In my lifetime (I'm 30, from Manchester), I lived through two bomb attacks a few miles away from my home, one in the centre of the City, and another in a nearby town in the main shopping street that killed two children. They didn't 'tend to attack military targets'; they were terrorists.
Terrorism is either bad, or it isn't. Don't dress the IRA up as something they aren't so that you can sit on the fence.
I think the IRA harmed a lot of innocent people, harmed their own cause, and that bombing civilians, warning or not, should be condemned. However the poster did mention that warnings were given if bombs were placed near civilians and your own link for the Warrington bombs does confirm that.
I also think if you played the loudest instrument on earth while marching in circles outside David Cameron's church you'd be arrested.
Terrorism is not one thing, or even very well defined. The ANC were terrorists, the American revolutionaries were terrorists, and the Haganah were terrorists. Is it so black and white?
And what was Drogheda, when the English massacred an entire town? Or shooting up the crowd in Croke Park? Or Bloody Sunday? The English have carried out terrorism against the Irish for centuries. It's an English war of choice. The English stole my family's land, gave it to settlers, and now English troops still march up and down Belfast. If you choose to go to war with a country and try to subjugate their people, expect the consequences. Don't cry that some of the war of your choice blew back to your homeland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrington_bomb_attacks
In my lifetime (I'm 30, from Manchester), I lived through two bomb attacks a few miles away from my home, one in the centre of the City, and another in a nearby town in the main shopping street that killed two children. They didn't 'tend to attack military targets'; they were terrorists.
Terrorism is either bad, or it isn't. Don't dress the IRA up as something they aren't so that you can sit on the fence.