News about Patrick Magee

In a tweet relating to an upcoming match, Minnesota United FC has released a grovelling apology after using a 'divisive term' linked to the IRA. The American football team announced the use of the word "tiocfaidh ár lá" in reference to upcoming matches against St Patrick's Athletic FC, which is Irish for "our day will come." Minnesota FC's twin cities have a long tradition of Irish roots, which is why the forthcoming friendly game was supposed to celebrate St Patrick's Day. However, the football team's social media staff committed a blunder in promoting the game by using an expression of sympathy for the IRA.

Patrick Magee (pictured left and both insets) is, of course, the Brighton bomber. According to the judge in his murder trial, he supervised the horrific 1984 bombing of Brighton's Grand Hotel (pictured right), killing five people and taking just shy of killing Britain's then prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

After the infamous IRA attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton on October 12, 1984, Lady Margaret Tebbit (centre inset) was left paralysed. Patrick Magee (left), one of the IRA's most popular operatives, planted the bomb behind a bath panel and primed it to explode on the final day of the Conservative Party Conference, barely missing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Ella O'Dwyer (top right) was arrested and charged in connection with the bombing. Peter Sherry (bottom right), a convicted IRA terrorist, was also involved in the Brighton bombing trial.

An IRA bomb demolished much of The Grand Hotel in Brighton in the days leading up to Thursday, October 12, 1984. However, no one was aware of the bomber's identity. Patrick Magee (pictured), one of Ireland's most notorious agents, was shaking his head down after planting the bomb behind a bath panel and priming it to explode on the final day of the Conservative Party Conference. He felt safe enough to slink home to his Dublin apartment when days went by without any arrests or mentions of his name. Margaret Thatcher had been attempted and had nearly succeeded.

The five-star Grand Hotel, which overlooks Brighton's seafront, was owned by the billionaire Weston family behind Fortnum & Mason and Primark owner Associated British Foods. The 158-year-old hotel has witnessed the birth of an Indian prince in 1933 and is where Abba stayed after winning the 1974 Eurovision song competition.

Have you ever imagined how you would cope with something that's almost too horrible to write down? If considering the murder of someone we love, I suspect the majority of us would have a knee-jerk wish to murder the perpetrator in revenge - or at least see them suspended with the full weight of the law. Yet what if those immediate feelings of rage and grief became transformed into an urge to forgive? Candace Derksen's tangled and frozen body was discovered in a shed in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1985, her terrified parents decided to forgive their daughter's murderer without knowing who he was. They 'decided that forgiveness was the only viable option to save them from a lifetime of suffering,' despite a bleak future of endless sadness, terror, and rage. Marina Cantacuzino's insightful insight, but the couple were at best disapproved of and in the worst-case scenario, chastised for their position: people accused them of not really caring about their deceased child. Perhaps the issue with forgiveness is that it is also seen as putting the human spirit toward righteous rage. The truth is, in fact, much more complicated.