There Will Be Fire

Book cover of There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History

Book description

A race-against-the-clock narrative that finally illuminates a history-changing event: the IRA’s attempt to assassinate Margaret Thatcher and the epic manhunt that followed.

A bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army exploded at 2:54 a.m. on October 12, 1984. It was the last day of the Conservative Party Conference at the…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked There Will Be Fire as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Joshua Piven

Author

I was on somewhat of a “history of the IRA” kick this year (that’s the Irish Republican Army, not the Inflation Reduction Act!). I read a review of There Will Be Fire (ominously titled Killing Thatcher in the UK) in The New Yorker and picked up a copy.

The book is history that reads like a novel. It traces the story of IRA operatives who, in 1984, planted a massive bomb at a UK beach resort that just barely missed killing the UK Prime Minister (and her husband) while killing or injuring many others and destroying most of the historic…

From Joshua's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Mark Bulik

Author

We know from the start that the British prime minister survived the IRA bomb explosion at a Conservative Party conference in Brighton, but that doesn’t lessen the tension in this fine history of the incident.

Rory Carroll gives us nuanced portraits of Thatcher and the bomb maker who tried to kill her. This tale of an overseas attack by the IRA really resonated with me because that’s what “Ambush at Central Park” is all about – and my book includes a chapter about the involvement of some of the IRA gunmen in New York in a plot to assassinate members…

From Mark's list on the Irish Republican Army from the 1920s to 1990s.