As the men were all Protestants, many Protestants saw it as a sectarian attack. [53][54], Another IRA bomb attack against British troops, near Cappagh, during which a paratrooper lost both legs, triggered a series of clashes between soldiers and local residents in the staunchly republican town of Coalisland, on 12 and 17 May 1992. [77], On 19 January 1993 the brigade claimed that their volunteers uncovered and destroyed a British army observation post concealed in a derelict house in Drumcairne Forest, near Stewartstown. 7 December 1985: during an attack on the RUC barracks in Ballygawley, the IRA killed two RUC officers (Reserve Constable William Clements and Constable George Gilliland) and destroyed the barracks with a large bomb. [39] A second shooting took place in the village of Pomeroy on 28 June, this time against British regular troops. CAIN lists Boyd as a Protestant civilian. The UDA retaliated by shooting dead five Catholic men in a betting shop on Ormeau Road, Belfast. The unit, moving on two vehicles from the townland of Turnabarson, managed to snake into a heavy patrolled area to the firing point on Station Road and launched the shell by timer from a range of 70 yards (64m). [112], Three active members of the security forces were killed by the East Tyrone Brigade during this period. Eight were killed and the rest were badly wounded. [63] Another fatality was a Royal Irish Regiment soldier from Cookstown who was abducted and shot dead while on leave; his body was later found in the outskirts of Armagh town on 21 May 1994. [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. for the deaths on the IRA leadership, whom they accused of putting See Tyrone Mardtez Tyson's age, phone number, house address, email address, social media accounts, public records, and check for criminal records on Spokeo. satisfied; the operation proved that the war against terrorism was Another four IRA members were killed in an ambush in February 1992. which the Anglo-Irish Agreement played no part, in which the promise of Another street fracas on 17 May between a King's Own Scottish Borderers platoon and a group of nationalist youths in Coalisland resulted in the theft of an army machine gun and a new confrontation with the paratroopers. there for the Irish people. The next day the IRA threatened any contractor who took on repair of the station. There were no casualties. These questions went unanswered, as they could vast array of military equipment and surveillance technology at its An IRA statement claimed the 3rd Battalion of the, 7 November 1974: Two British soldiers, Vernon Rose (aged 30) and Charles Simpson (aged 35) were killed by an IRA booby trap bomb at an electricity sub station at Aghalarg, near, 25 November 1975: two RUC officers, Samuel Clarke (aged 35) and Patrick Maxwell (aged 36), were killed when their mobile patrol was caught in an IRA sniper ambush in Clonavaddy, near. The UVF killed 40 people in East Tyrone between 1988 and 1994. ambush. He is a male registered to vote in Ingham County, Michigan. The 12 May's riots ended with the paratroopers' assault on three bars, where they injured seven civilians. Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade. The East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), also known as the Tyrone/Monaghan Brigade[ 1] was one of the most active republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland during "the Troubles". [15][16] It destroyed a substantial part of the base with a 200lb bomb and raked the building with gunfire. Six IRA members from a supporting unit managed to slip away. it was also clear that the decision to kill them had been made prior to The IRA Northern Command, however, approved a scaled-down version of the strategy, aimed at hampering the repair and refurbishment of British security bases. According to them, the explosion was heard from Augher to Fivemiletown, and there was a number of British casualties. In the small villages of Armagh and Tyrone they understood. The British were waiting. [60], From mid-1992 up to the 1994 cease fire, IRA units in east and south Tyrone executed a total of eight mortar attacks against police and military facilities and were also responsible for at least 16 bombings and shootings. The IRA claimed the man was a UVF commander, responsible for the killings of Catholic civilians. The 12 May riots ended with the paratroopers' assault on three bars, where they injured seven civilians. Eight were killed and the rest were badly wounded. Read more about this topic: Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade, Subsequent Brigade Activity. He would be the longest-serving volunteer in this position, right up to the 1997 ceasefire. [12] Dozens of residents were evacuated to a neighbouring church's hall. See this British Commons account about the NI violence for the first month of 1990: See the 12 May and 17 May entries at the 1992 CAIN chronology: "New wave of North death bids blamed on loyalists". The IRA unit used the same tactics as it had done in the The Birches attack. [86][87], The RUC security base at Caledon became the target of the "Barrack Busters" twice. [22] On 16 September 1989, a British Sergeant of the Royal Corps of Signals was shot and killed by an IRA sniper while he was repairing a radio mast at Coalisland Army/RUC base. with firepower ferociously excessive for the occasion invoked folk Another four IRA members were killed in an ambush in February 1992. Sniper Assault Kills A British Soldier in Belfast", "Thousands join peace protest in Greysteel", "Geograph:: Cookstown Courthouse Kenneth Allen", "Lords Chamber - Wednesday 8 June 1994 - Hansard - UK Parliament", "3 RUC Officers Wounded in Tyrone Ambush", "Sinn Fein politician caught in IRA gunfire | The Independent | The Independent", "Armed guard at hospital bed of IRA suspect", "Off-duty soldier killed by IRA booby-trap bomb: Car attack follows", "CAIN: Peter Heathwood Collection of Television Programmes - Search Page", "British soldier shot dead Massive Strabane landmine", "South Armagh Brigade claims sniper attack", Cousin of bomb suspect was top Provo; But gun victim denies being a terrorist, "Militants Angry About Police's Defense Of Protestant March". The SAS shot dead eight IRA members and a civilian who had accidentally driven into the ambush. On 1 January 1991, a British Army outpost was fire on by an IRA unit at Aughnacloy. 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, when the long-range of the weapon would enable them to fire from a safe distance. [77], The commander in chief of the brigade,[78] Kevin MacKenna, was also appointed 'chief of staff' of the IRA in 1983. the eve of a British general election in which its main opposition 26 March 1997: A grenade was thrown by IRA volunteers to the Army/RUC base at Coalisland. from Dublin that the IRA leadership was trapping people into violence minds stories of reprisal killings in the old days, once again husbands and fathers -- had been needlessly shot in a show of Tom Gormley, Eugene [89][82], On 6 June 1993, an IRA unit converted a stolen van in a "mobile mortar launcher" in the area of Pomeroy and slipped through British forces' surveillance to the RUC barracks at Carrickmore. Another street fracas five days later, on 17 May, between a King's Own Scottish Borderers platoon and a group of nationalist youths in Coalisland resulted in the theft of an army machine gun and a new confrontation with the paratroopers. Despite increasing support for Irish freedom and unity, we need your help to overcome British and unionist intransigence. One RUC officer was injured. No casualties were reported. [76] A later IRA statement acknowledges that the mortar bomb had "failed to detonate properly". It is believed to have drawn its membership from across the eastern side of County Tyrone as well as north County Monaghan and south County Londonderry. One British soldier was wounded. Actions of the British government which implied that it This is disputed by some authors as an "exaggeration".[130][131]. In the 1980s, the IRA in East Tyrone and other areas close to the border, such as South Armagh, were following a Maoist military theory[8] devised for Ireland by Jim Lynagh, a high-profile member of the IRA in East Tyrone (but a native of County Monaghan). The Gazelle broke up during the subsequent crash-landing. help boost the confidence which must have been eroded in many law [47][48], In October 1990, two IRA volunteers from the brigade (Dessie Grew and Martin McCaughey) were shot dead near Loughgall by SAS undercover members while allegedly collecting two rifles from an IRA arms dump. fact, the governments actions would validate the Republican movements 15 March 1974: Patrick McDonald (21) and Kevin Murray (27), both. This in response to a complaint from DUP AssemblymanWilliam McCreaaccusing the GAA of turning a blind eye to "republican terrorist" events in the last years. [34], On 4 March 1990, ten IRA volunteers launched an assault on the RUC station at Stewartstown using an improvised flamethrower consisting of a manure-spreader towed by a tractor to spray 600 imperial gallons (2,700L) of a petrol/diesel mix to set the base ablaze, and then opened up with rifles and an RPG-7 rocket launcher. [128] The latter attack led to loyalist allegations that the IRA was killing Protestant land-owners in Tyrone and Fermanagh[129] in an orchestrated campaign to drive Protestants out of the region, to the point that they drew an analogy with contemporaneous ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. Sean O'Farrell was wounded and attempted to escape. For constitutional nationalists, North and South, anything that The East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), also known as the Tyrone/Monaghan ambush, in which 8 IRA Volunteers and a civilian were killed in an SAS The East Tyrone Brigade members killed in 1987 consisted of: Commander Patrick Kelly (aged 30) Jim Lynagh (aged 31) Padraig McKearney (aged 32) Declan Arthurs (aged 21) Seamus Donnelly (aged 19) Eugene Kelly (aged 25) Gerry O'Callaghan (aged 29) Tony Gormley (aged 25) Tom King and all the other rich and powerful people would be sorry in The six attackers gathered on the same spot, instead of vanishing separately. 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. O'Donnell had been released without charges for possession of weapons on two different occasions in the past. An innocent civilian, Anthony Hughes, who was shot dead by the SAS had There were no injuries. Film report. . A British Army helicopter was fired on in the aftermath of the ambush. the British occupation forces., There was an absolute order to history and absolute order demanded Another IRA unit then directed heavy machine-gun fire at the front of the barracks, which provided cover for a bomb team to plant a 100lb (45kg) bomb inside. In June 1991, three IRA men, Lawrence McNally, Peter Ryan and Tony Dorris were lured into yet another SAS ambush at Coagh, where their car was raked with gunfire and rocket propelled grenades. back, voicing its reservations, Father Faul was the first to articulate what many Catholics, North and [55][56][57], Six paratroopers were charged with criminal damage in the aftermath, but they were acquitted in 1993. Was the All the IRA members involved withdrew successfully. [14], On 8 May 1987, at least eight members of the brigade launched another attack on the unmanned Loughgall RUC base. One British soldier was wounded. [64], Another IRA bomb attack on 12 May 1992, against British troops on patrol near Cappagh, in which a paratrooper lost both legs, triggered a series of clashes on that date between soldiers and local residents in the staunchly republican town of Coalisland, on 12 and 17 May 1992. prison crisis; the question now was whether the British government was The support team sprayed the installations with a burst of gunfire, but the mortar overshot the compound, damaging an adjacent church. Two IRA men got away from the scene, but the four named above were killed. The helicopter was hit between Clogher and Augher, over the border near Derrygorry, in the Republic. fluttered in every window, thousands lined the funeral routes: country sanctioned a shoot-to-kill policy; in short, that Irish lives were In July 1983, the East Tyrone Brigade carried out a landmine ambush on an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) mobile patrol near Ballygawley, killing three UDR soldiers (a fourth UDR soldier died later). It was a world in war situation in which the legitimate army of the Irish Republic was [50] The RUC stated the men were on their way to mount an ambush on Protestant workmen. Thus it was from there that the IRA East Tyrone Brigade attacks were launched, with most of them occurring in east Tyrone in areas close to south Armagh, which offered good escape routes. triumphalist importunings of the old enemy. Of these, most were Catholics civilians with no paramilitary connections but six were Provisional Irish Republican Army members. 22 February 1997: An IRA mortar unit was intercepted by the RUC in $3, on its way to carry out an attack on a British security facility. The first phase of Lynagh's plan to drive out the British security forces from east Tyrone involved destroying isolated rural police stations and then intimidating or killing any building contractors who were employed to rebuild them. When the IRA responded by killing a retired UDR member, Leslie Dallas,[120] and two elderly Protestants, Austin Nelson and Ernest Rankin at Coagh, on 7 March 1989, the UVF shot dead three IRA members and a Catholic civilian in a pub in Cappagh on 3 March 1991. Hamilton states that there were no security or civilian casualties. If the RUC, he said, had prior information gone to Loughgall with courage and skill and above all with [70][71][72] Another soldier in the same patrol had a narrow escape when a rifle round hit his gear. Major Shaw died at the scene. [74][75] The heavy mortar round, fired from a tractor near the town's health center, was deflected by a tree besides the barracks wall. [59], The brigade was the first to use the Mark-15 Barrack-Buster mortar in an attack on 5 December 1992 against an RUC station in Ballygawley. 1 Battalion: Unit strength on 11 July 1921 was 265 all ranks, and the strength on 1 July 1922 was 312 all ranks.The companies of the 1st. for Irish lives, that their abhorrence of the IRA masked a larger Thank you. 10 February 1997: A horizontal mortar fired by an IRA unit hit an RUC armoured vehicle leaving a security base. [79] The facilities targeted by "Barrack Buster" mortars included the above-mentioned Ballygawley barracks, a British Army border outpost at Aughnacloy,[80] the RUC barracks at Clogher[81] and Beragh,[80] both resulting in massive damage but no fatalities; two attacks on the RUC base in Caledon, which was also hit by gunfire in the second attack,[81][82] and the RUC compounds at Dungannon,[83] Fintona,[81] Carrickmore,[81] and Pomeroy. their lives, and out of the sacrifice would come a greater number of [99][100] The East Tyrone Brigade reported that they took over the area between the checkpoint and the border, set a roadblock, then drove a tractor carrying the mortar to the firing point and issued a 30-minute warning. [2] [22] British intelligence identified them as the perpetrators of the attack on the military bus at Curr Road. [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. [23], A major IRA attack in County Tyrone took place