IRA blast Tory bastion
In claiming responsibility for the bombing of the British Tory Carlton Club in London and in an exclusive interview with An Phoblacht this week, the IRA says it has ``brought the war directly to those who keep the British Army on the streets and in the fields of Ireland''. The IRA has also pointed out clearly to the British policy makers whose bastion was blasted this week that the path to peace is open to them if they end their military occupation of the Six Counties.
When the IRA struck in London on Monday night, they struck at the very heart of the British establishment. For the next two days, the reaction from that establishment was nothing short of hysterical. They were aghast at the audacity of the attack on the 150-year-old Tory club which counts Thatcher as its only female member and which hosted her `tenth anniversary of power' private dinner, has former Six-County Direct Ruler Willie Whitelaw as its chair and is a central gathering place for members of the London government and other top members of the political establishment.
The importance of the target to the British Government was shown when Thatcher visited the wrecked building and when Geoffrey Howe rose in the House of Commons to make a special statement. As at the Tory conference in 1984, the IRA had brought the war to the doorsteps of those with ultimate responsibility for sending British soldiers to Ireland.
As the pall of smoke from the devastated club hung over St James's Street, those at the centre of the British establishment, the war mongerers who sustain the unnecessary conflict in Ireland, emerged from Westminster, St James's Palace and Buckingham Palace, all within a stone's throw of the blast site, to see the consequences of their war.
Phoblacht, Thursday 28 June, 1990
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