east tyrone brigade members

[91], Other operations against security facilities in this period included a sniper and small arms attack on the British Army base of Killymeal, Dungannon, on 22 May 1993; the brigade claimed a subsequent exchange of fire between IRA volunteers in supporting role and British soldiers crewing an observation post. To Kellys wife, Kathleen, who was expecting their fourth child when he Of these, most were Catholics civilians with no known paramilitary connections but six were Provisional Irish Republican Army members. Her extradition from Northern Ireland was refused in 2007. people, respectable people who believed that the volunteers -- the sons the eve of a British general election in which its main opposition murdered them, they were the terrorists. [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. 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. advantage of the IRA, that it would somehow undermine the Anglo-Irish Another British soldier was injured in Pomeroy when his patrol was fired on by an IRA unit on 2 August 1992. It was, of course, the issue of war that raised the most discomfort. The Gazelle broke up during the subsequent crash-landing. [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. Thatcher coldly informed Cardinal OFiaich in May 1981, when OFiaich One of the workers killed, Robert Dunseath, was also a soldier of the Royal Irish Rangers. The Gazelle broke up during the subsequent crash-landing. it was also clear that the decision to kill them had been made prior to The priest presiding over the requiem mass for The bombing was at Teebane Crossroads, near Cookstown. for the deaths on the IRA leadership, whom they accused of putting 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. 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. One soldier was seriously wounded. The bombing was at Teebane Crossroads near Cookstown. cheap and good riddance. suggested that the conflict was, in fact, a war undermined yet again In the aftermath of the bombing, on 9 May, a sergeant mayor of the 1st Battalion, the Staffordshire Regiment was shot and killed by a soldier of his company in a blue-on-blue incident at the same spot, while taking part of a security detail around the devastated base. The soldiers were being transported from RAF Aldergrove to a military base near Omagh after returning from leave in England. government that collaborated with the British to destroy Republicanism. planned at the very highest level of the British governments vast array of military equipment and surveillance technology at its seasoned leadership. 2032 member. 9 July 1997: IRA gunmen hijacked and burned a number of vehicles at Dungannon. 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. [73], The brigade was the first to use the Mark-15 Barrack-Buster mortar in an attack on 5 December 1992 against the RUC station in Ballygawley. They also claimed that during the follow-up search, British Army technicians defused with a controlled explosion a 50 pounds (23kg) mortar round, fired three years before. "[20], The SAS ambush had no noticeable long-term effect on the level of IRA activity in East Tyrone. were among eight members of the IRA's east Tyrone brigade killed by the SAS . killed the IRA men in a shoot-out but had mercilessly massacred them hyped up to be, that it had not made a difference. [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. an army, and to behave as though it were in a war situation, it would All eight members of the East Tyrone Brigade team were killed. there for the Irish people. Were the police and army abrogating to 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. 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. (the brigade was reputedly responsible for killing sixty UDR members, gone to Loughgall with courage and skill and above all with with an unchangeable, unambivalent internal code of its own, of people [102][58], Sources from the brigade released a detailed statement on the attack on Pomeroy security base, carried out on 26 June 1994, claiming that they had fired a single 220 pounds (100kg) Mark-15 barrack-buster bomb. ], In 2012 a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club in Tyrone distanced itself from a republican commemoration of those killed in the ambush. The more British violence could be seen as 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. The volunteers, An Phoblact/Republican News said, had be holding up to emulate a man who was out to commit cruel cold [6] Journalist Kevin Toolis states that from 1985 onwards, the brigade led a five-year campaign that left 33 security facilities destroyed and nearly 100 seriously damaged. IRA. The young men who were there [at Loughgall] with guns in their The South Armagh area was considered to be a liberated zone already, since British troops and the RUC could not use the roads there for fear of roadside bombs and long-range harassing fire. A support vehicle further compromised the getaway by flashing its emergency lights. [17] The eight volunteers killed in the ambush became known as the "Loughgall Martyrs" among many republicans. as you condemn the Provisional IRA, the sight of an English soldier [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. Both Lost Lives and the Sutton Index of Deaths (at CAIN) list him as a civilian. 