Balcombe Street Siege

Date: December 6, 1975 • Location: West End of London, United Kingdom

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1975.

Four members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army took two people hostage in a house on Balcombe Street in London, surrendering six days later.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army, officially known as the Irish Republican Army and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent socialist republic, which would encompass all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argued that the all-island Irish Republic continued to exist, and it saw itself as that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected.