1973 Old Bailey Bombing

1973 Old Bailey Bombing
Part of the Troubles
Entrance door to the Old Bailey
Location	London, United Kingdom
Date	8 March 1973 14:49 (UTC)
Target	Old Bailey Courthouse
Attack type	Car bomb
Deaths	1 British civilian (heart attack)
Non-fatal injuries	200
Perpetrator	Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade
Assailants	William Armstrong, Martin Brady, Hugh Feeney, Paul Holmes, Gerry Kelly, William McLarnon, Roisin McNearney, Dolours Price, Marian Price, Robert Walsh
Convicted	all but McNearney (acquitted for providing information)
Verdict	life in prison (later reduced to 20 years)

The 1973 Old Bailey bombing was a car bomb attack carried out by the Provisional IRA (PIRA) which took place outside the Old Bailey Courthouse on 8 March 1973. The attack was carried out by a 10-person ASU from the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. The unit also exploded a second bomb which went off outside the Ministry of Agriculture in London on the same day at around the same time the bomb at the Old Bailey bomb went off. This was the Provisional IRA's first major attack on mainland Britain since The Troubles began back in 1969. One British civilian died of a heart attack attributed to the bombing. Two additional bombs were found and defused. Nine people from Belfast were convicted six months later for the bombing, and one acquitted for providing information to the police.

The Troubles had been raging for four years in Northern Ireland and to a lesser extent the Republic of Ireland since the Battle of the Bogside in Derry in August 1969 which brought British troops to Ireland for the first time since 1921. Rioting, gun battles, sniper attacks, bombings and punishment beatings became part of everyday life in many places. Ulster had not seen violence like this since the early 1920s. These events and others helped to heighten sectarianism and boosted recruitment into Irish republican and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups and the security forces mainly the new Ulster Defence Regiment.

Great Britain had been relatively untouched up until the beginning of 1973, but the IRA Army Council had drawn up plans for a bombing campaign to take place in England some time early in 1973. Contray to popular belief Loyalist paramilitaries had bombed Dublin & the Republic of Ireland a number of times before the Provisionals bombed England, in fact the Ulster Volunteer Force had carried out several bombings in the south of Ireland in 1969 before the PIRA even came into existence Following the Dublin bombings in late 72 & January 73 carried out by Loyalists the media attention these bombings received helped the Provisional IRA decide to take its campaign to Britain in return.