more than four people were involved". According to Magee, the bomb comprised 105 pounds (48 kg) of gelignite; security forces later considered it was 30 pounds (14 kg) of semtex. The device was fitted with a long-delay timer, such as the type used in videocassette recorders. The timing unit was battery powered and a Memo Park timer was also incorporated into the device; Carroll considers the timer was probably part of an anti-handling device, designed to counter any interference by a bomb disposal team if the device was found before detonation.

To mask the smell of the explosives—a distinctive aroma similar to marzipan—the device was wrapped in several layers of plastic. Once the bomb was completed, Magee removed the side panel of the bath and placed the device within the space. Magee and his colleagues finished around 10:00 pm on 17 September, and ordered a bottle of vodka and three bottles of coke to be delivered to the room. He spent the third night in the room and checked out at around 9:00 am the following day.

Conference and explosion, 9–12 October 1984

The course and result of the explosion

Effects of the bomb, showing the position of the British cabinet at the time (Image from the Graphics Lab)

Close-up of the damage caused by the bomb; the surviving chimney visible was equal in size to the one that fell through the hotel

The Conservative Party Conference began on 9 October 1984; it was scheduled to last four days, with Thatcher's speech on the final day. Thatcher was staying in the hotel's Napoleon Suite, three rooms with a sea view on the first floor. Her staff set up an office in rooms across the corridor. Before she arrived at the hotel, a police dog and his handler searched the suite and other rooms on the first floor, but none of the rooms on the other floors. The search itself was cursory, with the officer spending only thirty minutes in her rooms. The officer later recalled that the suite had staff and aides walking in and out while he worked. Uniformed and plainclothes police were posted in and outside the hotel.

On the evening of 11 October the Tebbits attended a reception hosted by Alistair McAlpine, the Treasurer of the Conservative Party; they left at around midnight and returned to their room. A ball was being held in Top Rank, a nearby venue, which Thatcher visited for 45 minutes, returning to the hotel at about 11:45 pm. In her suite, she continued to work on her conference speech. She finished at around 2:45 am and decided to work on some government business with Robin Butler, her Principal Private Secretary, before going to bed. She went to the toilet and returned to her desk at 2:52 am.

At 2:54 am on 12 October 1984 the bomb under the bath in room 629 exploded. The occupants of the room were Donald Maclean—the president of the Scottish Conservatives—and his wife Muriel; they were in bed at the time. She was blown sideways by the blast; he was blown upwards. In the neighbouring room, 628, Lady Jeanne Shattock, the wife of Sir Gordon Shattock, the Western Area chairman of the Conservative Party, was bending over the bath; the wall between the bathroom of 629 and 628 disintegrated, and fragments of the ceramic tiles were "driven into her body like bullets", according to Major Peter Maynard, an army explosives expert. She was decapitated and her body was blown across the corridor and into room 638. Her husband fell through the collapsing floors down to the basement but survived.

The force of the explosion going upward broke through the roof and and dislodged one of the hotel's eleven feet (3.4 m), five long tons (5.1 t) chimneys. It fell through the roof, through the rooms ending in 28 and clipping those ending in 29. The bomb and the falling chimney took out much of the front of the building, creating a hole thirty feet (9.1 m) deep and fifteen feet (4.6 m) wide. In room 528 it destroyed the room of Eric Taylor—North-West Area Chairman of the Conservative Party—killing his wife Jennifer; in room 428 Roberta Wakeham, the wife of John, the Chief Whip was killed; in room 328 it killed Sir Anthony Berry, Deputy Chief Whip. Norman Tebbit—then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—and his wife Margaret were in room 228. Tebbit later recalled:

the ceiling came crashing down on us and then, in a hail of debris, the floor collapsed, catapulting us down under an avalanche of bricks, timber and plaster. The force of the impact was indescribable — blow after blow as the debris smashed on to my left side. Something tore into my abdomen with a terrible blow and I heard my very guts sloshing inside me. There was a colossal impact tearing a great hole in my side, then I stopped falling – with no idea where, nor even which way up I was, as the debris cascaded down.

Thatcher's room was below the Tebbits's; her bathroom had been badly damaged, but she, her husband and Butler were all uninjured. According to Carroll, the bomb "did not even scratch her. But it came very, very close." He theorised that if she had still been in the bathroom, "she would have been cut to ribbons, perhaps fatally".

Immediate aftermath

Local police and the fire brigade were soon on the scene. One of the first policemen on the scene, Paul Parton, described the scene on his arrival:

As we got closer and the dust was starting to settle, you could see [a policeman] laying on the ground, being supported by other policemen, people screaming, hanging off balconies, alarm bells ringing, water pouring out of broken pipes, and you could see the people up on the balcony. It was horrific.

On arrival, station officer Fred Bishop of the fire brigade requested ten more fire engines and as many ambulances as could be spared. Although Fire Brigade regulations for attending a bomb were that unless there was a fire in progress, the fire engines were to park two streets away, maintain radio silence and wait for the bomb squad, Bishop and his crew entered the hotel. Throughout the night they tunnelled through areas of the debris to rescue the people trapped in the rubble. Muriel Maclean was found in pain with her right leg mangled; she was extracted, but died of her injuries a month later.

Inside the hotel, the Thatchers, Butler, several cabinet ministers with their partners and the Conservative secretarial staff who were still working, made their way downstairs and left the hotel through the rear entrance; they were taken to Brighton police station, which was thought the most secure place for them. Several other cabinet members were also taken to the police station, where Thatcher announced that the party conference would continue at 9 am. She, her husband and secretary spent the night at Lewes police college.

