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was merely employing the negotiations as a stalling
CANARY WHARF BOMBING tactic to diminish the IRA’s military capabilities.
Negotiations halted for 18 months while frustrations
The 1996 bombing at Canary Wharf in East London grew. Various envoys, including former U.S. senator
marked the end of an 18-month Irish Republican Army George Mitchell, tried to achieve some form of com-
(IRA) cease-fire and jeopardized the peace process for promise. On February 9, 1996, at around 5:40 P.M., a
Northern Ireland. telephone call to Scotland Yard announced the end of
Since the late 1960s, conflict has been ongoing the IRA cease-fire and the resumption of military
between Northern Ireland’s Protestants, who want the operations.
province to remain part of the United Kingdom, and At 7 P.M., a bomb exploded at the Canary Wharf
Northern Ireland’s Roman Catholics, who want it to economic development site in East London’s Dock-
become part of the Republic of Ireland. On August 31, lands, killing two workers. The 81-acre site is home to
1994, after months of secret talks with the British and Britain’s largest office tower and is filled with offices,
Irish governments, the IRA, the largest paramilitary shops, and apartment complexes. The fertilizer-based
group on the Catholic side (also called the nationa- bomb weighed several tons and was hidden in a truck.
list, or republican, side), announced a cease-fire. In Despite the bomb’s great size, fewer than 50 people
October, the major Protestant (also called loyalist or were injured because police had cleared the area;
unionist) paramilitary groups followed suit. After 30 property damage, however, totaled an estimated £140
years of guerrilla warfare and several previous failed million (U.S. $215 million).
attempts at negotiations, these mutual cease-fires repre- Peace negotiations ceased, not to resume until
sented the best opportunity to achieve a lasting peace. 1997, when a new prime minister, Tony Blair, took
The major parties to the negotiations were all deeply office. In a 1998 trial, James McCardle was convicted
suspicious of the motives of their counterparts, how- and sentenced to 25 years. He has since been released,
ever. Furthermore, the government of Britain’s Conser- as have almost all paramilitary prisoners, under the
vative prime minister John Major depended on his terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
party’s slim majority in Parliament; he could not
afford to lose the support of the Unionist members See also BOMBINGS AND BOMB SCARES; IRISH REPUBLICAN
of Parliament from Northern Ireland. To appease the ARMY
Unionists and win some assurance of the IRA’s com-
mitment to peace, Major demanded that the IRA Further Reading
decommission some of its arms before commencing
Campbell, Duncan. “Bomb Case Man Cleared.” The
serious talks. Guardian, February 11, 1998, 5.
IRA leaders balked, seeing this request as a con- Hoge, Warren. “Notorious Killer Among Inmates Freed
firmation of their worst fear—the British government From Ulster Prison.” New York Times, July 25, 2000, A3.

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