window.loadGTM(); In an area with a population of 23,000, the British Army stationed around 3,000 troops in support of the RUC to contain an unknown number of paramilitaries. }; const grantedBy = Object.keys(purchase).filter(function (key) { const bundleValue = getBundleValue(purchase, 'app_purchase'); 18 April 1992 Brendan McWilliams (50), a Catholic civilian employee of the British Army, was shot and killed by the IRA at his home at Nialls Crescent, off the Killylea Road. 'false' : 'true'; }; }); return 'home-delivery'; 29 April Thomas McGeary, a 48-year-old Catholic civilian, is killed by a booby-trap bomb planted in his car just outside Armagh city. meteredAccess: purchase.metered_paywall, Five men, including one who was described by police in court as the UVF's East Belfast commander, and two women, were later jailed on various charges in connection with her death. Martin was from Knockamell Park in the city and was a neighbour of Charles Spence, who was had been shot dead by the IRA two weeks previously. 3 April 1993 - A British soldier was shot and injured by the IRA near Crossmaglen, South Armagh. subscriptionStartDate: '0000-00-00T00:00:00Z', subscriptionStartDate: purchase.granted_by_purchase.original_start_at, More people could be killed or forced from their homes in a feud between factions of the Provisional IRA in south Armagh, republicans and security chiefs warned . } else if (Object.keys(p.badge || {}).indexOf('epaper-access') > -1) { window.showSubscriberElements(); [38] The only successful IRA attack against an Army helicopter outside South Armagh was carried out by the East Tyrone Brigade near Clogher, County Tyrone, on 11 February 1990. One USC Constable was killed in this attack and in revenge the USC descended upon Killylea in Armagh and began to burn down Nationalist homes; they also shot and wounded two civilians. } 25 July 1994 - A British soldier was shot and wounded by the IRA in Crossmaglen, County Armagh. subscriptionStartDate: '', The Troubles in Armagh recounts incidents during The Troubles in Armagh City, County Armagh, Northern Ireland; the violence was substantial enough for a stretch of road on the outskirts of the city to be referred to by one RUC officer as "Murder Mile". It was one of the few times the SAS didn't shoot members of an IRA 'active service unit' on armed operations. He was identified as the IRA's chief technical officer by the Central Intelligence Agency. In 2006, the British and Irish authorities mounted joint operations to clamp down on smuggling in the area and to seize Thomas Murphy's assets. Three British soldiers and a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) member were wounded. "The last armoured patrol in South Armagh, attacked in Crossmaglen October 1975 killing Cpl Gleeson. let cookieValue = parts.join('='); }; He is said to have given the order for the brutal beating, which turned into the murder of Paul Quinn, the innocent 21-year-old who happened to have been involved in a violent row with another local Provo who had assaulted a young woman in October 2007. He is said to have given the order for the brutal beating, which turned into the murder of Paul Quinn, the innocent 21-year-old who happened to have been involved in a violent row with another local Provo who had assaulted a young woman in October 2007. bundle: 'none', const domain = '.independent.ie'; } 17 June 34-year-old Geraldine Corrigan died two days after being shot by what is thought to have been a member of the Official IRA during a botched robbery at her family's supermarket on the Cathedral Road. show_spinner: false, She had gone to Belfast after spending some of the night drinking in Armagh, and had fallen in with a crowd of loyalist men and women who, realising that she was a Catholic from Armagh, took her to a house on Cregagh Street on the pretense of having a party. The team was eventually rounded up and arrested in an operation by the British Army's SAS near Crossmaglen in April 1997. The South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) operated during the Troubles in south County Armagh. Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation. if (vars.article.wallType === 'premium') { [27] However, the South Armagh Brigade continued to carry out varied and high-profile attacks in the same period. The County of Orange closed the application period for the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program on April 30, 2021. Sources say that shortly before they were captured, the team was given orders by the 'OC' not to carry any weapons when they were directed to a farm to collect their sniper rifle for an operation. [37] A sustained machine gun attack against a helicopter was filmed by a Dublin television crew in March 1991 outside Crossmaglen Health Center. childList: true, script.async = true; It was organised into two battalions, one around Jonesborough and another around Crossmaglen. The mortar round hit and shot down the helicopter, serial number ZD275, [1] while it was hovering over the helipad. // Stop listening for mutations once we know this listener has been registered. window.IMP = window.IMP || {}; [26] 1990s [ edit] subscriptionStatus: 'Corporate', $553 (2019) Beds. The Sunday Independent has learned that the South Armagh 'OC' was outed as a 'tout' earlier this year and that shortly afterwards an IRA bodyguard team was sent from Belfast to ensure that no attack was made on the man in order to save embarrassment for the 'movement'. subscriptionFinishDate: '', subscriptionStatus: purchase.granted_by_purchase.sku_code, He was finishing work building garages at the back of the Housing Executive offices on Dobbin Street when the gunman struck. observer.disconnect(); [49] IRA members in South Armagh ceased co-operating with the RIRA after the Omagh bombing. You'll receive access to exclusive information and early alerts about our documentaries and investigations. She left behind a husband and three children. A new full inquest is to be held into the IRA massacre of 10 Protestant workers shot dead in South Armagh in 1976. 29 March 1997 - An RUC officer was badly wounded when he was shot by a sniper outside Forkhill joint security base, County Armagh. } else if (Object.keys(p.badge || {}).indexOf('premium-plus') > -1) { if (isGrantedBy('whitelist_rule')) { His father-in-law, Joseph Wilson, a member of the UDR, had been shot dead by the Provisional IRA a short distance away in 1976. Sources say that shortly before they were captured, the team was given orders by the \u0026#039;OC\u0026#039; not to carry any weapons when they were directed to a farm to collect their sniper rifle for an operation. Raymond McCreesh, a South Armagh man, was among the ten republican hunger strikers who died for this goal in the 1981 hunger strike. South Armagh has long been the IRA stronghold and any defections would be a devastating blow to the leadership. He had left the UDR the year before. The high power capability of the Barrett rifles posed a significant threat to British security forces and helicopters, forcing both to limit patrols and thus allow the IRA more freedom of movement. Let the message from south Armagh ring loud and clear to the occupation forces. bundle: 'premium-plus', T uesday marked. His killing happened one day before his 30th birthday. In 2014, an article appeared in the Sinn Fin newspaper, 17 December The Officer Commanding (OC) of the Armagh city Provisional IRA, 33-year-old Sean McIlvenna, is killed by the RUC in, 17 February Catholic prison officer Patrick Kerr is shot dead by the Provisional IRA on his 37th birthday as he left 10.30 a.m Mass with his children at, 21 February 30-year-old Catholic RUC member Frank Murphy is shot dead by the Provisional IRA at the gates of Drumsallen Primary School on the Battleford Road just outside Armagh city. } The South Armagh IRA. By the end of the 1970s, the IRA in most of Northern Ireland had been restructured into a cell system. document.cookie = subscriberCookieName + "= ; path=/;domain=" + domain + ";expires = Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT"; One of the men who killed her, long-time UVF member Stephen Manners, was himself shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries in 2001 in what is thought to have been an internal hit. A further 75 civilians were killed in the area during the conflict,[6] as well as ten South Armagh Brigade members. They carried out 23 attacks on British Army helicopters during the Troubles, bringing five down on separate occasions: the Gazelle shot down in February 1978 near Jonesborough,[17] a Lynx in June 1988,[35] a second Lynx in February 1991,. The Sunday Independent has learned that the South Armagh 'OC' was outed as a 'tout' earlier this year and that shortly afterwards an IRA bodyguard team was sent from Belfast to ensure. The fierceness of the republicanism expressed by people like the local historians I spoke to is unsettling. j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'? const getBundleValue = function (purchase, purchaseType) { Men from the area also took part in IRA campaigns in the 1940 and 1950s. The Sunday Independent has learned that the South Armagh 'OC' was outed as a 'tout' earlier this year and that shortly afterwards an IRA bodyguard team was sent from Belfast to ensure that. Lost Lives, the chronology which attempts to list the name of everyone who died in the Troubles, mistakenly claims that the bombing occurred in, 16 June Terence McKeever, a 31-year-old Armagh businessman is abducted and then shot dead by the Provisional IRA, with his body being left near the village of, 21 March INLA member Kevin Barry Duffy is shot dead in the grounds of, 25 September 22-year-old UDR member Stephen McKinney is shot dead by the Provisional IRA on the Cabragh Road on the outskirts of Armagh. if (!! vars.user.subscriptionStartDate = subscriberCookie.subscriptionStartDate || ''; A sniper rifle and other weapons were recovered. [10], However, the IRA campaign in the area did not begin in earnest until 1971. 