March 20, 1993: IRA bombing kills two children in the UK

WARRINGTON, UK – Whatever your cause, killing a couple of kids is never ok.

Some terrorist groups try to present themselves as ‘noble’. They talk about their ’cause’ and how it is just and must be addressed. They claim to act very carefully in targeting those who are to blame for their grievance (governments, militaries, etc.) and to avoid killing or wounding civilians.

Then again, there are groups like Islamic State (ISIS) which revel in killing the innocent. They make NO effort to avoid such victims: quite the opposite, they go out of their way to find and attack them.

Even if terrorist outfits are usually ‘careful’ they make mistakes. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was behind one such error.

On this day in 1993

Two bombs planted in litter bins on a busy shopping street in Warrington detonated within minutes of each other the Saturday before Mothering Sunday in the UK. Two children were killed, 12-year old Tim Parry and three-year old Jonathan Ball. 54 were wounded.

I don’t want to know what his name is, what he looks like, whether he’s got a couple of kids of his own. The whole idea that everyone wants to know who killed whom isn’t true. There are an awful lot of scabs going to be lifted as a result and I do wonder what the point is.

Tim Parry’s father Colin

A group was formed in the wake of this horrendous attack, the Tim Parry Jonathan Ball Foundation for Peace, which published a book in 2013 Good Can Come from Evil: The Story of the Warrington Bombing. I cannot imagine recovering from having lost a child to a terrorist attack but this publication does demonstrate the depth of the human spirit.

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