Birmingham pub bombings were 'IRA operation gone badly wrong', inquest hears
Twenty one people were killed and more than 200 injured after two bombings at pubs in the centre of Birmingham.
Thursday 21 March 2019 18:37, UK
The 1974 Birmingham pub bombings were an "IRA operation that went badly wrong", the group's former intelligence chief has told an inquest.
Kieran Conway, speaking over a video link from a secure location, said the attacks were "not sanctioned" by the IRA and that public outrage following the blasts "nearly destroyed" the group.
The explosions at the Mulberry Bush in the city's iconic Rotunda and the basement Tavern in the Town in nearby New Street killed 21 people and injured 220 more.
Families of the victims have waited 44 years for fresh inquests, which are now in their fourth week.
Asked who bore responsibility for the attacks, Mr Conway said: "I accept everybody collectively involved in the IRA at that time bears a full and awesome responsibility for what happened at Birmingham and for the deaths of all those people."
Barrister Kevin Morgan, on behalf of the victims' families, asked if the killings on 21 November 1974 "constituted murder".
Mr Conway replied: "No I don't agree. I believe it was an IRA operation that went wrong.
"Had the IRA deliberately targeted that pub with the intention of killing civilians then that would have been murder, yes.
"But in the circumstances, as I have been told, I don't accept that it was murder.
"I say that it was an IRA operation that went badly wrong."
After the bombings, an internal IRA court of inquiry - convened in Ireland - cleared those involved in the bombings, Mr Conway added.
He said IRA chiefs agreed the "initial explanation" for the "atrocity" was that the calling in of a coded warning was delayed because the chosen phone box was out of order.
"No court martial ever took place," he added, and said no IRA members were ever internally disciplined over the attacks.
Coroner Sir Peter Thornton QC asked Mr Conway if the faulty phone box could have been a "well-orchestrated and convenient lie" for the bombers to escape punishment from their superiors.
Mr Conway said it could have been, but denied the leadership would have "looked for an excuse".
At the time of the bombings, IRA operations in England were carried out by active service units "autonomous" to the organisation's command in Ireland and were picking bombing targets themselves, he told the inquest.
No one in the IRA's Army Council, which ran military operations, or the organisation's commanders in England had any idea the pubs were to be targeted.
He said: "The bombings had been careless if not downright incompetent."
The stated policy of the IRA - which he described as being "at war" with the British government at the time - was that civilian targets were "strictly and loudly forbidden".
He added: "Those targets ought never to have happened. I have said that many times.
"The volunteers who carried it out, the person who commanded them, either didn't know that or ignored it. They were not legitimate targets.
"It was a civilian pub, there was no question of it being a pub with which soldiers commonly drank - and it was not. It was not a permissible target."
The inquests continue.