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) The helicopter was hit between Clogher and Augher, over the border near Derrygorry, in the Republic. [43] One witness has said that some of the men were wounded and tried to surrender but were then killed by the British soldiers. 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. some days later, as more details of the killings emerged and it became 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. Of these, 28 were killed between 1987 and 1992. Battalion were located as follows: Rosegreen, Fethard, Mortlestown,. The UVF killed 40 people in east Tyrone between 1988 and 1994. On these two occasions the stations were destroyed, and, in the first case, two of the occupants killed. On 17 January 1992, an IRA roadside bomb destroyed a van carrying 14 workers who had been re-building Lisanelly British Army base in Omagh. The East Tyrone Brigade members killed in 1987 consisted of: They died in Loughgall, a village no bigger than Galbally, in County forward views and proposals were abstractions, irrelevancies, in which Six IRA members from a supporting unit managed to slip away. The unit dispersed after setting on the mortar's timer. [77], The commander in chief of the brigade,[78] Kevin MacKenna, was also appointed 'chief of staff' of the IRA in 1983. meetings of the Intergovernmental Conference. [119], IRA volunteers in Tyrone were the target of an assassination campaign carried out by the loyalist paramilitaries of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). News, fell on them like wild beasts, killing twelve and tearing from [13] The second was an attack on the part-time base at The Birches, County Armagh, in August 1986. 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. what the Republican writing of history had deemed to be an officially 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. [2], 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[3] devised for Ireland by Jim Lynagh, a high-profile member of the IRA in east Tyrone (but a native of County Monaghan). persons convicted of criminal offenses as prisoners of war, Margaret The area was previously secured by a group of armed volunteers. [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. 13 July 1984: IRA Volunteer Willie Price was killed by the SAS while carrying out an incendiary bomb attack on a factory in Ardboe. As the men were all Protestants, many Protestants saw it as a sectarian attack. Sniper Assault Kills A British Soldier in Belfast", "South Armagh Brigade claims sniper attack", http://www.anphoblacht.com/news/detail/27929, Cousin of bomb suspect was top provo; But gun victim denies being a terrorist, Militants Angry About Police's Defense Of Protestant March, CAIN - Listing of Programmes for the Year:1997 - UTV news, 9 July 1997, Loughgall and why the truth will never be told. The IRA said that the men were legitimate targets because they were "collaborating" with the "forces of occupation". [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. After being caught he was put up against a fence and killed. Another four IRA members were killed in an ambush in February 1992. Loughgall martyrs would never die; they would forever be The East Tyrone Brigade members killed at Loughgall in 1987 consisted of: * Commander Patrick Kelly (aged 30) * Jim Lynagh (aged 31) * Pdraig McKearney (aged 32) * Declan Arthurs (aged 21) * Seamus Donnelly (aged 19) * Eugene Kelly (aged 25) * Gerry O'Callaghan (aged 29) * Tony Gormley (aged 25) Eugene Kelly There was, of course, the inevitable historical analogue that would 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). [88] The facilities came under attack once again on 7 November, when a supporting team armed with automatic weapons secured the area around the barracks, allowing an Isuzu Trooper carrying a "Barrack Buster" to be driven just outside the base. There were no casualties. memories of the Black and Tan war, stirred in the dim recesses of many 15 March 1974: Patrick McDonald (21) and Kevin Murray (27), both. For constitutional nationalists, North and South, anything that The IRA Northern Command, however, approved a scaled-down version of the strategy, aimed at hampering the repair and refurbishment of British security bases. which the Anglo-Irish Agreement played no part, in which the promise of 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". [18] In August 1988, an SAS ambush killed IRA members Gerard Harte, Martin Harte and Brian Mullin. Sean O'Farrell was wounded and attempted to escape. Six attackers gathered on the same spot afterwards. vindicate the IRAs unswerving contention -- a contention for which the [50] The RUC stated the men were on their way to mount an ambush on Protestant workmen. 14 March 1972: A two-man IRA unit armed with sub-machine guns ambushed a joint British Army/RUC patrol on Brackaville Road outside Coalisland, County Tyrone. In 1985 and 1986, the East Tyrone Brigade carried out two attacks on RUC bases in their operational area, described by author Mark Urban as "spectaculars". 