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Bombed in 1939, then forgotten
The S-Plan
The bomb was part of a campaign. In January 1939 the IRA launched a new offensive against Britain and called it the S-Plan, the sabotage plan. Bombs went off in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, and Blackpool, in railway stations, banks, and post offices, and on the London Underground.
Coventry forgotten
The worst came in Coventry, where a bicycle bomb in the city centre killed five people that August. Coventry was bombed again the following year, by the Germans, and everyone remembers that. The 1939 attack, which would otherwise be well known, has been wiped from the national consciousness.
An IRA that endured
Behind it stood an organization that never went away. Most IRA men put their guns away once the British signed the treaty and the civil war ended, but a few hundred stayed active with guns, and that was enough to kill people.
Once the Second World War began, the British and Irish governments both cracked down hard and interned IRA suspects without trial. Ireland executed six IRA men during the war, including the IRA's chief of staff, who was put to death for killing an Irish policeman.
How did the S-Plan expect to win?
The plan was drawn up by IRA leader Seán Russell. It aimed to wreck British infrastructure such as power, water, communications, and transport, and so pressure Britain to withdraw from Northern Ireland. In January 1939 the IRA sent an ultimatum demanding that withdrawal before the bombs began. Britain answered that summer with the Prevention of Violence Act, which allowed the deportation of suspected IRA members.
Why did Coventry's 1939 bombing fade from memory?
The German raid on the night of 14 November 1940 killed more than 500 people and gutted the medieval cathedral. The city kept the ruined shell of the old building as a memorial and consecrated a new cathedral beside it in 1962. Coventry's public identity grew around that wartime destruction and later reconciliation with Germany. The Cross of Nails, made from medieval roof nails found in the ruins, became its symbol.
Why did Ireland execute its own IRA men?
Ireland stayed neutral during the war, which it called the Emergency, and its government saw the IRA as a threat to the state's sovereignty. Hundreds of suspects were interned at the Curragh camp in County Kildare. Military tribunals handled many cases under emergency laws. Charlie Kerins, the IRA's chief of staff, was hanged at Mountjoy Prison in December 1944 for the 1942 killing of a Garda detective.
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