The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army carried out a bombing of a restaurant near Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing twelve people and injuring thirty others.

The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.

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 republic encompassing 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.

The La Mon restaurant bombing was an incendiary bomb attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 17 February 1978 and has been described as one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles. It took place at the La Mon House hotel and restaurant in Comber, County Down, near Belfast.

Belfast is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel. It is the second-largest city in Ireland, with an estimated population of 348,005 in 2022, and a metropolitan area population of 671,559.