How Duran Duran, Princess Diana and King Charles were targeted in horrific IRA bomb plot

There was once a time when Duran Duran, Princess Diana and King Charles were at the centre of a terrifying plot against them.

In the 1980s, the IRA cooked up a plan designed to kill the royal couple. It could have lead to huge numbers of death and injury in collateral damage since the aim was to bomb a concert packed with people.

Duran Duran’s drummer, Roger Taylor, spoke about the incident that was foiled. He said “finding out about the bomb was the scariest moment” of his life.

In an interview with Daily Mail, Roger said: “They wanted to kill Diana and Charles and us and everybody in the room.”

The charity concert, featuring Dire Straits, at London’s Dominion Theatre in July 1983 could have been a bloody one since the IRA planned the attack thoroughly. However, the person supposed to set the bomb off was a police informant.

Sean O’Callaghan failed to set the bombs off. The incident was revealed in 1992, years after the fact and Duran Duran - Diana’s favourite band - had been unaware until then.

“It was so shocking,” Roger said. “We were only made aware of it years later, but it was very frightening.”

The plot

Sean O’Callaghan had found a location to set up the bomb during a dummy run. It was supposed to be in the wall of a bathroom near the Royal Box. However, he was unable to return with delayed timing detonators and 25 lb of Frangex, a mining gelignite. It could have killed or injured anyone within a 60ft radius.

Sean later wrote a book called The Informer. He wrote in it: “It was a brilliant but horrific plan.”

The MI5 foiled the murder plot, according to Daily Mail.

The plan was reportedly made to avenge the death of Bobby Sands and nine other hunger strikers. Sands and the nine others died of a hunger strike in 1981 while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland.