seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Norman Tebbit


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Sinn Féin MPs Enter the House of Commons

On January 21, 2002, Sinn Féin‘s four MPs take the historic step of signing up to use the facilities of the House of Commons, whose authority over Northern Ireland republicans have been fighting for almost a century. Party policy is also changed to allow MPs to sit in the Irish Parliament, the Dáil.

Amid concern among some republicans that the move comes close to recognising British rule, Sinn Féin president and Belfast West MP, Gerry Adams, insists that his party will never take its seats at Westminster. “There will never ever be Sinn Féin MPs sitting in the British houses of parliament,” he tells a Westminster press conference.

David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Northern Ireland First Minister, predicts this controversial move is a first step towards the same situation in Westminster.

However, flanked by his three fellow Sinn Féin MPs, Martin McGuinness (Mid Ulster), Pat Doherty (West Tyrone) and Michelle Gildernew (Fermanagh and South Tyrone), Adams says taking up seats in the Dáil is a very different proposition from doing so the Commons. No Sinn Féin member would take the loyalty oath to the Queen, needed to take up a seat in Parliament, but that was a mere side issue to the key question of sovereignty, he says. Even if the oath were amended, the party would still refuse to take its seats because republicans do not recognise parliament’s jurisdiction over Northern Ireland.

“There are lots of things which there can be no certainty of and there are some things of which we can be certain,” Adams says. “There will never, ever be Sinn Féin MPs sitting in the British Houses of Parliament. The transfer of power by London and Dublin to the Assembly in the north … is all proof of where we see the political centre of gravity on the island of Ireland and that is in the island of Ireland.”

Adams insists his party’s presence in the Commons is a “temporary” measure until they can join the parliament of a united Ireland.

A ban on MPs using Commons facilities without taking the loyalty oath was lifted in December 2001 to Conservative fury. Tories end three decades of cross-party cooperation over the move, which also entitles Sinn Féin’s four MPs to allowances of £107,000 a year each.

Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Quentin Davies claims Adams plans to use the cash for party political campaigning – something forbidden by Westminster rules. He accuses British Prime Minister Tony Blair of “deliberately contributing to a great propaganda coup in which … the British Government are licking their boots.” The Prime Minister’s spokesman says Blair acknowledges “many victims do feel very strongly about what has happened, but the Prime Minister’s view is that this peace process has saved many lives.”

Sitting alongside a giant Irish tricolour inside his new office, Adams likens his presence there to that of MPs who had served in the British Army and intelligence services – suggesting some of them still do. He also dismisses concerns about the misuse of the money, accusing those “complaining loudest” of being from parties “indicted for corruption and sleaze.”

Sinn Féin’s move into their new offices coincides with a “routine” meeting with the Prime Minister in Downing Street to discuss the peace process. The Sinn Féin president uses publicity surrounding the controversial move to issue a new challenge to Blair to tackle the loyalist “killing campaign.” Adams is joined in Downing Street by his three fellow Sinn Féin MPs.

“There have been 300 bombs over the last nine or ten months,” Adams says. “The British Prime Minister has to face up to the reality that the threat to the peace process within Northern Ireland comes from within loyalism.”

Adams blames Betty Boothroyd‘s decision to bar Sinn Féin MPs from using Commons facilities for the current controversy. “We are here, elected, with our mandate renewed and increased,” he adds.

Adams is asked how he would react if he met former Cabinet minister Lord Tebbit and his wife, who was badly injured by the 1984 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb attack at the Tories conference at the Grand Brighton Hotel in Brighton, at the Commons. “I don’t ignore anyone. As someone who has been wounded and shot and someone whose house has been bombed, I understand precisely how others who have suffered more than me feel about all of this,” Adams replies. “I would like to think that as part of building a peace process that all of us agree there must be dialogue.”

(Pictured: from left, Sinn Fein MPs Michelle Gildernew, Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams and Pat Doherty)


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The Brighton Hotel Bombing

The Brighton hotel bombing, a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) assassination attempt against the top tier of the British government, takes place on October 12, 1984, at the Grand Brighton Hotel in Brighton, England. A long-delay time bomb is planted in the hotel by IRA member Patrick Magee, with the intent of killing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet, who are staying at the hotel for the Conservative Party conference. Although Thatcher narrowly escapes injury, five people are killed including a sitting Conservative MP, and 31 are injured.

Patrick Magee stays in the hotel under the pseudonym Roy Walsh during the weekend of September 14-17, 1984. During his stay, he plants the bomb under the bath in his room, number 629. The device, described as a “small bomb by IRA standards,” is fitted with a long-delay timer made from videocassette recorder components and a Memo Park Timer safety device. The device may have avoided detection by sniffer dogs due to it being wrapped in cling film to mask the smell of the explosive.

The bomb detonates at approximately 2:54 AM (BST) on October 12. The midsection of the building collapses into the basement, leaving a gaping hole in the hotel’s facade. Firemen say that many lives are likely saved because the well-built Victorian hotel remained standing. Margaret Thatcher is still awake at the time, working on her conference speech for the next day in her suite. The blast badly damages her bathroom but leaves her sitting room and bedroom unscathed. Both she and her husband escape injury. She changes her clothes and is led out through the wreckage along with her husband and her friend and aide Cynthia Crawford and driven to Brighton police station.

At about 4:00 AM, as Thatcher leaves the police station, she gives an impromptu interview to the BBC‘s John Cole, saying that the conference would go on as scheduled. Alistair McAlpine persuades Marks & Spencer to open early at 8:00 AM so those who have lost their clothes in the bombing can purchase replacements. Thatcher goes from the conference to visit the injured at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

Five people are killed, none of whom are government ministers. But a Conservative MP, Sir Anthony Berry, is killed, along with Eric Taylor, North-West Area Chairman of the Conservative Party, Lady Jeanne Shattock, wife of Sir Gordon Shattock, Western Area Chairman of the Conservative Party, Lady Muriel Maclean, wife of Sir Donald Maclean, President of the Scottish Conservatives, and Roberta Wakeham, wife of Parliamentary Treasury Secretary John Wakeham. Donald and Muriel Maclean are in the room in which the bomb explodes, but Mr. Maclean survives.

Several more, including Walter Clegg, whose bedroom is directly above the blast, and Margaret Tebbit, the wife of Norman Tebbit, who is then President of the Board of Trade, are left permanently disabled. Thirty-four people are taken to the hospital and recover from their injuries. When hospital staff asks Norman Tebbit, who is less seriously injured than his wife, whether he is allergic to anything, he is said to answer “bombs.”