Clive Barracks bombing

1988 was when the IRA intensified their campaign outside of Northern Ireland. In May 1988 the IRA enjoyed one of their most successful ambushes on British Military figures in mainland Europe with the attacks in the Netherlands when they killed 3 and injured 3 RAF soldiers. Four months later in August 1988, the Provisional Irish Republican Army carried out the Inglis Barracks bombing, which killed one British soldier and injured 10 others. It was the first IRA attack in England since the Brighton hotel bombing in October 1984.[1]

On Monday 20 February 1989, the Provisional IRA exploded two bombs at Clive Barracks at Ternhill. Two IRA members were spotted while they were planting one of the three bombs they had and the alarm was raise by a sentry, Lance-Corporal Alan Norris. The two IRA members escaped with a stolen car they had hijacked just down the road, thanks to the sentry raising the alarm it gave about 50 British soldiers the chance to escape almost certain death but, only two soldiers were injured, one was hit by flying glass the other had only minor injuries.[2] The two IRA bombers planted three bombs around the barracks. British police believe IRA fugitive Patrick Sheehy was the main operator in the attack.[3] Only two of the bombs were primed and exploded, when the IRA members, both of whom were wearing combat jackets were approached by a soldier they threw the third bomb which was inside a backpack at him and ran to the car they had stolen and drove away. Soldiers fired three rounds at the IRA members who were fleeing but no shots hit their target. The bombs exploded about ten minutes after the IRA escaped. Even though nobody was killed in the attack the explosions caused large damage to the barracks.

The IRA claimed responsibility for the bombings and in a statement said:

While Britain maintains its colonial grip on the north of Ireland, the IRA will continue to strike at those who oversee and implement British Government policy in our country, [4]

Clive Barracks bombing at Ternhill happened in February 1989. Then five months later in July 1989, the IRA killed a British soldier in Hanover, West Germany when they placed a booby-trap IED under his car.[5] On the 7 September the IRA mistakenly shot dead Heidi Hazell, the German wife of a British soldier, in a hail of bullets in Dortmund.[6] In the climax of the England and European campaign by the IRA closing in on the end of the 1980s was the Deal barracks bombing in which the IRA killed 11 Royal Marines and seriously injured 22 others; it was the highest death toll from an operation in England in seven years since Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings of 1982, which again killed 11 soldiers and injured over 50.[7][8]

• Inglis barracks
• Deal barracks
• Eltham bombing
• Wembley bombing
• Lichfield shooting
• HAC bombing

• CAIN project
• The New York Times