The Brighton Bomb: England Teams

The bomb is set for 12 October 1984 - but the IRA have been building to this for decades

It's the night of 17 September 1984. The guest in room 629 of Brighton’s Grand Hotel has ordered a bottle of vodka and three cokes. It seems he is having a small party. A few minutes before, the guest – who signed in two days ago as Roy Walsh – put the panel back on the side of the bath in 629’s en suite. Behind that panel he has left a bomb, timed to go off in three weeks, three days, six hours and thirty-six minutes, at 2.54am on Friday 12 October. The day of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton.

And the Prime Minister and all her cabinet, as this man who calls himself Roy Walsh knows, will be staying in the Grand Hotel. It's the biggest direct assault on the British Government since the Gunpowder Plot.

The bomb will kill 5 people and injure 30. It's the latest in a line of Irish republican attacks in England that stretches back to 1867.

Written and presented by Glenn Patterson

Series Producer: Owen McFadden Story Consultant and Sound Design: Alan Hall Producer: Lena Ferguson Archive Producer: Fran Rowlatt McCormick Production Co-Ordinator: Hollie Wallace Composer: Mark McCambridge Sound Engineer: Claire Marquess Mixing Engineer: Mike Woolley Patrick Magee archive courtesy of Peter Taylor and Whistledown Productions

Executive Producer: Rachel Hooper

A Walk on Air production in association with Keo Films for BBC Radio 4