on 20 August 1988, barely a year after Loughall, which ended in the deaths of eight soldiers when a British Army bus was destroyed by a bomb at Curr Road, near Ballygawley. violence of the British government became the bad violence; the Michael Ryan was the same man who according to Moloney had led the mixed flying column under direct orders of top IRA Army Council member 'Slab' Murphy two years before. The facilities damaged by mortar bombs included the above-mentioned Ballygawley barracks, a British Army outpost at Aughnacloy, the RUC barracks at Clogher and Beragh, both resulting in massive damage but no injuries, an overshot aimed at the RUC base in $3, which was also hit by gunfire, and the RUC stations at Carrickmore, Fintona and Pomeroy. They concluded that the SAS were justified in opening fire. Fifty people were evacuated. meetings of the Intergovernmental Conference. went as Republican soldiers who had carefully planned and hoped to members of the SDLP, disquieted that the shootings had taken place on [it] demonstrated that [the IRA] could carry out devastating attacks on Journalist Ian Bruce, instead, claims that an Irishman who served in the Parachute Regiment was the leader of the IRA unit, citing intelligence sources. [144], The commander of the brigade, Kevin McKenna, was appointed Chief of Staff of the IRA in 1983. Ed Moloney, Irish journalist and author of the Secret History of the IRA, states that the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade lost 53 members killed in the Troubles, the highest of any rural Brigade area. [10] The first was an assault on Ballygawley base in December 1985. Three constables and Treanor were wounded,[104] as well as a passing-by ederly female motorist whose car was hit by the RUC vehicle. 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, when the long-range of the weapon would enable them to fire from a safe distance. Major George Shaw, a 57-year-old father of two, worked full-time for the MOD and was a part-time soldier. The main target, Brian Arthurs, escaped injury. 2 February 1996: The house of a part-time member of the RUC was riddled with gunfire in Moy. GAA Central Council officialreply was that The GAA has strict protocols and rules in place regarding the use of property for Political purposes. 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. [15], The SAS ambush had no noticeable long-term effect on the level of IRA activity in East Tyrone. As the men were all Protestants, many Protestants saw it as a sectarian attack. We cannot treat 5 February 1997: an IRA unit fired a horizontal mortar at an RUC patrol on Newell Road in Dungannon. 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. [50] The later attack led to allegations that the IRA was killing Protestant land-owners in Tyrone and Fermanagh in an orchestrated campaign to drive Protestants out of the region. difficult to maintain that the IRA violence was bad. committed against Republicans: Clonmult in County Cork, 20 February A founding member of the Provisional IRA in Co Tyrone has said he would be willing to take part in any future truth forum designed to bring closure to victims and survivors of the Troubles.. could have been the propaganda of a foreign government, the talk from The armed vehicle crossed the border after the engagement. remembered. They were legends. The legends would never die. They And in the Of these, 28 were killed between 1987 and 1992. One soldier was seriously wounded. [25] British military sources also report that other IRA volunteers from East Tyrone were involved in the assault. collapsing time, compressing the historical moment, impelling . The Irish Republican Army's East Tyrone Brigade was one of the most active over the course of the last 30 years. [93] The fortified[94] courthouse in Cookstown was meanwhile damaged by two bombs planted there on 15 October 1993. murder.). persons convicted of criminal offenses as prisoners of war, Margaret For many it seemed that the British were His elder brother, a civilian contractor to the Ministry of Defence, had died in a South Armagh Brigade mortar attack one year before, while working inside an Army base near Keady, County Armagh. [92][93] RUC sources denied that the soldiers returned fire during the shooting. an army, and to behave as though it were in a war situation, it would [68], At least two minor engagements occurred in the following weeks between members of the brigade and British Army foot patrols. The second attack was on the part-time station at The Birches, County Armagh, and it began by driving a JCB digger with a 200lb (91kg) bomb in its bucket through the reinforced fences the RUC had in place around their bases, and then exploding the bomb and raking the police station with gunfire. The IRA men were intercepted by the SAS as they were trying to dump the lorry and escape in cars in the car park of Clonoe Roman Catholic church, whose roof was set on fire by Army flares. [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. killed the IRA men in a shoot-out but had mercilessly massacred them Thus it was from there that the IRA East Tyrone Brigade attacks were launched, with most of them occurring in east Tyrone in areas close to south Armagh, which offered good escape routes. [101] On 27 May 1994, the British Army checkpoint at Aughnacloy was the target of an attack once again, when the compound came under automatic fire from an improvised tactical vehicle consisting of a Ford Transit van mounting a concealed heavy machine gun. [4] The theory involved creating "no-go zones" that the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) did not control and gradually expanding them. Indeed, members of the security forces had said that we done what they couldn't do, we put the East Tyrone brigade of the IRA on the run. [20][21] This attack forced the British military to ferry their troops to and from East Tyrone by helicopter. 