Norman Tebbit in 2020

After the explosion Tebbit and his wife ended up next to each other, twelve feet (3.7 m) above the hotel's reception, both alive but buried under tonnes of rubble; they held hands and talked to each other for comfort. Margaret was rescued first. She had a broken neck and was paralysed from the neck down; she used a wheelchair because of her injuries. At 6.53 am Tebbit was finally taken out of the hotel in his pyjamas and on a stretcher; his extraction was caught on cameras as they were broadcasting live for breakfast television.

IRA statement on 12 October:

The IRA claims responsibility for the detonation of 100lb of gelignite in Brighton against the British cabinet and Tory warmongers. Thatcher will now realise that Britain cannot occupy our country, torture our prisoners and shoot our people in their own streets and get away with it.

Today we were unlucky, but remember we have only to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no war.

Thatcher's response:

We will never give up the search for more effective means of defeating the IRA. If the IRA think they can weary or frighten us, they have made a terrible miscalculation. People sometimes say that it is wrong to use the word "never" in politics. I disagree. Some things are of such fundamental importance that no other word is appropriate. I say once again today that the government will never surrender to the IRA. Never.

Casualties

• Sir Anthony Berry (Deputy Chief Whip),
• Eric Taylor (North-West Area Chairman of the Conservative Party)
• Lady Shattock (Jeanne, wife of Sir Gordon Shattock, Western Area Chairman of the Conservative Party)
• Lady Maclean (Muriel, wife of Sir Donald Maclean, President of the Scottish Conservatives)
• Roberta Wakeham (wife of Chief Whip John Wakeham)

Several more were permanently disabled, including Walter Clegg, whose bedroom was directly above the blast and Margaret Tebbit

Repercussions and legacy

In addition to news and historical coverage, the Brighton bomb has been described in books, including histories of what happened and personal memoirs from those involved. Additionally, the events have have been depicted in fiction.

Gallery

• 
  File:Patrick Magee - Brighton Bomber.jpg
• 
  File:Official portrait of Lord Tebbit 2020 crop 1.jpg
• 
  File:Denis and Margaret Thatcher in 1984.png

Notes and references

Sources

Books

• Bell, J. Bowyer (1993). The Irish Troubles: A Generation of Violence, 1967-1992. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-3120-8827-9.
• Bell, J. Bowyer (2000). The IRA, 1968–2000: Analysis of a Secret Army. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 978-1-1363-3308-8.
• Berry, Jo (2017). "'I'd find a way to contribute to peace'". In Dawson, Graham; Dover, Jo; Hopkins, Stephen (eds.). The Northern Ireland Troubles in Britain: Impacts, Engagements, Legacies and Memories. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 334–341. ISBN 978-0-7190-9631-0.
• Bishop, Patrick; Mallie, Eamonn (1987). The Provisional IRA. London: Heinemman. ISBN 978-0-4340-7410-5.
• Carroll, Rory (2023). Killing Thatcher. London: HarperCollins Publishers Limited. ISBN 978-0-0084-7666-3.
• Coogan, Tim Pat (1994). The IRA: A History. Niwot, Colorado: Roberts Rinehart Publishers. ISBN 978-1-8793-7399-0.
• Coogan, Tim Pat (2002). The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal, 1966-1996 and the Search for Peace. New York: Palgrave for St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-3122-9418-2.
• English, Richard (2003). Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1951-6605-7.
• Gaffikin, Frank; Morrissey, Mike (1990). Northern Ireland: The Thatcher Years. London: Zed Books. ISBN 978-0-8623-2906-8.
• Kelly, Stephen (2021). Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Party and the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1975-1990. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-3501-1537-8.
• Magee, Patrick (2021). Where Grieving Begins: Building Bridges After the Brighton Bomb. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 978-0-7453-4177-4.
• McGladdery, Gary (2006). The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign, 1973-1997. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-7165-3373-3.
• Moore, Charles (2013). Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography. Vol. Two: Everything She Wants. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-3079-5894-5.
• Oppenheimer, A. R. (2009). IRA, the Bombs and the Bullets: A History of Deadly Ingenuity. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-7165-2894-4.
• Ramsey, Steve A. (2018). Something Has Gone Wrong: Dealing with the Brighton Bomb. London: Biteback Publishing. ISBN 978-1-7859-0336-6.
• Revill, James (2016). Improvised Explosive Devices: The Paradigmatic Weapon of New Wars. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-3193-3833-0.
• Stern, Chester (1997). Dr Iain West's Casebook. London: Warner. ISBN 978-0-7515-1846-7.
• Tebbit, Norman (1989). Upwardly Mobile. London: Futura. ISBN 978-0-7088-4392-5.
• Thatcher, Margaret (1993). The Downing Street Years. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-0025-5049-9.

Journals and magazines

News

• "Body Clue to Seat of Bomb in Hotel". The Times. 13 May 1986. p. 3.
• Burke, Declan (18 January 2014). "Gripping RUC Thriller has Troubles in Mind". Irish Examiner.
• Cavendish, Dominic (20 October 2008). "The Bomb". The Daily Telegraph. p. 26.
• "Lady Tebbit; Nurse and Loyal Political Spouse Left Paralysed After the IRA Bombing of the Grand Hotel, Brighton". The Daily Telegraph. 22 December 2020. p. 35.
• Moore, Charles (2 December 2011). "Margaret Thatcher: A Figure of History and Legend". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
• Senior, Jennifer (14 March 2016). "Review: Jonathan Lee's 'High Dive' Revisits a Plot to Kill Margaret Thatcher". The New York Times.

Websites

• Clark, Gregory (2023). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Archived from the original on 1 April 2023. Retrieved 22 February 2023.