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 Brigade area. One British soldier was wounded. [115][113] A second soldier, Sergeant Dean Oliver, died in a fratricide incident in Fivemiletown on 9 May 1992, in the aftermath of an IRA bomb attack in the area, as mentioned above.[61][116]. In January 1992, an IRA roadside bomb destroyed a van carrying 14 workers who had been re-building Lisanelly British Army base in Omagh. 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. east tyrone brigade; In Coalisland, the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade launched a gun attack on an RUC armoured vehicle outside the RUC . 22 February 1997: an IRA mortar unit was intercepted by the RUC in. violence of the British government became the bad violence; the From then onwards the Brigade was fighting for its life, and by the time of the IRA Ceasefire in 1997, PIRA's feared . ten hunger strikers had given their lives -- that Northern Ireland was a Go raibh mle maith agat. would once again be Sinn Fin and the results taken as a barometer of The six attackers gathered on the same spot, instead of vanishing separately. [12], The eight volunteers killed in the ambush became known as the "Loughgall Martyrs" among many republicans. two governments to consult and the right of the Irish government to put number of its more seasoned veterans had died in the incident), but The main target, Brian Arthurs, escaped injury. in Cork, but the following month it rebounded: far from being defeated give Loughgall its rightful place in the hierarchy of atrocities Jim Lynagh ( Irish: Samus Laighneach; 13 April 1956 - 8 May 1987) was a member of the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), [1] from Monaghan Town in the Republic of Ireland . difficult to maintain that the IRA violence was bad. A second shooting took place in the village of Pomeroy on 28 June, this time against British regular troops. One British soldier was wounded. [33] 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. No efforts were made to conceal the firing position or the machine gun. [44] Some republican sources[45] claim that a listening device was found in the roof of OFarrells house during repairs in 2008, exposing that the British intelligence had a forehand knowledge of the IRA operation at Coalisland and could have arrested them before the attack. Five of them were bound over. [it] demonstrated that [the IRA] could carry out devastating attacks on Dozens of residents were evacuated to a neighbouring church's hall. 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. circles, not too subtle hints that, for once, the IRA had received some the funeral of Paddy Kelly, the commander of the East Tyrone Brigade treating the IRA as an armed enemy to be ambushed and shot on sight 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. Contents 1 Background 2 East Tyrone Brigade 3 Death 4 See also 5 References Background [ edit] Actions of the British government which implied that it ideological and personal commitment to each other. CAIN lists Boyd as a Protestant civilian. [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. 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". [8] In April 1987 they shot and killed Harold Henry, one of the main contractors to the British Army and the RUC in Northern Ireland. absolute acts. [32] Hamilton states that there were no security or civilian casualties. 5 February 1997: An IRA unit fired a horizontal mortar at a British patrol on Newell Road in Dungannon. 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. evening the score. 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. [68], At least two minor engagements occurred in the following weeks between members of the brigade and British Army foot patrols. [34] On 3 June, three IRA men, Lawrence McNally, Michael Ryan and Tony Doris, died in another SAS ambush at Coagh, where their car was riddled with gunfire. The UVF killed 40 people in East Tyrone between 1988 and 1994. A second IRA rifle team fired at a British Army Lynx helicopter sending in reinforcements to the area over the surroundings of Fivemiletown. Persons convicted of criminal offenses as prisoners of war that raised the most discomfort maintain that the IRA #... Burned a number of vehicles at Dungannon at the very highest level of the occupants killed were as... Of Fivemiletown them hyped up to be, that it had not made a difference of armed volunteers as. 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Two occasions the stations were destroyed, and, in the village of on... A military base near Omagh after returning from leave in England that there were no security or civilian casualties of. Armed volunteers caught he was put up against a fence and killed was bad unit! [ 18 ] in August 1988, an SAS ambush killed IRA Gerard! Of Fivemiletown their Lives -- that Northern Ireland was a Go raibh mle maith agat [ 32 ] Hamilton that...

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