Home Fire Environment Examination: IRA Bombings 1939

While Eamonn is walking along the canal that crosses over the North Circular he googles the very canal he is walking over and finds some information about an IRA bombing in 1939. This intrigued me both in it's relation to ISIS in Home Fire as well as on its own as a historical event. So I did some digging and came across some interesting information.

Some brief context:

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a militia group born out of a desire for freedom from British Rule. After fighting a brutal guerilla war of independence, Ireland had finally secured seats at the negotiating table with England in 1921. The intent was to create a free Irish state through the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but there was a provision within the treaty that offered northern Ireland the option to opt-out. At the time, Northern Ireland was heavily populated with British loyalists who did not wish to leave the UK, so the country was split into Free Ireland and Northern Ireland under English rule. The nationalists of Ireland were not happy with this outcome and fought to overturn it. While there are many complex motives behind the many people and subgroups within the IRA, for the time being, I will keep it simple.

The IRA fought back against this decision through coordinated guerilla attacks on British infrastructure. Those in Britain considered these attacks to be acts of terrorism whilst in Ireland, the issue was more controversial. One specific attack that occurred 18 years after the initial foundation of the IRA was the attempted bombing of the aqueduct canal above the North Circular Road. This would have caused "50 million gallons of water" (British Pathe) to cascade down onto the vehicles traveling below, and would eventually flood the nearby area. Luckily, the damage to the bridge was only slight, and only minor leaks had to be repaired. This attack was part of a greater series of sabotages called the S-plan, which lasted from 1939-1940 and ended up failing.

Contemporary Newsreel Report on the Attempted Bombing

The UK's response to acts of the IRA throughout the 20th-century laid the groundwork for the modern policies against terrorism and more specifically Islamic terrorism. After nearly 80 years of attacks from the IRA, it makes logical sense that the British Government is so strong-fisted in their approach to Islamic terrorism. But as we've seen in Home Fire and in other accounts, in practice the British anti-terrorism initiative often takes things too far and breaches people's civil liberties. A desire for security is warranted but a new balance between freedom and safety needs to be found and implemented quickly to ensure Muslims and all POC are being treated justly.

Sources:

“Another Bomb Outrage.” The World's Finest News and Entertainment Video Film Archive, British Pathe, 3 June 1939, www.britishpathe.com/video/another-bomb-outrage/query/north circular road.

Dingley, James. The IRA: the Irish Republican Army. Praeger, 2012.

Duffy, P.j. “Review: The Irish Border – History, Politics, and Culture.” Irish Economic and Social History, vol. 29, no. 1, June 2002, pp. 190–192., DOI:10.1177/033248930202900153.

O'Brien, Brendan. A Short History of the IRA: from 1916 Onwards. The O'Brien Press, 2019.

Various. The Anglo-Irish Treaty Dec 1920~Dec1921PDF. Royal Irish Academy National Archives, www.difp.ie/documents/1921treaty.pdf.