Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine 10th Anniversary of the Manchester IRA Bomb !

not sure if this news made it to the US when it happened ?

but today marks the 10th Anniversary of the IRA bomb blast in Manchester !!

it was a sunny Saturday morning at 11.17am [ 15th June 1996 ] when a massive IRA bomb ripped through the heart of Manchester busy shopping area !!

at the time, it was a devestating blow to our city, but was probably a 'blessing' so to speak !!

as 10 years later the city of Manchester has never been better, we've had a massive regeneration of the retail and public buildings !!

if you wanna check out some of the pictures, visit www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk and look for the links relating to the bomb !!

Matthew.

I remember it. gld to see your burgh bounce back. I passed through Manchester once; it looked like a nice city.

I'm glad your city is recovering, but I guess I'm not grasping something here ... about why this kind of tragic event could be called a "blessing," in any sense.

The only blessing I can see is that the sectarian violence about Northern Ireland seems to have stopped, at least in major terms and for some time now, and human beings aren't being blown up. (Were they in Manchester?)

As for the rebuilding, you do what you need to do. It may be needed to keep a thriving city going, but I don't see any particular civic virtue being involved in the physical act of doing it.

In attitudes of persistence and dedication, and in wanting to remain productive, yes, those are the heights of virtue. But fixing something that's been broken, as such? Again, I seem to be missing something.

I think the 'blessing' is the realisation of the previously impossible (or possibly 'just' hard to achieve) dream of revitalising the civic centre.
Maybe blessing isn't the right word... I think Homer's "Crisatuinty" (ie Crisis married to Opportunity) is closer.

I liken it to the Great Chicago Fire. A horrible event, but one that cleared space for the creation of a new kind of city - the 'skyscrapered' one.

It is bizarre to say teh bomb was a blessing, but it really was. I moved here in 1999 so it was well after the event but at the time pretty much the whole of the city centre was still a mess. The bomb devastated the main shopping area of the city but miraculously no-one was killed, I don't think anyone was really even hurt. But the fact that it did so much damage meant that they had to have a huge amount of rebuilding. That rebuilding in turn led to vast regenration of Manchester. It used to be seen as just a grim dirty place blighted by Sixties plannign mistakes and a pig ugly shopping centre (the Arndale) right slap bang in the city centre. Because of the bomb the city centre is now one of the most vibrant, exciting city centres, certainly in the Uk, probably in Europe. It's not unrealistic to say that if the bomb hadn't have happened Manchester would never have got the Commonwealth Games and without those Games it's almost certain London would never have had the Olympics.

So, in effect, while the bomb itself wasn't a good thing (an act of terrorism and destruction like that can never be a good thing) it has meant that Manchester si probably ten years on, maybe even more, in terms of development than it would have been otherwise. When you see cities like Birmingham or Liverpool that are just as in need of redevelopment and are just starting to get there now then you see how it's helped to give Manchester the boot up the arse that it needed. The redevelopment probably would have happened but not with the speed that it has and Manchester would be a much worse place than it is now. I guess it's a case of making the best out of a bad situation and in actual fact ending up being far better off than you ever would have been without the tragedy. I think the thing is that the Manchester bomb wasn't a New Orleans or a Twin Towers kind of tragedy, there was no loss of life, the immediate damage in relative terms was slight (althought he physical damage was large) and the end result has been far better than anyone could have imagined. In that way the bomb was a blessing for Manchester, strange as it may sound to say that.

No offense, but this line of reasoning reminds me of the satire of Candide. Even so, it's good Manchester is a great place today; whatever the cause. Plenty of places have been rejuvinated in the past decaded, so I wouldn't say Manchester couldn't have improved anyway, but I won't argue with your interpretation of how that came about.

A lot of places have been rejuvinated, but the point is that without the bomb the investment that has been put into Manchester probably wouldn't have happened to the degree it has. Like I say Birmingham and Liverpool are both seeing a lot of investment being put in at the moment but they are years behind Manchester despite the fact that ten years ago all three were probably equally as run down and in need of redevelopment. The fact that the bomb forced the council and the private investors to make the changes speeded the whole thing up. Manchester has changed in the last ten years significantly more than most large cities do not because of a desire to make the ccity better (although obviously that is a factor) but because it had to. Without the bomb that almost certainly wouldn't have happened. The city council have on a number of occassions admitted as much. Private investors didn't want to put their money into redeveloping a city that was seen as being grim and dark and nasty and the council couldn't afford to do it themselves. The bomb forced people to put things into action. It opened up new investment opportunities and meant that major sites in the city centre had to be redeveloped. Those things probably would have happened eventually but as in the case of Birmingham and Liverpool (who are following the example of Mancherster as much as anything else) it would have happened much more slowly.

Now to be fair the bomb and the damage it caused was as much the catalyst for change as anything else. The intital redevelopment wasn't the reason that we went for the Commonwealth Games (there had been bids for both the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics before the bomb) but the work that was being done was largely what convinced the voters that the Games could be held here. the Games then in turn led to even mroe redevelopment and rejuvination of areas that weren't in any way affected by the bomb. the Games gave the Tourist Board the kick up the arse they needed to really start marketing Manchester around the world and the tourist money that has started to come in in a major way (Manchester is much more a tourist desitination now than it was when i first moved here) has fed back into the further redevelopment, which leads to more tourist money and industry moving here and so on. As such various economists, most of the Manchester MPs and councillors and so on and most of the people who actually live in manchester agree that the bomb, in it's own way, was a good thing for Manchester. Sure it's a way of looking at a major terrorist incedent in a good light and no-one is saying that it's a good thing that the city was attacked in the way it was, but the effects of the bomb on the coty have shown that you can take lemons and make lemonade. The reaction of the city defused the political impact that the bomb was supposed to make. As a terrorist act it failed adn that is as important a fact as the rejuvination of Manchester. I do think though that all that being said one imprtant factor in the positive take on the bomb is the fact that no-one was hurt let alone killed. If there had been loss of life... yeah, we probably wouldn't be saying that the bomb was a good thing even if the redevelopment had happened. For example there isn't a Woolworths in central Manchester at all (and there's a Woolies in even little towns) because a while back (just before the bomb I think) there was amajor fire in the city centre Woolworths and a few people died. They've never rebuilt a store in the city centre because of that. Maybe it's a case of a tragedy being a tragedy when people die. When only buildings are damaged then it's not nearly as significant and much easier to view it in a good light.

It does sound glib to say the Manchester bomb was a boon and it does sound like we're celebrating it as something great that happened to the city. We're not really though. We're celebrating the city and the way that it came back from a huge event like that and rose from the ashes (almost literally) to become one of the best and most exciting cities in Europe. I honestly believe that without the bomb we would still be years behind where we are now and I'm not alone in that belief by a long shot.

thanks for your above and previous posts, Bevis !!

as usual you have a great way of saying things [ much better that myself !! ]

going back to my original post, i didn't intend for people to take offence, or to read it the wrong way !!

i just wanted to bring to light that it was the 10th anniversary of this event happening to the great city that i live and originate from !!

and mentioned by Bevis, because there was NO loss of life and only damage to buildings, WE as a city and community have managed to proceed with rebuilding in a positive way !!

and also going back to the POLITICAL 'backlash' that could have come from this event, i would say that the CITY and it's community don't hold any GRUDGE or BITTERNESS to the 'people' involved in planning this terrible act !!

hope all that makes sense

Matthew.