FOUR MEN OF MURDER
MICHAEL MURRAY
‘Squire’ Murray – who died in 1999 – told police he was a member of the IRA and was tried alongside the Birmingham Six, but did not face a murder charge. He was convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions and given a 12-year sentence. Murray joined the IRA in the 1950s and lived in Birmingham in the 1970s, working as a factory labourer.
He was named as one of the real bombers on TV in 1990. Bombs were made in his rented garage and Murray was meant to give a 30-minute warning using the codename Double X but the call boxes he planned to use were broken and it was delayed by 20 minutes.
JAMES GAVIN
Brought up in a Protestant family in Ulster, Gavin joined the British Army and served with the Royal Signals but deserted in 1964.
He later claimed he infiltrated the IRA so he could pass information to police. He was a metal worker living in Sutton Coldfield when he was charged over the bombings. He was found guilty of possessing explosives and given a one-year jail sentence. He was later convicted of the murder of a Republican and given life.
A paper ran an obituary for ‘IRA volunteer’ Jimmy Gavin in 2002 but it has not been possible to confirm if it is the same man.
SEAMUS MCLOUGHLIN
Known as Belfast Jimmy, former IRA quartermaster Seamus McLoughlin took over the Birmingham IRA after its leader Michael Coughlan was arrested in 1974.
Allegedly one of the masterminds of the bombings, he died in 2014. On the day of the blasts he was on an Aer Lingus flight from Birmingham to Dublin with the remains of James McDade, the IRA man who had blown himself up with a bomb in Coventry.
After his death, McLoughlin’s body was taken from Dublin to North Belfast and given paramilitarystyle‘ honours’ with masked men firing shots over his coffin.
MICHAEL HAYES
The alleged bombing mastermind was said to have planted one of the Birmingham devices in 1974.
He was jailed for three years in 1976 for IRA membership and possession of arms and explosives.
He was then said to have been involved in planning the Hyde Park and Regent’s Park bombs in 1982, the 1983 attack on Harrods and the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing, which altogether killed 22. In 1990 he failed to stop Granada naming him. It was not possible to trace him yesterday.
A fifth man said to have planted one of the pub bombs was not named for ‘security reasons’.