Airey Neave

Killed on 30 March 1979 by an INLA car bomb in the House of Commons car park; the shadow secretary for Northern Ireland and Thatcher ally died in the heart of parliament.

Overview

Neave, a lawyer and wartime escaper of Colditz who had interrogated at Nuremberg, managed Margaret Thatcher leadership campaign and served as shadow Northern Ireland secretary. The Irish National Liberation Army, a republican splinter, detonated a bomb fixed under his car as he drove out of the Westminster underground car park; he died of his wounds at Westminster hospital. The INLA claimed the killing as a message to British rule. No one was ever convicted for the bombing in Britain, though a claims trail through decades of troubles-era reviews continued. Thatcher poem tribute and his loss deepened her resolution on Northern Ireland policy. The murder of a senior politician inside the palace of Westminster itself remains one of the troubles most audacious strikes.