On 15 June 1996, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a 1,500-kilogram (3,300 lb) lorry bomb on Corporation Street in the centre of Manchester, England. It was the biggest bomb detonated in Great Britain since the Second World War. It targeted the city's infrastructure and economy and caused significant damage, estimated by insurers at £700 million (equivalent to £1.3 billion in 2024), a sum surpassed only by the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing, also by the IRA.
At the time, England was hosting the Euro '96 football championship and a Russia vs. Germany match was scheduled to take place in Manchester the following day. The IRA sent telephoned warnings about 90 minutes before the bomb detonated. At least 75,000 people were evacuated from the region, but the bomb squad was unable to defuse the bomb in time. More than 200 people were injured, but there were no fatalities despite the strength of the bomb, which has been largely credited to the rapid response of emergency services in evacuating the city centre.
Although Manchester had been targeted by the IRA before, it had not been subjected to an attack on this scale. In February 1996, the IRA had ended its 17-month ceasefire with a large truck bomb attack on London's Docklands financial district, though the 3,300-pound bomb of Manchester was three times the size of the Docklands bomb. The Manchester bombing was condemned by the British and Irish Governments and US President Bill Clinton. Five days after the explosion, the IRA issued a statement from Dublin in which it claimed responsibility but regretted causing injury to civilians.
Several buildings were damaged beyond repair and had to be demolished, while many more were closed for months for structural repairs. Most of the rebuilding work was completed by the end of 1999, at a cost of £1.2 billion, although redevelopment continued until 2005. The perpetrators have not been caught, and the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) suggested it was unlikely that anyone will be charged in connection with the bombing; a suspect taken in for questioning on 8 September 2022 was interviewed and released without charges being laid.
Background
From 1970, the Provisional Irish Republican Army was carrying out an armed campaign with the ultimate objective of bringing about a united Ireland. As well as attacking military and political targets, it also bombed infrastructure and commercial targets in Northern Ireland and England. It believed that by damaging the economy and causing severe disruption, it could pressure the British government to negotiate a withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Manchester had been the target of earlier IRA bombs. As part of the IRA's sabotage campaign in 1939-40 multiple bombings took place in Manchester and other English cities. In 1973 and 1974, firebombs damaged city centre businesses for which one man was later imprisoned. In April 1974, a bomb exploded at Manchester Magistrates' Court, injuring twelve. In 1975, IRA bomb factories were found in Greater Manchester, and five men were imprisoned for planning attacks in North West England. On 3 December 1992, the IRA detonated two small bombs in Manchester city centre, forcing police to evacuate thousands of shoppers. More than 60 were hurt by shattered glass and the blasts cost an estimated £10 million in damage and business losses.
The Downing Street Declaration of 1993 allowed Sinn Féin, a political party associated with the IRA, to participate in all-party peace negotiations on condition that the IRA called a ceasefire. The IRA called a ceasefire on 31 August 1994. John Major's government, dependent on Ulster Unionist Party votes, then began insisting that the IRA must fully disarm before there could be any all-party negotiations. The IRA saw this as a demand for total surrender and believed the British were unwilling to hold negotiations. It ended its ceasefire on 9 February 1996 when it detonated a powerful truck bomb in Docklands, one of the two financial districts of London. The blast killed two people and caused an estimated £150 million worth of damage. The IRA then planted five other devices in London within the space of 10 weeks.
The IRA planned to carry out a similar bombing in Manchester. The city may have been chosen because it was one of the host cities of the Euro '96 football tournament, attended by visitors and media organisations from all over Europe, guaranteeing the IRA what Margaret Thatcher called the "oxygen of publicity". A Russia vs Germany match was to take place at Old Trafford in Manchester a day after the bombing. The year before, Manchester had also won its bid to host the 2002 Commonwealth Games, at the time the biggest multi-sport event ever to be staged in Britain.
On 10 June 1996, multi-party negotiations began in Belfast. Sinn Féin had been elected to take part but were barred because the IRA had not resumed its ceasefire or agreed to disarm.
Details of the bombing
The IRA's South Armagh Brigade was tasked with planning and carrying out the attack. It had also been responsible for the Docklands bombing in February, and the Bishopsgate bombing in 1993. Its members mixed the explosives in the Republic of Ireland and shipped them by freight from Dublin to England. In London, the bomb was assembled and loaded into the back of a red and white Ford Cargo lorry. On 14 June it was driven north towards Manchester, accompanied by a burgundy Ford Granada which served as a "scout car".
Discovery
At about 9:20 am on Saturday 15 June 1996, the Ford lorry was parked on Corporation Street, outside the Marks & Spencer store, near the Arndale Centre. After setting the bomb's timer, two men—wearing hooded jackets, baseball caps and sunglasses—left the vehicle and walked to Cathedral Street, where a third man picked them up in a Ford Granada car, which was later abandoned in Preston. The truck had been parked on double yellow lines with its hazard lights flashing. Within three minutes a traffic warden had issued the vehicle with a parking ticket and called for its removal. At about 9:40 am, Granada Studios on Quay Street received a telephone call claiming that there was a bomb at the corner of Corporation Street and Cannon Street and that it would explode in one hour. The caller had an Irish accent and gave an IRA codeword so that police would know the threat was genuine. Four other telephoned warnings were sent to television/radio stations, newspapers, and a hospital.
The first policeman to arrive on the scene noticed wires running from the lorry's dashboard through a hole into the back and reported that he had found the bomb. Forensic experts later estimated that the bomb weighed 1,500–1,600 kg (3,300–3,500 lb) and was a mixture of semtex, a military-grade plastic explosive, and ammonium nitrate fertiliser, a cheap and easily obtainable explosive used extensively by the IRA. Components of what may have been a tremble trigger were also found later, designed to detonate the bomb if it was tampered with.
