The 7/7 Bombings

LC2010HIS · 11-07-2010 01:59AM

You know, its amazing to me when something happens to the USA and UK, its sensationalized. Before anyone bites my head off, dont get me wrong, 9/11 was horrifying. But what about the people in the middle east experiencing bombs every freaking day? RTE, SKY ,BBC give them 5minutes. Whereas, 9/11 and 7/7 and all these incidents get non stop coverage. Even recently with the time square incident. Ok, they intercepted it before it went off. Fine, thats the end of it. Oh no its not, cause its on the news 2 days after. I feel sorry for those who died on 7/7 and 9/11 but to an extent. Middle eastern -> INNOCENT<- people are killed every week, their homes destroyed, lives destroyed...... And wheres their documentries? Wheres their coverage?
Thats my opinion.

Pauleta · 11-07-2010 02:19AM

realies wrote: »

I agree its only a matter of time before something big goes of up there,
i have also heard that loyalists were planing to hit dublin in retaliation.

Stop making stories up :rolleyes:

KevR · 11-07-2010 11:31PM

LC2010HIS wrote: »

You know, its amazing to me when something happens to the USA and UK, its sensationalized. Before anyone bites my head off, dont get me wrong, 9/11 was horrifying. But what about the people in the middle east experiencing bombs every freaking day? RTE, SKY ,BBC give them 5minutes. Whereas, 9/11 and 7/7 and all these incidents get non stop coverage. Even recently with the time square incident. Ok, they intercepted it before it went off. Fine, thats the end of it. Oh no its not, cause its on the news 2 days after. I feel sorry for those who died on 7/7 and 9/11 but to an extent. Middle eastern -> INNOCENT<- people are killed every week, their homes destroyed, lives destroyed...... And wheres their documentries? Wheres their coverage?
Thats my opinion.

Well Sky and BBC are British broadcasters so they're obviously going to cover a bombing in London a lot more than one in the Middle East. I don't think they sensationalised it.

The UK is our neighbour, our biggest trading partner and lots of Irish people are living in the UK or just visting it (Dublin-London is the busiest air traffic route in the world!) so naturally there is going to be a high level of interest by Irish people and RTE if London is bombed. Yes, innocent people get killed by bombs in the Middle East also (an innocent life lost in the Middle East is as equally unfortunate as anywhere else) but it's a bit naive to expect there to be the same level of interest in Ireland or the UK.

As for Irish and British news stations being more interested in terrorist attacks on the US than the Middle East, again - all big trading partners with very close ties....etc.

Liam Byrne · 11-07-2010 11:39PM

KevR wrote: »

Well Sky and BBC are British broadcasters so they're obviously going to cover a bombing in London a lot more than one in the Middle East.

That might explain a UK one, but it doesn't explain the U.S. ones, considering that the Middle East is nearer than the U.S.

gizmo · 11-07-2010 11:47PM

Jay P wrote: »

To be honest, I reacted more to the attempted liquid bombings. We're still not allowed bring our own water on the feckin planes now thanks to that.

Yea, and I have to take my shoes off when I go through security in the airport. ****ing New World Order, always trying to inconvenience us

BigEejit · 12-07-2010 12:04AM

I was in london on the day, I remember not being able to ring anyone on my mobile, but luckily I drove to Canary Wharf that day and was half way home before I heard the news on the radio.

I was freaked out for some time getting on the tube, if anyone of middle eastern appearance came on the tube with a backpack you could see every eye swivelling to follow their every move.

.SONIC. · 12-07-2010 12:08AM

i was scared, wed just spent a day in london on our way to turkey!! :eek:

oh yeah reminds me of a joke,

whats the difference between smarties and londoners??
- smarties dont blow up in the tube!!

Mint Sauce · 12-07-2010 12:37AM

my imediate reaction was trying to call my family who travel those routes everyday and who worked in canary wharf, my thoughts were the same of the rest of the day, hoping to god they were ok.

Thankfully they were either else where or had drove.

mikemac · 12-07-2010 12:48AM

Strange that for all the attention on the middle east, three of the bombers were English and one from Jamaica.

Watch your own citizens I suppose

Kiwi_knock · 12-07-2010 12:53AM

Liam Byrne wrote: »

That might explain a UK one, but it doesn't explain the U.S. ones, considering that the Middle East is nearer than the U.S.

We cover the UK and US atrocities more than the middle eastern atrocities because there is more likely to be a casualty in the former that has some tenous link to Ireland. Because no Paddy O'Reillys' are getting blown up in the middle east RTE rightly assume that the majority of people will have no interest in hearing more than few sentences on it.

mikemac · 12-07-2010 01:08AM

Liam Byrne wrote: »

That might explain a UK one, but it doesn't explain the U.S. ones, considering that the Middle East is nearer than the U.S.

