Bombshell. Mia Bloom

BOMBER

      We are prepared to fast to the death, if necessary, but our love for justice and our country will live forever. —Mairéad Farrell, Margaret Nugent, and Mary Doyle, hunger strikers, Armagh Prison, December 1, 1980¹

      We are actively involved in the struggle at all levels raising the issues of sexism, violence against women, and discrimination, women must fight for their freedom. —Mairéad Keane, Director, Sinn Féin's Women's Department, July 1990²

      SIOBHAN

      Siobhan³ sat by herself staring out the window of a bus full of tourists and holidaymakers en route to Belfast International Airport. Her rosy cheeks were flushed with both nervousness and excitement. She was wearing denim overalls, the kind that pregnant women often wear, and concealed underneath them fifteen pounds of Semtex explosives strapped to her waist. Her mission: to plant the explosives at the airport and wait for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) to make its warning call to clear the premises. In her mind, she could accomplish this task without any civilians getting killed. However, the economic reverberations of such an attack would be huge: tourism in Northern Ireland would grind to a standstill and make it too expensive for the British government to remain and maintain its presence. By attacking a high-value site like the airport, the PIRA would also show that no target was beyond its reach. Siobhan's mission took the PIRA's use of female bomb smugglers to a new level. In a weekend of heightened bombing activity, with nine bombings and shootings all over the province that very day, in Lisburn, Newry, Derry, and Strabane, Siobhan's ruse—pretending to be an expectant mother—might enable her to successfully carry out her mission without anyone ever suspecting her real identity.⁴