Today we were unlucky, but remember we have only to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always.” The IRA’s statement after its bomb exploded in a bathroom on the sixth floor of the Grand Hotel, Brighton, in October 1984, was cleverly sinister but, with its repeated emphasis on luck, oddly airy. It took responsibility off the shoulders of the killers and placed it on those of Dame Fortune.

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the whole quote for context:

The IRA claimed responsibility the next day, and said that it would try again. Its statement read:

Mrs. Thatcher will now realise that Britain cannot occupy our country and torture our prisoners and shoot our people in their own streets and get away with it. Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no more war.