It's normal.
We are a Western country and have more connections to the US then maybe Syria even if Syria is closer.
Can you name the leader of Syria for example or the leader of the USA? Substitute Syria for Jordan or Bahrain or just about any country in that area. Do you still know a lot about them and identify yourself with them?
If the USA or one of these countries are bombed which do you think has the most of your relations working there or even at least people from your area and county?

A lot of people in the Middle East would have little information on Ireland or where we are. We are a small wind swept nation on the edge of Europe after all.
Maybe we should have more information on them but we don't seem to.

And the US is a far bigger trading partner for Ireland and many tens of thousands of people work in US or Canadian mulitnationals so of course we and our media will identify more with them.

Realy, you're trying to pick a pedantic point that isn't there.

IM0 · 12-07-2010 01:52AM

before the RA gave up the guns and stuff, this sort of stuff seemed to around the news all the time so I got use to it \i think then, so when a bus full of people in london died |I| thought....oh well thats...the way it was, people are dying all the time all over the world, I dont do news anymore or media really anything worth hearing will get around, all the rest of the crap can stay in my recycling bin or behind my firewall if you will

I care about my family and friends and people I know personally, I dont get involved with solving or caring about the worlds problems THERE IS| TOO MUCH TO FIX! - so for these things I say I dont care, which means I care more than you can get your head around, but for my own sanity sake I have to say I dont care and move on, untill the next hurricane, typhoon, famine, robbery, murder, gangland killing, or pensioner being bludgenoed to death...or whatever the news is trying to fire at us 24/7

Btwndeyes · 12-07-2010 01:56AM

Wont forget it and never will be able to was 100 yars away in tavistock square when the bus went up. the jokes are a bit harsh guys.

banquo · 12-07-2010 03:12AM

Wasn't there some mad coincidence that day where some local cops had been doing a training exercise that was basically ''what to do if a train explodes''? I could well be wrong.

Fratton Fred · 12-07-2010 09:33AM

My job took me into London two or three times a week, but fortunately not on that day. I did get plenty of calls asking if I was OK though. My Brother does take one of those lines regularly but was on holiday at the time. several people near where he lives were killed or injured, so he is really freaked by the whole thing.

Most Indians, Pakistanis etc that i know either shaved off their beards, or refrained from carrying backpacks on the tube becuase of the looks they got. Several of them said that they had actually got on to trains and people had got off. most of them were pretty understanding though and did say that if a Middle Eastern/Asian looking guy wth a back pack got on their train, they wold be worried as well.

To be honest, the failed attacks two weeks later worried me more, because at the time it looked like it could be a regular occurance which would have crippled London.

Thomas828 · 12-07-2010 10:41AM

The 7/7 bombings ultimately failed for the terrorists because life returned to normal within a week. They expected us to turn against each other like trapped wild animals like the Americans did after 9/11 but Londoners had been living with the threats and bombings of the IRA for something like thirty years. This was nothing new to us. And the British government and the media didn't make anything like the hoo-ha that the Americans did over 9/11.

brummytom · 12-07-2010 12:10PM

Deus Ex Machina wrote: »

Today marks the 5th aniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London. What were your thoughts and reactions to this when it happened? Do you think something like this is going to happen again any time soon?

For me it really hit home, as a friend of mine's Dad lost somebody he knew in the bombings. I think it actually frightened me a lot more than 911, being a lot closer to home. I can remember first hearing about it from a somebody I knew and thinking it was a joke, and then turning on the news.

It scared me tbh, at the time I was worried Birmingham could be next. I was on a residential with school at the time; there were two schools there - ours and one from London. I remember our teacher telling us 'there's been some bombs in London'. We were all very shocked.

Got broken into the next day, lost a lot of very valuable (emotionally) things; but the events the day before made us realise that while we were there thinking about how terrible our day had been, we didn't know how lucky we were.

I think it's inevitable that there'll be more terrorists attacks, yeah.

ceadaoin. · 12-07-2010 12:25PM

I remember when it happened, I was a bit shocked and felt sorry for the people that were killed or injured but not on the same scale as 9/11.

I'm living in London now and use the tube everyday so its hard not to think about it often. I always feel slightly uneasy when I'm underground, some of the tunnels only have 6 inches either side of the train carriage so its very claustrophobic. Can't imagine how it must have felt to be trapped down there

Nulty · 12-07-2010 12:26PM

My brother and I were flying through London on 6/7 (the day before the bombs). We arrived at Heathrow and went out into London for a few hours before getting our connection back to Dublin. They were all celebrating getting the Olympics that day and we were at Piccadilly Circus (one of the circuses anyway) when it was announced that the UK got the Olympics.