Evacuation
At 10:00 am, there were an estimated 75,000–80,000 people shopping and working in the vicinity. An evacuation of the area was undertaken by police officers from Bootle Street police station, supplemented by officers drafted into Manchester to control the football crowds. The police were helped by security guards from local shops.
One group worked to move people away from the bomb while another, assisted by firefighters and security guards, established a continuously expanding cordon around the area to prevent entry. By 11:10 am, the cordon was at the greatest extent that available manpower would permit, about a quarter of a mile (400 m) from the truck and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) in circumference.
Explosion
The bomb squad arrived from their Liverpool base at 10:46 am and attempted to defuse the bomb using a remote-controlled device, but they were unable to defuse the bomb, resulting in the timer expiring and activating the device. The bomb exploded at 11:17 am, causing an estimated £700 million (£1.4 billion as of 2025) of damage and affecting a third of the city centre's retail space. The Marks & Spencer's and the sky bridge connecting it to the Arndale Centre were destroyed, along with neighbouring buildings. It was the largest peacetime bomb ever detonated in Great Britain, and the blast created a mushroom cloud which rose 300 metres (1,000 feet) from the ground. The explosion could be heard up to 15 miles (24 km) away and left a crater 15 metres wide. Glass and masonry were thrown into the air, and behind the police cordon – up to 1⁄2 mi (800 m) away, people were showered by falling debris.
There were no fatalities, but 212 people were injured. A search of the area for casualties involved a brief confusion when mannequins blasted out of shop windows were mistaken for bodies. Hospitals across Greater Manchester were made ready to receive those injured in the blast. The police commandeered a Metrolink tram to take 50 of the casualties to North Manchester General Hospital, which treated 79 in total; a further 80 were cared for at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and many others were treated in the streets by ambulance crews assisted by doctors and nurses who happened to be in the city centre that morning.
Reaction
The bombing was condemned by British Prime Minister John Major and his government, by the opposition, and by individual members of parliament (MPs) as a "sickening", "callous" and "barbaric" terrorist attack. Early on, Major stated that, "This explosion looks like the work of the IRA. It is the work of a few fanatics and ... causes absolute revulsion in Ireland as it does here". Sinn Féin was criticised by Taoiseach John Bruton for being "struck mute" on the attack in the immediate aftermath. Bruton described the bombing as "a slap in the face to people who've been trying, against perhaps their better instincts, to give Sinn Féin a chance to show that they could persuade the IRA to reinstate the ceasefire". The President of the United States, Bill Clinton, stated he was "deeply outraged by the bomb explosion" and joined Bruton and Major in "utterly condemning this brutal and cowardly act of terrorism".
Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams, stated that he was "shocked and saddened" by the bombing. He said that his party was committed to achieving a peace settlement and argued "it is sheer folly to return to the old agenda of excluding Sinn Féin and seeking to isolate republicans". On 20 June 1996, the IRA claimed responsibility for the bombing, and stated that it "sincerely regretted" causing injury to civilians. The IRA statement continued:
The British Government has spent the last 22 months since August '94 trying to force the surrender of IRA weapons and the defeat of the republican struggle. We are still prepared to enhance the democratic peace process ... but if there is to be a lasting peace ... then the British Government must put the democratic rights of all of the people of Ireland before its own party political self interest.
The bombing came five days after the beginning of the peace talks in Belfast, and represented the IRA's opposition to talks which excluded republicans. The attack was part of a political strategy by the IRA to be included in negotiations on the IRA's own terms. According to historian Richard English: "What they were doing with their return to bombings like the Manchester bomb was saying, 'We can still return to war if we want to. We can still put off a huge bomb in your cities and devastate them and therefore you have to deal with us'".
In an effort to allay fears that Manchester's considerable Irish community might be subjected to reprisal attacks, Councillors Richard Leese and Martin Pagel – leader and deputy leader of Manchester City Council respectively – made a public visit to the Irish World Heritage Centre in Cheetham Hill. There were ultimately only a few incidents, the most serious of which occurred on the evening of the bombing, when a gang of ten men rampaged through an Irish-themed bar in the centre of Middleton, shouting the Ulster loyalist slogan "No surrender" and smashing furniture and windows. Seven days after the bombing, Manchester Council held a 'family fun day' in front of the Town Hall in Albert Square to encourage shoppers and visitors back into the city centre, the first of a "series of events and entertainments". The Euro '96 football match between Russia and Germany at Old Trafford went ahead as planned the day following the bombing, after the stadium had been heavily guarded overnight and carefully searched; the game, which Germany won 3–0, was watched by a capacity crowd of 50,700.
Investigation
In an effort to trace the route of the Ford lorry, police examined CCTV footage from every major road and motorway taken in England within two days of the bombing. Footage revealed that the lorry was driven south along the M1 motorway into London on the Friday afternoon before the attack. It was seen again heading north along the motorway at 7:40 pm, accompanied by the Ford Granada. Detectives surmised that the lorry had been loaded with explosives in London and that the Granada was intended to be the getaway vehicle. The lorry was last recorded travelling east along the M62 motorway towards Manchester at 8:31 am on the morning of the explosion.
Police in Manchester were aware that their Metropolitan Police colleagues in London were investigating a suspected IRA unit based in the capital, and wondered whether the London unit was responsible for the Manchester bombing. On 15 July, Metropolitan police arrested six men suspected of IRA membership: Donal Gannon, John Crawley, Gerard Hanratty, Robert Morrow, Patrick Martin, and Francis Rafferty. Each was tried and convicted of "conspiracy to cause explosions at National Grid electricity stations", and sentenced to 35 years in jail. Police in Manchester meanwhile worked to establish if the men were also responsible for the Manchester bomb.