Christopher Ewart-Biggs - Death

Death

Ewart-Biggs was 55 when he was killed by a land mine planted by the IRA. He had taken previous precautions to avoid such an incident since coming to Dublin only two weeks before the incident (e.g. varying his route many times a week), but due to a vulnerable spot on the road connecting his residence to the main road, at that point had only the choice between left or right. He chose right, and approximately 150 yards from the residence, hit a land mine (said to contain hundreds of pounds of explosives). Ewart-Biggs and fellow passenger and civil servant Judith Cooke (aged 26) were killed. Driver Brian O'Driscoll and third passenger Brian Cubbon (aged 57, the highest-ranking civil servant in Northern Ireland at the time) were injured.

Read more about this topic:  Christopher Ewart-Biggs

Famous quotes containing the word death:

    There is something antique, even, in his style of treating his subject, reminding us that Heroes and Demi-gods, Fates and Furies, still exist; the common man is nothing to him, but after death the hero is apotheosized and has a place in heaven, as in the religion of the Greeks.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    It is better to sit down than to stand, it is better to lie down than to sit, but death is the best of all.
    Indian proverb, quoted in Sébastien-roch Nicolas de Chamfort, Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 155 (1796, trans. 1926)

    During these fits of absolute unconsciousness I drank, God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure when I found one in the death of my wife.
    Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)