The bombing of the Tavern in the Town and Mulberry Bush pubs in Birmingham 30 years ago is one of the blackest episodes in the history of the IRA and the anguish it caused innocent families cannot be erased by a belated apology.

Tomorrow Christopher Clarke QC will begin to summarise the work of the inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings. It will take two days and the

written summary will run to 10 volumes. That is what republicans demand from the British government for its misdeeds, yet they refuse any detailed account of their equally appalling acts in Birmingham.

Last week an unnamed Sinn Fein official raised the prospect that after all these years the IRA might admit it was responsible for the bombings and apologise for the slaughter of 21 people.

Far from closing old wounds, though, the gesture will add salt to them. It reveals, not that we have moved on, but rather that there is a hierarchy of victims of the Troubles. For while republicans demand the naming of names from the

British Army when it has killed civilians, the best the families of the Birmingham victims can expect is a mumbled apology. Apologies of that sort are best left unsaid. They help clear the conscience of the perpetrator but do little for the victim.

The Birmingham bombs were made from explosives supplied by the IRA and planted by its members according to a plan of campaign drawn up by the organisation’s leadership. The 21 deaths were only a fraction of the 304 people murdered by the IRA in 1974 but the fact that no members of the security forces were involved embarrassed the Provisionals into denying the act.

At one stage, the IRA said that if its members were found to have been involved they would be court martialled. That was a lie. Mick Murray picked the targets and helped to make the bombs. He phoned through a warning but it was too vague to allow the pubs to be cleared by the police. Murray eventually served 12 years in jail for conspiracy to cause explosions. He was welcomed back into

IRA active service on his release and, when he died, was eulogised as “a freedom fighter” in Republican News.

Another of the bombers, known as Belfast Jimmy, is still living in Dublin. He has never faced a court martial and is still friendly with many republicans.

The Birmingham statement, if it comes, is likely to be fashioned along the lines of a general apology issued in 2002 for the killing of non-combatants by the IRA. During the course of the Troubles, the terrorist organisation killed about 516 civilians. That compares with 184 by the British army and police.

The 2002 statement was more an excuse than an apology. “While it was not our intention to injure or kill non-combatants, the reality is that on this, and on a number of other occasions, that was the consequence of our actions,” it read, before acknowledging the grief of those who were bereaved.

The value of an apology can be seen in the significance that the IRA and Sinn Fein themselves placed on the Real IRA’s equally self-serving apology after the Omagh bombing. The warning had gone wrong, RIRA said, adding that they hadn’t meant to do it and the security forces were ultimately to blame.

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