[94][95] RUC sources denied that the soldiers returned fire during the shooting. Somebody who might find it difficult to smuggle because of a Border post might go out and shoot a Border-post official? [125][126] The IRA retaliated on 5 August 1991 by shooting and killing a former UDR soldier leaving his workplace along Altmore Road, Cappagh. British military sources reported that other IRA volunteers from East Tyrone were involved in the assault. [147], The commander of the brigade, Kevin McKenna, was appointed Chief of Staff of the IRA in 1983. CAIN lists Boyd as a Protestant civilian. 2 May 1974: Up to 40 members from the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade attacked the isolated 6 UDR Deanery base in Clogher, County Tyrone with machine gun and RPG fire resulting in the death of Private Eva Martin, a UDR Greenfinch, the first female UDR soldier to be killed by enemy action. [77], The commander in chief of the brigade,[78] Kevin MacKenna, was also appointed 'chief of staff' of the IRA in 1983. [53] Author Brendan O'Brien reports a witness claiming that some of the men were wounded and tried to surrender but were killed by the British soldiers. [52] They had mounted a heavy DShK machine gun on the back of a stolen lorry, driven right to the RUC/British Army station and opened fire with tracer ammunition at the fortified base at point-blank range, no efforts were made to conceal the firing position or the machine gun. One of the workers killed, Robert Dunseath, was an off-duty Royal Irish Rangers soldier. Death made heroes of the Loughgall eight. They are saying to us: if you want to go down that road we are not going to step in your way. Neither republican sees a great prospect of a united Ireland after Brexit. The operation. They were active in some of the bloodiest campaigns of the Troubles, and for three of them much of that activity took place along the Border. Lynagh is irked by the way political parties in the Brexit debate are portraying people in the Border counties as lawless Irish, similar to the people of Pakistans tribal areas, with a pathological predisposition to violence who will rush out and go to war again because they cant stand the sight of customs posts. [29][30] On 24 March 1990, there was a gunbattle between an IRA unit and undercover British forces at the village of Cappagh, County Tyrone, when IRA members fired at a civilian-type car driven by security forces, according to Archie Hamilton, then Secretary of State for Defence. The four, Peter Clancy, Kevin Barry O'Donnell, Sean O'Farrell and Patrick Vincent, were killed at Clonoe after an attack on the RUC station in Coalisland. [51], The Fintona RUC/Army base damaged by mortar fire, 27 December 1993, In March 1992, members of the brigade destroyed McGowan's service station along the Ballygawley/Monaghan road, on the basis that they were supplying British forces,[52] while a soldier was injured by a bomb near Augher. [42] Whereas the previous ambushes of IRA men had been well planned by Special Forces, the Clonoe killings owed much to a series of mistakes by the IRA men in question. 9 July 1997: IRA gunmen hijacked and burned a number of vehicles at Dungannon. See this British Commons account about the NI violence for the first month of 1990: See the May 12 and May 17 entries at the 1992 CAIN chronology: Fortnight, Issues 324-334, Fortnight Publications, 1994, Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign 19691997, "SAS shooting 'destroyed deadly IRA unit'", http://archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/2001/05/05/story11832.asp, http://sluggerotoole.com/2011/12/02/loughgall-terrorists-could-not-have-been-arrested/, http://www.midulstermail.co.uk/news/local/gaa-distances-itself-from-ira-commemorations-1-3753356, "Calculating, professional enemy that faces KOSB", http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/calculating-professional-enemy-that-faces-kosb-1.598672, "Land Mine Kills 7 British Soldiers on Bus in Ulster", http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/21/world/ira-claims-killing-of-8-soldiers-as-it-steps-up-attacks-on-british.html, "IRA Claims Killing of 8 Soldiers As It Steps Up Attacks on British", Ex-Para 'led attack by IRA which killed Scots soldiers', Fears of new IRA atrocity after attack on helicopter, CAIN - Listing of Programmes for the Year: 1992-UTV news, 31 January 1992, CAIN - Listing of Programmes for the Year: 1993 - BBC news, 26 April 1993 and UTV news, 29 April 1993, CAIN - Listing of Programmes for the Year: 1992 - BBC news, 5 March 1992, The Irish Emigrant - May 18, 1992: New Paratroop Controversy, "I.R.A. On 11 May 1993, an IRA militant pretending to be a motorist that had been asked to show his licence at the barracks left a van carrying a mortar outside the facilities. One RUC officer was injured. The IRA claimed the man was a UVF commander, responsible for the killings of Catholic civilians. [39] On 