Qualla: Warrington bombings

Warrington bombings: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Racklever at en.wikipedia, Public domain. Johnathan Ball was three years old. He had walked into town with his babysitter to buy a Mother's Day card. Tim Parry was twelve, from Great Sankey, and had gone to buy a pair of football shorts with money he had been given for his birthday. It was a Saturday morning, 20 March 1993, the day before Mother's Day, and Bridge Street in Warrington was full of families doing the same kinds of errands. Two small bombs had been hidden in cast-iron litter bins about a hundred yards apart. They went off at 12:25 in the afternoon. Johnathan died at the scene. Tim was taken to hospital and held on for five days before his parents agreed to let the doctors stop. Fifty-six other people were hurt, four of them very badly.

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Image: Racklever at en.wikipedia | Public domain

Warrington bombings: The Warning That Did Not Help

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter I. Vardy, Public domain. About half an hour before the explosions, a man called the Samaritans office in Liverpool and said that a bomb had been planted outside a Boots shop. He did not specify which Boots. He did not name Warrington. Merseyside Police sent officers to check Boots branches in Liverpool a...

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Image: Peter I. Vardy | Public domain

Warrington bombings: What Happened Before

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Bridge Street attack was the second IRA bombing in Warrington that year. On the night of 25 February, three IRA members had planted Semtex bombs at the gas holders on Winwick Road. A police officer stopped their van on Sankey Street and asked them what they were doing. They s...

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Image: Rept0n1x | CC BY-SA 3.0

Warrington bombings: Colin and Wendy Parry

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shaun Brierley, CC BY-SA 4.0. Tim Parry's parents, Colin and Wendy, did something that almost no one would expect of bereaved parents. They decided that grief should not curdle into hatred, and that the most useful thing they could build with their son's memory was the opposite of a bomb. The Tim Parry Johnat...

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Image: Shaun Brierley | CC BY-SA 4.0

Warrington bombings: Why Remember

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shaun Brierley, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Good Friday Agreement was signed in April 1998, five years after the bombs on Bridge Street. The Warrington killings were not the only reason the political climate shifted, but they were part of why the IRA's claim to legitimacy collapsed in mainland Britain. Two children buy...

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Image: Shaun Brierley | CC BY-SA 4.0