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Witnesses and survivors on how horrors of the Brighton bombing changed Britain | ITV News
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On 12 October 1984, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) attempted to assassinate members of the British government, including Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, by bombing the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, during the Conservative Party Conference. The explosion killed five people, including Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry, and injured more than thirty others. Thatcher herself was uninjured.
The bombing followed the IRA leadership's decision, taken during the 1981 Irish hunger strike, to try to kill Thatcher because of her refusal to restore Special Category Status to republican prisoners, a stance that contributed to the deaths of ten hunger strikers. After roughly two years of planning and reconnaissance of the 1982 and 1983 Conservative Party conferences, IRA member Patrick Magee checked into the Grand Hotel under the false name "Roy Walsh" on 15 September 1984 and planted a long-delay bomb concealed behind a bath panel in room 629, weeks before the conference began.
The device exploded at 2:54 am on 12 October 1984, while most guests were asleep. The upward force of the blast dislodged a five-long-ton chimney stack, which crashed through several floors and caused much of the loss of life and injury. Those killed were Sir Anthony Berry MP; Eric Taylor, North-West Area chairman of the Conservative Party; Roberta Wakeham, wife of chief whip John Wakeham; Lady Jeanne Shattock, wife of Conservative official Sir Gordon Shattock; and Muriel Maclean, who died of her injuries about a month later. Norman Tebbit and his wife Margaret were seriously injured; Margaret Tebbit was left permanently paralysed. Thatcher continued with the conference as scheduled, receiving a standing ovation roughly six and a half hours after the explosion.
The police investigation lasted eight months. Forensic examination of hotel registration cards and rubble sent for analysis led investigators to a false registration under the name "Roy Walsh." A partial palm print on the card matched prints taken from Magee following an earlier 1967 arrest in Norwich. Rather than seek extradition, British authorities had Irish police keep Magee under surveillance until he returned to Britain. He was arrested in Glasgow on 22 June 1985 alongside other IRA members as part of a wider investigation into a planned 1985 bombing campaign.
Magee, along with co-defendants Peter Sherry, Gerry McDonnell, Martina Anderson and Ella O'Dwyer, was tried between May and June 1986. He was convicted and sentenced to eight concurrent life sentences, with a recommendation that he serve at least thirty-five years before parole. He was released under licence in June 1999 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
The bombing occurred against the backdrop of ongoing negotiations between the British and Irish governments, which continued despite the attack and led to the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. In 2000, Magee met Jo Berry, daughter of Sir Anthony Berry, at her request; the two later co-founded an organisation aimed at reconciliation dialogue.
