Good morning, my American cousins.

A sad anniversary today.

50 years ago tonight, as part of a widespread bombing campaign targeting civilians, the Provisional IRA blew up 21 kids and mutilated nearly 200 others in the Birmingham Pub Bombings. There wasn't even a pretence that this was one of the Provisionals' "military targets".

They were just kids enjoying the first "big" night out of the week (most people were paid on a Thursday back then).

My wife and I (then courting) often went into these pubs when we went to Birmingham, to us rustic types "the big city". That Thursday evening I was due to go to Coventry police station for more questioning on the Provos' attempt to blow up the women of Coventry's telephone exchange the week before, of which I was a near-witness.

The Friday morning after the Pub Bombings wasn't a good day to be Irish in the English Midlands, and huge demonstrations and factory strikes developed during the day. Irishmen who had previously expressed the least support for the IRA were chased from their jobs and their homes and huge queues built up at the ferry ports. I should say that such was the indiscriminate nature of the bombings that two young Irish brothers were among the dead, and that the vast majority of Irish people living in England abhorred what had happened.

The sequel was tragic in every way. The attempt to blow up the women and girls at Coventry telephone exchange the week before was thwarted by one of the bombers himself. This was James McDade. His bomb exploded prematurely, blowing him into eternity but with little effect on the telephone exchange. Only his head was found - resulting in a macabre joke: "How did they know the bomber was an Irishman? His fingers were still in his ears."

Twenty minutes before the timer-set Birmingham pub bombs exploded, six men from Northern Ireland boarded a train at nearby New Street Station. They'd known the Coventry bomber, McDade, and were going to Belfast for his funeral - a Provisional IRA funeral with "full military honours".

Naturally, the timing of their journey out of Birmingham brought them to the attention of the police, and they were quickly made the primary suspects and arrested.

Apart from the association with McDade, none of them was involved with the Provos (though one had briefly been a member). They spent the next 15 years in gaol, not helped by the Provos, and became a left-wing cause célèbre. Their unfortunate intention to attend an illegal Provisional IRA funeral earned them little sympathy.

From the day after the pub bombings (there would be others) just going into a pub or a shop became a trial. Patrons were frisked, and any bags they carried were searched and left in a place designated "safe" by the management. There were also regular searches under chairs and benches, and you could rely on the police coming in a couple of times a night to look for known "faces". This went on for years.

So there you are. A little bit of enormously sad history from across the Pond, and something I'll never forget.