On 3 August 2001, a car bomb exploded near Ealing Broadway station in west London, injuring seven people and causing extensive damage to the surrounding area.
The attack came during a dark and uncertain period in the United Kingdom. Although the Northern Ireland peace process was under way, dissident republican groups remained determined to use violence in an attempt to undermine it.
An explosion shortly after midnight
The bomb had been placed inside a car left on Uxbridge Road, close to Ealing Broadway railway and Underground station and an area containing pubs, restaurants and late-night businesses.
It exploded shortly after midnight as people were leaving nearby venues. The device contained approximately 45 kilograms of homemade explosives.
The force of the blast shattered windows, damaged buildings and scattered debris across a wide area. A water main beneath the road was ruptured, causing flooding and further damage to nearby premises, including parts of the Ealing Broadway shopping centre.
Seven people were injured, although none was killed. The limited number of casualties was regarded as fortunate given the size of the device and the number of people who had been in the area.
A vague warning
A warning had been telephoned to a doctors’ out-of-hours service shortly before the explosion. It was vague and provided the police with little time to identify the precise location of the bomb and clear the surrounding streets.
Officers were attempting to evacuate the area when the device detonated. Scotland Yard described the bombing as a reckless terrorist attack intended to kill or seriously injure members of the public.
The Real Irish Republican Army, generally known as the Real IRA, was blamed for the attack. The organisation had split from the Provisional IRA and opposed the peace process that followed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
A campaign against the peace process
The Ealing bombing was not an isolated incident. It formed part of a dissident republican campaign directed at targets in Britain and Northern Ireland.
Five months earlier, a car bomb had exploded outside BBC Television Centre in White City, injuring one person and damaging the building. Other devices had targeted postal facilities in north London, while an attempted bombing followed in Birmingham in November 2001.
The Real IRA had already carried out the 1998 Omagh bombing, the deadliest single atrocity of the Northern Ireland conflict. That attack killed 29 people, as well as unborn twins, and injured hundreds more.
By 2001, the main republican and loyalist ceasefires and the Good Friday Agreement had created the basis for a political settlement. Dissident organisations nevertheless continued trying to derail that progress through violence.
Bombing conspiracy convictions
The investigation into the Ealing attack became part of a wider inquiry into the Real IRA’s bombing campaign in Britain.
In 2003, five men were sentenced at the Old Bailey for conspiracy to cause explosions between January and November 2001. The conspiracy encompassed the attacks at BBC Television Centre and Ealing, together with the attempted bombing in Birmingham.
Noel Maguire and James McCormack received 22-year sentences. Brothers Robert and Aiden Hulme were each sentenced to 20 years, while John Hannan, who had been 17 at the time of the offences, received 16 years’ detention.
Why the Ealing bombing mattered
The attack demonstrated that the signing of a peace agreement did not immediately remove the threat of terrorism connected with Northern Ireland.
It also illustrated the particular danger presented by vague or misleading bomb warnings. The police had only minutes to locate the vehicle and move people away from a busy part of west London.
That nobody was killed was largely a matter of good fortune. Prosecutors later told the Old Bailey that it was remarkable that pedestrians and people inside nearby pubs and clubs had escaped fatal injury.
The physical damage in Ealing was eventually repaired, but the bombing remains part of the history of the dissident campaign that sought—and failed—to halt Northern Ireland’s transition away from widespread political violence.