20 December Austin Smith, a 44-year-old Catholic member of the UDR, is shot dead by the Provisional IRA as he returned to his home on the Windmill estate in a heavily nationalist part of the city. $312,000 (2022) Assessed Value. [46] The last major action of the brigade before the last IRA ceasefire was a mortar attack on Newtownhamilton RUC/Army barracks, on 12 July 1997. 9 February Michael Beswick (21), a member of the British Army, was killed in Cathedral Road, Armagh, when a remote-controlled bomb hidden by the Provisional IRA in a wall exploded as an army foot patrol was passing by. 27 November 34-year-old former RUC member John Martin is shot dead by the Provisional IRA at his filling station on the Mall. const bundleValue = getBundleValue(purchase, 'corporate_account'); South Armagh became the most heavily militarised area in Northern Ireland. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. subscriptionStartDate: purchase.granted_by_app_purchase.original_start_at, Robinson was a former member of the UDR. 30 July Martin Malone, an 18-year-old unarmed Catholic civilian, is shot dead by a UDR patrol in the Callan Street area. [54][55] On 22 June 1998 a deadly incident involving fuel smuggling took place near Crossmaglen, when former Thomas Murphy employee Patrick Belton ran over and killed a British soldier attempting to stop him while driving his oil tanker through a military checkpoint. Although from Armagh city, he was a member of the IRA's South Armagh Brigade. } Burrows came from Ballinahone Avenue in the city. According to Lost Lives, it is assumed that he was killed in retaliation for a UVF gun attack on a Catholic man in the city earlier that day. It is believed that the British struck a deal whereby the IRA leaders could continue to benefit from the illicit trade so long as no further attacks on security forces or bomb attacks on commercial targets took place. [47] The Omagh bombing of August 1998, a botched Real IRA operation which killed 29 civilians, was prepared by dissident republicans in South Armagh. They had been for a night out in the, 28 April - Eric Smyth, a 40-year-old ex-member of the UDR, is shot dead by the Provisional IRA at the front of his home on Salter's Grange Road, on the outskirts of Armagh. return { }); const flipPayJsUrl = 'https://cdn.flip-pay.com/clients/inm/flip-pay.js'; A sniper rifle and other weapons were recovered. The second most senior IRA man in south Armagh is being protected amid claims that he worked as an agent for British intelligence, according to usually reliable security sources. } if (flipPayJsUrl) { Unlike other operations in which the SAS were involved, members of the sniper team were not killed. return { Although from Armagh city, he was a member of the IRA's, 31 July George Walsh, a 51-year-old member of the RUC, was shot dead when two INLA gunmen opened fire on the car he was sitting in outside, 2 August Two British soldiers are killed in a Provisional IRA landmine explosion on the Cathedral Road. Now it has been learned that the south Armagh 'OC' was outed as a tout earlier this year and that shortly afterwards an IRA bodyguard team was sent from Belfast to ensure that no attack was made on the man in order to save embarrassment for the organisation. 10 November Charles Spence, a 44-year-old part-time UDR man, is shot dead by the Provisional IRA at the customs offices where he worked on the Monaghan Road in the city. He was eventually killed during an attack on the RUC barracks in Keady in November 1973. In a statement released by the IRA at the time they denied any role in it. vars.article.wallVisible = ! The truck bombs were sent to England by ferry. [2] It has allegedly been commanded since the 1970s by Thomas 'Slab' Murphy who is also alleged to be a member of the IRA's Army Council. In Keady in November 1973 two battalions, one around Jonesborough and another around Crossmaglen, the IRA 's technical... 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