We went back to the airport and went through security. An English woman stopped us and asked us questions then got her collegue over to ask some more - she was Irish. Obviously suspicious of the Irish lads in the Airport!

Next day I woke up and heard about the bombs.

r3nu4l · 12-07-2010 12:55PM

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I did get plenty of calls asking if I was OK though. My Brother does take one of those lines regularly but was on holiday at the time.

Yeah I got plenty of texts later in the day when the mobile networks went back up. Like an idiot I jokingly replied to a query if I was okay with "Yeah, grand thanks, although I wasn't sure if I had the timer right on the last bomb". As soon as I hit 'send', I thought: 'Oh crap, what if they are monitoring communications?':eek:

Most Indians, Pakistanis etc that i know either shaved off their beards, or refrained from carrying backpacks on the tube becuase of the looks they got. Several of them said that they had actually got on to trains and people had got off. most of them were pretty understanding though and did say that if a Middle Eastern/Asian looking guy wth a back pack got on their train, they wold be worried as well.

Yeah a guy I worked with had the same problem and then when Jean-Charles de Menezes was shot dead he also said that he wouldn't be seen to be running for his train anytime soon either...

po020435 · 12-07-2010 12:58PM

Well as wrong as the 7/7 bombings in London were, it's a pity there wasn't the same sympathy and concern shown for the victims of the very many 7/7 bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan carried out by the RAF and USAF etc.

Fratton Fred · 12-07-2010 01:34PM

po020435 wrote: »

Well as wrong as the 7/7 bombings in London were, it's a pity there wasn't the same sympathy and concern shown for the victims of the very many 7/7 bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan carried out by the RAF and USAF etc.

well, I suppose the fact that it took 82 posts is something......

bnt · 07-07-2015 09:06AM

So: here we are, ten years after. There's an article about the anniversary commemorations in the Irish Times:

In the early hours of July 7th a decade ago, four young British Muslims travelled down to London where they detonated homemade bombs hidden in rucksacks on three underground trains and a bus during the morning rush-hour.

Inspired by al-Qaeda, they killed themselves and 52 other people and wounded around 700 others. Citizens from Poland, Israel, Australia, France, Italy, Afghanistan, Nigeria, New Zealand and a Vietnamese-American were among the victims.

I haven't been to London in several years now, but next time I do, I'll visit the memorial in Hyde Park.

razorblunt · 07-07-2015 09:14AM

The BBC had a show about one of the victims' family in the aftermath on Sunday night. They missed the point though, it was horribly acted and scripted, generally ham-fisted all round, mind you I couldn't say that in work as I'd be outcast.

cloud493 · 07-07-2015 09:54AM

I remember it happened, I was living in the UK at the time, and someone came into my religion class and told the whole class what had happened, I think we put the radio on. Then it turned out this girl in my class had a mum in london at the time, and she got to go home early, then a lot of kids suddenly had parents in London and they needed to go home early too.

exiledelbows · 07-07-2015 10:55AM

razorblunt wrote: »

The BBC had a show about one of the victims' family in the aftermath on Sunday night. They missed the point though, it was horribly acted and scripted, generally ham-fisted all round, mind you I couldn't say that in work as I'd be outcast.

Thank you! Watched it with the OH and, while it was sad and all, the acting was way over the top and the dialogue was awful. Show don't tell people! Live in London and couldn't possibly say that out loud - everyone thought it was brilliant.

Harry Palmr · 07-07-2015 11:28AM

Written by an Irishman that play - Frank McGuinness

On the actual subject, well whatever its intentions were beyond killing civilians it clearly failed.

Lollipops23 · 07-07-2015 11:49AM

I still remember everything about that morning; I was working the late shift in Clerys, so was only getting ready for work by 11am. While drying my hair I got a text from one of my schoolfriends (we'd only just finished our LC's) saying she was fine and was far away from the bombs (I knew she was in London for the summer). I was extremely confused and turned on Sky News, to see it all unfold.

NIMAN · 07-07-2015 11:55AM

Is it only 5 yr? Seems longer.

Edit: its 10.

swimming in a sea · 07-07-2015 12:30PM

I was in London that day and also today, very much a coincidence. I remember being in Standsted Airport and the place was very crowded, tourists arriving with no tickets just looking to get first available plane out. I remember even then thinking it was an over reaction, maybe being in Northern Ireland a lot made me think differently.

Yesterday was my first time in the tube during rush hour, I could think if a bomb went off during then it really is scary, you can hardly breath with the crowds and the heat.

The 7/7 Bombings

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