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. The soldiers were being transported from RAF Aldergrove to a military base near Omagh after returning from leave in England. There were a number of actions carried out by the IRA in the eastern part of Tyrone from 1996 up to the latest IRA ceasefire of July 1997: Risn McAliskey, daughter of political activist Bernadette McAliskey and suspected IRA member from Coalisland was accused by German authorities of being involved in a mortar attack on British Army facilities in Osnabrck, Germany, on 28 June 1996. 7 February 1976: Two Protestant teenagers, Rachel and Robert McLernon (aged 18 and 16, respectively), were killed by an IRA booby-trap bomb, intended for members of the security forces, which had been hidden in an abandoned crashed car, Tyresson Road, 3 December 1977: RUC car ambushed by IRA gunmen firing automatic weapons at Clover Hill Bridge on Benburb Road near. their own interests: their fears that Loughgall would redound to the Ryan, according to Moloney, had led the mixed flying column under direct orders of top IRA Army Council member Thomas "Slab" Murphy two years before. [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. hands had every right and every justification to be there. 112 relations. Gerry McGeough is a prominent republican and former member of the provisional IRA and now a farmer in Co. Tyrone. However, as their attack was underway, the IRA unit was ambushed by a Special Air Service (SAS) unit. [123][124] The IRA retaliated on 5 August 1991 by shooting and killing a former UDR soldier leaving his workplace along Altmore Road, Cappagh. The bomb detonated, destroying much of the base and damaging nearby buildings. as you condemn the Provisional IRA, the sight of an English soldier The brigade was the first to use the Mark-15 Barrack-Buster mortar in an attack on 5 December 1992 against an RUC station in Ballygawley. In London of taking the fight to the terrorists nothing more than the [49] Another former UDR soldier was killed when an IRA bomb exploded underneath his car in Kildress, County Tyrone in April 1993; it was claimed that he had loyalist connections. [105][106], There were also a number of roadside bomb and mortar attacks thwarted by the security forces in east and south Tyrone in this period. 9 July 1997: IRA gunmen hijacked and burned a number of vehicles at Dungannon. planned to blow up the police station and to kill whomever was in it, On 8 May 1987, at least eight members of the brigade launched an attack on the unmanned Loughgall RUC base. The East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), also known as the Tyrone/Monaghan Brigade[1] was one of the most active republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland during "the Troubles". It was a devastating setback for the IRA, practically decimating the In October 1990, two IRA volunteers from the brigade, Dessie Grew and Martin McCaughey, were shot dead near Loughgall by undercover soldiers while allegedly collecting two rifles from an IRA arms dump. Kelly, Sean Donnelly, and Declan Arthurs had come to age when Martin No efforts were made to conceal the firing position or the machine gun. . Western District of Michigan (616) 456-2404. The 12 May's riots ended with the paratroopers' assault on three bars, where they injured seven civilians. Next Tuesday, May 8th, marks the 20th anniversary of the Loughgall E ight members of the Provos' East Tyrone Brigade were gunned down as . Armagh when they were gunned down by the RUC and British army 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 soldier was seriously wounded. [9], Mural commemorating those killed in the Loughgall Ambush, On 8 May 1987, at least eight members of the brigade launched another attack on the unmanned Loughgall RUC base. There was also an element of benign triumphalism in official Even one pound a month can make a big difference for us. The UVF killed 40 people in east Tyrone between 1988 and 1994. ], In 2012 a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club in Tyrone distanced itself from a republican commemoration of those killed in the ambush. [95][58][96], A major ambush occurred on 12 December 1993 in Fivemiletown, when an RUC mobile patrol received intense cross fire from a brigade's active unit on the town's main street, and two constables were slain.

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