1976 Olympia bombing

Bomb attack in West London August 2019 the Troubles 1976 Olympia bombing West Kensington, London, United Kingdom 51 29 47 N 0 12 35 W region:GB_type:landmark inline,title 27 March 1976 UTC Bomb 1 85 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) collapsed The 1976 Olympia bombing was a bomb attack on 27 March 1976 carried out by the Provisional IRA at the Olympia exhibition centre in west London.https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/136934904/ Democrat and Chronicle Rochester, New York 28 March 1976 4 85 Hurt in London Blast Newspapers.com 2018-05-16 en The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign, 1973-1997 Gary McGladdery Irish Academic Press 2006 9780716533733 110, 242 At 4:40pm, a 2 lb kg bomb exploded in a litter bin at the top of an escalator inside the centre, which at the time was crowded with over 15,000 people attending the Daily Mail's Ideal Home Exhibition. 85 people were injured, including 8 children,Bomb Injures Eleven Irish Cork Examiner 29 March 1976 and several people lost limbs.https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00j9w1d Bombing of the 1976 Ideal Home Exhibition, 02/04/1976, Nationwide - BBC One BBC 21 July 2011 en-GB 2018-05-16 John Stapleton John Stapleton (English journalist) One casualty, 79-year-old Rachel Hyams, died from her injuries 21 days later.https://books.google.com/books?id=8d_ZAwAAQBAJ&q=olympia+london+1976+bomb&pg=PA193 Wasted Years, Wasted Lives Volume 1: The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77 Wharton Ken 2013-07-19 Helion and Company 9781909384552 enhttps://books.google.com/books?id=sdYcw7Zs3W4C&q=olympia+london+1976+bomb+%22Rachel+Hyams%22&pg=PA641 Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles McKittrick David 1999 Mainstream 9781840185041 en According to Scotland Yard, eleven of the victims were Irish.Punch Mary Eleven Irish Among Show Bomb Victims Irish Independent 29 March 1976 Police said they received no coded warning from the IRA, but the Sunday Mirror in Manchester said it received a call from the Provisional IRA's “Irish Brigade” claiming responsibility, as did the BBC.https://www.nytimes.com/1976/03/28/archives/london-bomb-explosion-injures-80-at-exhibition-hall.html London Bomb Explosion Injures 80 at Exhibition Hall 1976-03-28 The New York Times 2018-05-16 en-US 0362-4331 The caller reportedly stated, "This is a warning to the British Government to take troops out of Northern Ireland, and more than bombs are on the way if this demand is not met".Hennigan Aidan Blast Injured Eleven Irish The Irish Press 29 March 1976 An unconfirmed report suggested that a man in his twenties placed a packaged in the litter bin just prior to the explosion.Four People Maimed in London Blast Sunday Independent 28 March 1976 A subsequent report on BBC's Nationwide stated that the bombing resulted in a change in security practices at the Olympia exhibition centre and may have involved a type of "explosive hardware" not previously used by the IRA in Britain. Due to the outrage caused, the IRA temporarily halted its bombing campaign in Britain.February 2025 Writing in 1986, the academic Yonah Alexander suggested that the Olympia bombing contributed to Muammar Gaddafi, at least temporarily, "reconsider[ing] his support for the IRA". The 1986 Annual on Terrorism Yonah Alexander Yonah Alexander Martinus Nijhoff 1986 9789024736089 251 The bombs planted in London in that year, in Oxford Street, the Ideal Home Exhibition at Olympia and Oxford Circus underground station seemed for a time at least to have caused the Libyan leader [Qadhafi] to reconsider his support for the IRA In the subsequent period, IRA activity in Britain "dropped off significantly". Combating Terrorism: Strategies of Ten Countries University of Michigan Press 2002 9780472098248 Yonah Alexander Yonah Alexander 204 [IRA] terrorism in Great Britain dropped off significantly in 1976 [..] the bulk of the damage resulted from a single bomb at the Olympia Ideal Home Exhibition [..] which injured some eighty people. From 1977 onward, Irish terrorism within Great Britain [..] slowed significantly See also Chronology of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions (1970–79) Cannon Street train bombing West Ham station attack References Category:1976 in London Category:1976 murders in the United Kingdom Category:1970s crimes in London Category:1976 building bombings Category:20th century in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Category:March 1976 in the United Kingdom Category:Olympia London Category:Provisional IRA bombings in London Category:Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1976 Category:Building bombings in London