31 January an IRA van bomb blew up in downtown Dungannon, resulting in three people wounded and severe damage[40] both on the city centre and the RUC/Army base. In initial papers filed last week both the British prime minister, Theresa May, and the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, referred to their desire to protect the peace process. [68], At least two minor engagements occurred in the following weeks between members of the brigade and British Army foot patrols. IRA volunteers had been lying in wait outside the barracks and, as the officers left, two gunmen stepped out of concealed positions and shot both officers in the head from close range. Fifty people were evacuated. Early in the morning as he prepared to drive to work, two masked IRA gunmen who had been hiding behind trees walked over and shot him three times in the head, mortally wounding him. Major George Shaw, a 57-year-old father of two, worked full-time for the MOD and was a part-time soldier. 10 February 1997: A horizontal mortar fired by an IRA unit hit an RUC armoured vehicle leaving a security base. Lynagh, a fellow republican, served eight years, from 1982 to 1990, in Portlaoise Prison over a charge related to the killing of a nightclub bouncer in Monaghan in 1981. [17] The checkpoint was stormed and two British soldiers killed in action. Simon Carswell. This was in response to a complaint from Democratic Unionist Party Assemblyman William McCrea accusing the GAA of turning a blind eye to "republican terrorist" events in the last years. [7], Members of the East Tyrone Brigade had previously carried out two attacks on RUC bases in their operational area, described by author Mark Urban as "spectaculars". The British are sending a plausibly deniable mixed message, he says. [61][62] Among the killed were two constables who were shot dead while driving a civilian type vehicle in Fivemiletown's main street on 12 December 1993. In October 1990, two more IRA men, Dessie Grew and Michael McGaughey were shot dead near Loughgall by undercover soldiers. [107][108], There were also a number of roadside bomb and mortar attacks thwarted by the security forces in east and south Tyrone in this period. Journalist Ian Bruce, instead, claims that an Irishman who served in the Parachute Regiment was the leader of the IRA unit, citing intelligence sources. This was the IRA's greatest loss of life in a single incident during the . The embarrassment is that a customs man might arrive and show that there is a Border.. He believes that the British had intended to withdraw from Ireland around the late 2030s, by when demographic trends would have led to an overwhelming nationalist majority. 11 August 1986: The East Tyrone Brigade destroyed the RUC base at, 23 November 1986: six British soldiers were wounded after the Brigade launched seven mortars at a British Army barracks in. This is the story of the war in the fields, towns and villages of East Tyrone, as told by the people who fought it. But as a community willing to return to armed conflict, there just isnt an appetite for that., Lynagh adds, There is a vested interest in hyping up the political impact and the scare tactics that it is going to open a hornets nest of dissident activity against British rule. Three of the four are convicted killers or have served time in relation to a killing. [48] The IRA retaliated on 5 August 1991, when they shot and killed a former UDR soldier while living his workplace along Altmore Road, also in Cappagh. As the men were all Protestants, many Protestants saw it as a sectarian attack. It is hugely insulting, Lynagh says as he picks nicotine gum from a wrapper. Loughgall ambush 8th of May 1987 SAS Ambush Eight members of the IRA's so-called 'East Tyrone brigade' Eight members of the IRA's so-called 'East Tyrone brigade' were shot dead by the SAS. The RUC officer, William Logan (aged 23), who was driving the police patrol vehicle was mortally wounded and died the following day, he was the first RUC officer killed by the brigade. () The Association is committed to a shared future based on tolerance for the different identities and cultural backgrounds of people who share this Community and this island. There were no casualties. 