Dublin solicitor interviewed over 1974 pub bombings

Dublin solicitor Kieran Conway who was interviewed last week by Irish and British police about his knowledge of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, believes the interview was part of an elaborate charade.

Mr Conway said the interview was set up to assuage calls from families of victims in the UK for a full inquiry into the bombings. He also said the peace process could have come decades earlier, and in that respect the armed campaign “wasn’t worth the bloodshed”.

Mr Conway's book Southside Provisional – from Freedom Fighter to the Four Courts describes how, over more then 20 years from 1970 – with a break form the organisation between 1975 and 1981 – he was a member of the IRA.

The book also claims he was at the home of a well-known Dublin journalist in the aftermath of the Birmingham bombings when the officer in command of the IRA in England and that officer’s adjutant were debriefed by IRA leader Dave (Daithi) O’Connell .

Twenty-one people died and 150 were injured when the bombs exploded in two crowded pubs without warning, in November 1974. Six innocent Irish men were convicted of the pub bombings. The men – known as the Birmingham Six – were later cleared of the crimes and released after spending 15 years in jail.

‘Another failure’

Mr Conway claims he was in the house on a separate matter when he met both men “and, though I took no part in the actual debrief, I was later told by Dave [O’Connell] that the early indications were that the casualties were the result of yet another failure in the warning system, a succession of phone boxes from which the warning might have been relayed having proved to be inoperable.”

In his book Mr Conway says he “was appalled and personally ashamed of the bombing, which went against everything we claimed to stand for”.

He said O’Connell was himself “furious, fully recognising not just the damage the bombing had caused to the IRA, but its immorality as well”.

Last Friday, he went voluntarily to Pearse Street Garda station where questions prepared by the UK’s West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit were put to him by to members of the Garda’s Special Detective Unit. A detective from the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit also sat in on the interview.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Conway said he had confirmed on tape he had written the book and had been a member of the IRA. But he said the names of the active service unit personnel who had carried out the bombing had been in the public domain for a long time.

He said all but one of the men were still alive and were living in the Republic.

Mr Conway also claims there was some belief UK intelligence service MI5 had advance knowledge of the Birmingham bombings and had allowed them to go ahead “probably not knowing there would be such a loss of life”. He said the strategy would have been to ensure approval by the Houses of Parliament of the subsequent Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Mr Conway grew up in Killiney in south Dublin and attended Blackrock College. He now has a solicitor’s practice in Dublin, specialising in criminal law.