1974 Bristol bombing

1974 Bristol bombing
Part of the Troubles
Park Street Bristol where the bombing took place
LocationBristol, England
Date18 December 1974
7:54 pm (UTC)
Attack type
Bombing
Deaths0
Injured20
PerpetratorProvisional Irish Republican Army

The 1974 Bristol bombing was a twin bomb attack carried out by the Provisional IRA in a shopping street in Bristol city centre on 18 December 1974. A bomb was placed in a holdall outside Dixons Photographic shop on Park Street which exploded just before 8 pm. Nine minutes later another more powerful bomb detonated in a dustbin 30 yards away.[1] The blasts injured 20 people and was part of the IRA's bombing campaign in England. The IRA gave a telephone warning for the first bomb but not the second one.[2]

The "come-on" tactic of a second bomb was used weeks before in a bombing in London and had been used many times before in Northern Ireland.

The region was targeted by the IRA for a time. Eight days before Bristol, a bomb exploded in England at The Corridor in Bath, causing severe damage. Four days later a bomb exploded in Newport, South Wales.[3] On 17 December 1978 Bristol was targeted by the IRA again in a bombing near Maggs Department Store in Clifton that injured at least seven people.[4]

  1. ^ "Bombing Blamed on IRA". Reading (PA) Eagle. UPI. 19 December 1974. p. 26.
  2. ^ Wilkes-som, Joseph (12 November 2017). "The last time bombs went off in Bristol".
  3. ^ Hughes, Marcus (13 December 2017). "The day a clothes shop in Newport was bombed in 1974".
  4. ^ "Terrorist Explosions Injure 14 in 6 English Cities". 18 December 1978 – via www.washingtonpost.com.