25 Feb/23. [14], On 8 May 1987, at least eight members of the brigade launched another attack on the unmanned Loughgall RUC base. [23] British intelligence identified them as the perpetrators of the attack on the military bus at Curr road. The Volunteers killed at Loughgall were Declan Arthurs (21), Tony Gormley (24), Eugene Kelly (25), Pdraig McKearney (32), Jim Lynagh (31), Gerard O'Callaghan (28), Seamus Donnelly (19) and unit commander Patrick Joseph Kelly (30). G. Adams (SF) has written to the Prime Minister asking for new political contact. IRA veterans Brexit feature - pix Colm Lynagh and Tommy McKearneyFormer republican prisoner Colm Lynagh (left) and former Provisional IRA hunger striker Tommy McKearney in Monaghan Town. The Gazelle broke up during the subsequent crash-landing. [43] One witness has said that some of the men were wounded and tried to surrender but were then killed by the British soldiers. An Phoblacht claimed the IRA men thwarted an ambush and at least two SAS members were killed. Jim Lynagh, member of the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), one of twelve children, is born on the Tully Estate, a housing estate in the townland of Killygowan on the southern edge of Monaghan, County Monaghan, on April 13, 1956.. Lynagh joins the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s. They could kill many British security force. While Brexit raises uncertainty around how the UK manages trade across a frontier running through those former battlefields, McKearney and Lynagh believe that the climate and conditions the anti-Catholic discrimination and economic inequality that ignited the Troubles no longer exist. 2 February 1996: The house of a part-time member of the RUC was riddled with gunfire in Moy. The UVF killed 40 people in east Tyrone between 1988 and 1994. 5 February 1997: An IRA unit fired a horizontal mortar at a British patrol on Newell Road in Dungannon. They concluded that the SAS were justified in opening fire. "It was never going to be delivered by the normal means, by the Irish themselves, but it could come about through the break-up of the so-called United Kingdom," he says as he sits in an armchair in his living room, in front of shelves of history books that reflect his past studies at Trinity College Dublin and his background in teaching. Other attendees were. Another brother, Kevin, and Tommy's uncle John, neither of whom was in the IRA, were killed by loyalist paramilitaries from the Ulster Volunteer Force in an attack on the family's butcher's shop, in Moy, in January 1992. [10] Lynagh's plans met strong criticism from senior brigade member Kevin McKenna, who regarded the strategy as "too impractical, too ambitious, and not sustainable" according to journalist Ed Moloney. This is the only concern for this area: how can we pacify them and stop them engaging in any violent activity? The New IRA claimed responsibility for a potentially lethal bomb discovered under the car of a police officer at a golf club in east Belfast in June 2019. After the shooting they drove past the house of Tony Doris, the IRA man killed the previous year, where they fired more shots in the air and were heard to shout, "Up the 'RA, that's for Tony Doris". Former IRA gunrunner John Crawley says he used to meet Martin McGuinness in the 1980s in the Botanic Gardens in Dublin to discuss operations. Another British soldier was injured in Pomeroy when his patrol was fired on by an IRA unit on 2 August 1992. A NEW REPORT by Relatives for Justice into a British Army SAS ambush in 1992 that left four Tyrone IRA Volunteers dead says the men were killed in "a premeditated and pre-planned" attack when they could have been arrested instead. The level of IRA activity in the area did not show any real decline in the aftermath: in the two years before the Loughgall ambush the IRA killed seven people in East Tyrone and North Armagh, and eleven in the two years following the ambush. A five-mile (8km) chase followed before the IRA volunteers managed to escape on foot. [Its] not about what are their economic interests. He does not see republican militarism rising up again over a post-Brexit hardening of the Border or a customs presence on country Border roads, although he does believe that it would hit an atavistic nerve among people who have grown accustomed to freedom of movement across the Border. G Bill Gannon George Gilmore H Sean Hales Tom Hales Sen Hogan Charlie Hurley K [31], On 11 February 1990 the brigade managed to shoot down a British Army Gazelle helicopter near Clogher by machine gun fire and wounding three soldiers, one of them seriously. Orangeism and Britishness in Northern Ireland. They see that threat as little more than a scare tactic to force the future of the 499km Border to the centre of the two-year Brexit negotiations. [32] Hamilton states that there were no security or civilian casualties. Ed Moloney. Of these, most were Catholics civilians with no paramilitary connections but six were Provisional Irish Republican Army members. McGeough sees the Troubles as ostensibly a failure, but the UK government does not want a return to those days any more than anybody on our side does. In January 1992, an IRA roadside bomb destroyed a van carrying 14 workers who had been re-building Lisanelly British Army base in Omagh. . A support vehicle further compromised the getaway by flashing its emergency lights. 8 July 1997: A landmine was planted by the IRA near Dungannon, leading to a bomb alert. [65][66][67] Six paratroopers were charged with criminal damage in the aftermath, but were acquitted in 1993. 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