1996 Manchester Bombing - Background

Background

Ireland came under British rule at the end of the Nine Years' War in 1603, and was partitioned in 1921 under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) was formed from the old Irish Republican Army between 1969 and 1971, with the aim of achieving the reunification of Ireland. It was supported by arms and funding from Libya and from groups in the United States. The IRA used violence to achieve its aims until 1994, despite intermittent truces. The Downing Street Declaration of 1993 allowed Sinn Féin, the IRA's political arm, to participate in talks about the future of Northern Ireland on condition that it called a cease-fire. On 31 August 1994, the IRA announced its "complete cessation of military operations", but that ended on 9 February 1996, when it detonated a bomb in Canary Wharf, killing two people. The IRA then planted five other devices in London within the space of 10 weeks.

Manchester had been the target of earlier IRA bombs. A man was imprisoned for 15 years in 1975 for placing two firebombs in Manchester city centre in 1973–1974. In February 1974, a bomb exploded in Manchester Magistrates' Court, injuring twelve people. IRA bomb factories were discovered in Fallowfield and Salford and five men were imprisoned for planned attacks in North West England. Manchester may have been chosen because the city was one of the hosts for the Euro 96 football championships, attended by visitors and media organisations from all over Europe, guaranteeing the IRA what Margaret Thatcher called the "oxygen of publicity". A match between Russia and Germany was scheduled to take place at Old Trafford just over 24 hours after the bomb exploded, and Manchester had the previous year won its bid to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games, at the time the biggest multi-sport event ever to be staged in Britain.