[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). There were four members of the Provisionals from East Tyrone searching my house, and they . 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, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia. Certainly, I think we can rule out the idea of a hard Border with British troops on the Border. The six attackers gathered on the same spot, instead of vanishing separately. 26 March 1997: a grenade was thrown by IRA volunteers at the British Army/RUC base in Coalisland. There is very, very little appetite among republican circles in the North for a resumption of any armed campaign. Stephen Fuller (d. 1984), a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence and fought with Anti-Treaty forces during the Irish Civil War (1922-23). He later became the longest-serving volunteer in this job, right up to the 1997 cease-fire.[79]. 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. (2000). 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. 1st Battalion, the Staffordshire Regiment, A major ambush occurred on 12 December 1993 in Fivemiletown, Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign 19691997, "Bomb disposal experts Sunday probed an abandoned truck for", "SAS shooting 'destroyed deadly IRA unit', Loughgall terrorist could not have been arrested, "GAA distances itself from IRA commemorations", "Calculating, professional enemy that faces KOSB", "Land Mine Kills 7 (sic) British Soldiers on Bus in Ulster", "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", "Cappagh (Incident) (Hansard, 3 May 1990)", "21 die, hundreds injured in Philippine new year revelry", Listing of Programmes for the Year: 1992-UTV news, CAIN Listing of Programmes for the Year: 1992 BBC News, 5 March 1992, "I.R.A. [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. The base was raked with gunfire and a JCB digger with a 200lb (91kg) bomb in its bucket was driven through the perimeter fence. In July of 2005, The Sunday Times reported that Adams was replaced by Brian Arthurs, a former commander of the Provisional IRA's East Tyrone Brigade. The British are sending a plausibly deniable mixed message, he says. McGeough points to the "huge statement" last week by David Davis, the UK's Brexit secretary formally, secretary of state for exiting the European Union who said that Northern Ireland would not have to reapply for EU membership as a new state if it voted for reunification with the Republic. [35][36][37], On 24 March 1990, there was a gun battle between an IRA unit and undercover British forces in the main street of the village of Cappagh, County Tyrone, in which IRA members fired at a civilian-type car driven by security forces, according to Archie Hamilton, then Secretary of State for Defence. But these four veterans of the Provisional IRAs armed campaign, who are all now critics of Sinn Fin policy, do not think that Brexit will derail the peace process. [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. CAIN Listing of Programmes for the Year: 1997 UTV News, 9 July 1997. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Provisional_IRA_East_Tyrone_Brigade&oldid=1137091264, Provisional Irish Republican Army Brigades, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles lacking reliable references from October 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 14 September 1971: a British soldier (John Rudman, aged 21) was shot dead while on mobile patrol, Edendork, near. 9 July 1997: IRA gunmen hijacked and burned a number of vehicles at Dungannon. [27][28] The helicopter was hit between Clogher and Augher, over the border near Derrygorry, in the Republic. Instead Lynagh, McKearney and the other six IRA activists - Gerard O'Callaghan, 29, Tony Gormley, 25, Eugene Kelly, 25, Patrick Kelly, 30, Seamus Donnelly, 19, and Declan Arthurs, 21 - were shot. 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. Nevertheless, IRA activities continued in parts of Down, Fermanagh, north and mid-Armagh by August 1994. 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. Lynagh's strategy was to start off with one area which the British military did not control, preferably a republican stronghold such as east Tyrone. [80], From mid-1992 up to the 1994 cease fire, IRA units in east and south Tyrone carried out a dozen bomb and mortar attacks against RUC and military bases and assets. "They should be pushing instead for a united Ireland, that the day the UK leaves Europe is the same day they leave Ireland," he says. We are an unruly people, and if there is an opportunity to be unruly again we will take it, but it will not be violence. Of these, 28 were killed between 1987 and 1992. [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. There may be little bits here and there, or attempts here and there, but nothing significant.. Lynagh's strategy was to start off with one area which the British military did not control, preferably a republican stronghold such as east Tyrone. He would later serve as a member of Fianna Fil during the 1930s. [35][36] The RUC stated the men were on their way to mount an ambush on Protestant workmen.[37]. He explains to Simon Carswell how Brexit is the best thing ever for Irish nationalists and republicans. No efforts were made to conceal the firing position or the machine gun. The main target, Brian Arthurs, escaped injury. 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. [13], In December 2011, the Historical Enquiries Team found that not only did the IRA team fire first but that they could not have been safely arrested. Along with Lynagh and McKearney, the IRA gang included Gerard O'Callaghan, 29, Tony Gormley, 25, Eugene Kelly, 25, Patrick Kelly, 30, Seamus Donnelly, 19, and Declan Arthurs, 21. This is not a land of milk and honey under the European Union. 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. 5 July 1997: In Coalisland, a female RUC officer from. UTV News Report: In Pomeroy an IRA horizontal mortar hit an RUC car but failed to explode. [23] British intelligence identified them as the perpetrators of the attack on the military bus at Curr road. Simon Carswell. [92] The projectile landed within the grounds of the base, causing some damage according to the RUC. . The bombing was at Teebane Crossroads near Cookstown. 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. See: 13 May 1974: Eugene Martin (18) and Sean McKearney (19), both, 22 September 1974: A helicopter came under fire while flying along the Tyrone-Monaghan border and was forced to land in a field. There were no casualties. 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. The next day the IRA threatened any contractor who took on repair of the station. It was the biggest single loss of life for the republican movement during the conflict. 22 February 1997: an IRA mortar unit was intercepted by the RUC in. They don't throw away remarks like that. Brexit may prove a catalyst for a much earlier withdrawal, he says, as he knows Protestants who are soft Irish nationalists and farmers who do not want to lose EU subsidies. [112] On 11 May 1993, British security forces found and defused a horizontal mortar complete with warhead in Dungannon. The IRA unit used the same tactics as it had done in the The Birches attack. 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. [130] The latter attack led to loyalist allegations that the IRA was killing Protestant land-owners in Tyrone and Fermanagh[131] 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. Stephen Fuller (d. 1984), a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence and fought with Anti-Treaty forces during the Irish Civil War (1922-23). G Bill Gannon George Gilmore H Sean Hales Tom Hales Sen Hogan Charlie Hurley K "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. [38] The IRA said that the men were legitimate targets because they were "collaborating" with the "forces of occupation". Simon Carswell. Five Sinn Fin cumainn, and 90% of the East Tyrone Brigade, left in the move. [101][102] 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. His elder brother, a civilian contractor to the Ministry of Defence, had died in a South Armagh Brigade[64] mortar attack one year before, while working inside an Army base near Keady, County Armagh.[65]. They are saying to us: if you want to go down that road we are not going to step in your way. [55][56][57], Six paratroopers were charged with criminal damage in the aftermath, but they were acquitted in 1993. The UVF killed 40 people in east Tyrone between 1988 and 1994. From the Sunday Tribune. But the reality is that it is going to be more and more obvious, Lynagh says. The standout example is the SAS shooting of eight East Tyrone IRA members whilst the IRA attacked Loughgall RUC station in 1987. 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