A Plague of Violence

Like a plague that has no remedy, the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland goes on and on. Once again, there are victims in England as well as in the troubled province of Ulster. Late last week a bomb exploded in the London Hilton Hotel, killing two people, wounding 28, and destroying the glass-and-marble lobby. It was the fifth bombing in or around London in the past two weeks. Scotland Yard believes that radical members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army are responsible for most if not all of the explosions.

The 28-story Hilton, which is half way between Buckingham Palace and the American embassy, was filled to capacity with late-season tourists. Possibly 100 people were milling around in the lobby when the tragedy took place. Just before noon, a switchboard operator at Associated Newspapers got a call from a man with an Irish accent warning that "a bomb will go off at the Hilton in ten minutes." Squad cars arrived at the hotel, but police were still trying to decide how to clear the area when, according to Anthony Peters, who manages the British Airways desk, "there was an almighty explosion. The whole place went black. When I looked up, the impression was of pieces of carpet burning."

The dazed and wounded poured out onto the street facing Hyde Park. "I saw a woman with both legs blown off below the knee," said a waiter as he sat dumbfounded on the curb. "There was blood and black smoke everywhere." The explosion was heard all over Mayfair, the heart of fashionable London, and ambulances sped to the hotel. "One minute everyone was walking about normally," said Sally Mordant, a passerby. "The next it was complete chaos."

In Northern Ireland, where killing has become almost matter-of-fact, the bloodshed, meanwhile, continued to mount, taking the lives of 20 people in only one week. In six years of fighting, 1,308 have been killed in Northern Ireland. The most outrageous incident occurred in south Armagh. While elderly members of a Protestant Orange lodge were attending their monthly meeting at the village hall, two masked men crashed through the door and sprayed the room with fire from automatic rifles. Five were killed by the gunmen, who belonged to a group thought to have close connections to the IRA Proves. A Protestant terror group promised revenge. For every Protestant killed, said the Ulster Freedom Fighters, six Catholics would lose their lives.

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