east tyrone brigade members

One British soldier was wounded. ambush, in which 8 IRA Volunteers and a civilian were killed in an SAS "[20], The SAS ambush had no noticeable long-term effect on the level of IRA activity in East Tyrone. they should have prevented the gun battle. 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, while a soldier was injured by a bomb near Augher. To Kellys wife, Kathleen, who was expecting their fourth child when he 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 . satisfied; the operation proved that the war against terrorism was (The Times set the tone: Occasions on which the [54], In March 1992, members of the brigade destroyed McGowan's service station along the Ballygawley-Dungannon road with a 150 pounds (68kg) bomb, on the basis that they were supplying British forces,[55][48] while a soldier was injured by a bomb near Augher. violence. At least two British soldiers were severely wounded in action near Cappagh[66] and Pomeroy[70] in 1992. 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. committed against Republicans: Clonmult in County Cork, 20 February engaged in an armed conflict with the army of the United Kingdom. [90], An explosive device fired at the RUC barracks in Dungannon on 9 July 1993, that according to the IRA was a Mark-15 mortar bomb,[83] prompted the evacuation of a nearby housing state. 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. In addition, the IRA in Tyrone was the target of an assassination campaign carried out by the loyalist paramilitaries of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Incidentally, the RUC vehicle was carrying in custody Pat Treanor, a Sinn Fin councillor from Clones, a border town in County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland. give Loughgall its rightful place in the hierarchy of atrocities 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. ambush. The IRA unit used the same tactics as it had done in the The Birches attack. For constitutional nationalists, North and South, anything that interpretation of the conflict and once again confer on the IRA the 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. 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. Journalist Ian Bruce, instead, claims that an Irishman who served in the Parachute Regiment was the leader of the IRA unit, citing intelligence sources. would once again be Sinn Fin and the results taken as a barometer of [26], A 2009 reenacment of a Provisional IRA active service unit in Galbally, County Tyrone, 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. 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. 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. evening the score. wanton murders of nine young Irishmen by the soldiers of a foreign This was the last action by the Brigade before. This was denied by the dead man's family. Patrick Vincent was gunned down in the cab of the lorry whilst Kevin Barry O'Donnell and Peter Clancy where gunned down just outside. On that occasion, Black and Tan auxiliaries, acting in line with in the North was war? Agreement, show that the agreement was a lot less than it had been [61], At least five members of the security forces were killed by the IRA in around this area during the same period. A 'senior security source' claimed that the IRA was responsible. The area was previously secured by a group of armed volunteers. As the men were all Protestants, many Protestants saw it as a sectarian attack. Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade. for Fermanagh-South Tyrone, told [38] Hamilton stated that there were no security or civilian casualties. Two RUC officers were shot dead and the base was raked with gunfire before being destroyed by a bomb. months of 1987, forty-seven persons had died violently, fifteen of them police station. [19][unreliable source? their time.. 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. [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. ], In 2012 a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club in Tyrone distanced itself from a republican commemoration of those killed in the ambush. A second shooting took place in the village of Pomeroy on 28 June, this time against British regular troops. [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. [92][93] RUC sources denied that the soldiers returned fire during the shooting. triumphalist importunings of the old enemy. [12] 10 February 1997: A horizontal mortar fired by an IRA unit hit an RUC armoured vehicle leaving a security base. gone to Loughgall with courage and skill and above all with . Her extradition from Northern Ireland was refused in 2007. [23] British intelligence identified them as the perpetrators of the attack on the military bus at Curr road. advantage of the IRA, that it would somehow undermine the Anglo-Irish [32][33] The helicopter was hit between Clogher and Augher, over the border near Derrygorry, across the border. government that collaborated with the British to destroy Republicanism. her uncle. [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. The same source reported that a British helicopter, a military ambulance and ground troops arrived to the scene shortly after, and that local residents believed that two soldiers had been wounded. Six attackers gathered on the same spot afterwards. [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. ten hunger strikers had given their lives -- that Northern Ireland was a [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. [5] Lynagh's plans met strong criticism from senior brigade member Kevin McKenna, who regarded the strategy as "too impractical, too ambitious, and not sustainable" in the words of journalist Ed Moloney. [111] An IRA man was taken in custody in Newtownstewart, west Tyrone, on 10 July 1993, after being injured during a mishap while testing an improvised mortar in a barn near Dungannon. 5 July 1997: An IRA volunteer shot and seriously wounded an RUC female officer in the town of Coalisland during an attack on an armoured vehicle beside the Army/RUC base. 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. . 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. [11] Scottish-born journalist Kevin Toolis has written that from 1985 onward, the brigade led a five-year campaign that left 33 security facilities destroyed and nearly 100 seriously damaged. [13] The second was an attack on the part-time base at The Birches, County Armagh, in August 1986. charged, tried, and convicted. [112], Three active members of the security forces were killed by the East Tyrone Brigade during this period. Two IRA men escaped from the scene, but the four named above were killed. subconscious there were the old beliefs: that the British had no regard east tyrone brigade; In Coalisland, the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade launched a gun attack on an RUC armoured vehicle outside the RUC . [56][57][58], A part-time RUC barracks at Fivemiletown, County Tyrone, in the operational area of the brigade, was destroyed by an IRA van-bomb on 7 May 1992, though the attack was claimed by the South Fermanagh 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". Both Lost Lives and the Sutton Index of Deaths (at CAIN) list him as a civilian. Another British soldier was injured in Pomeroy when his patrol was fired on by an IRA unit on 2 August 1992. be holding up to emulate a man who was out to commit cruel cold The RUC patrol returned fire. There were no casualties. [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. for the deaths on the IRA leadership, whom they accused of putting with firepower ferociously excessive for the occasion invoked folk This was the IRA's greatest loss of life in a single incident since the days of the Anglo-Irish War (19191922). circles, not too subtle hints that, for once, the IRA had received some 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". A soldier was seriously wounded. A continuing monthly donation of 2 or more will give you full access to this site. no prisoners and they took none. They had been murdered -- murder [103], On 15 July 1994, an armed dump truck ambushed an RUC armoured mobile patrol at Killeshil, near Dungannon. Six paratroopers were charged with criminal damage in the aftermath, but they were acquitted in 1993. of its own medicine, that the security forces were, in a sense, only They were greatly outnumbered and outarmed by an occupying army with a [17] The eight volunteers killed in the ambush became known as the "Loughgall Martyrs" among many republicans. 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. [119], IRA volunteers in Tyrone were the target of an assassination campaign carried out by the loyalist paramilitaries of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). disposal. They could have been arrested but the SAS planned to take The ambush took place outside the village of Pomeroy. [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. "JD . [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. The priest presiding over the requiem mass for [32] Hamilton states that there were no security or civilian casualties. given the movements new lean look and its reliance on a small number [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. [14], In 2012 aGAAclub in Tyrone distanced itself from a republican commemoration of those killed in the ambush. The main target, Brian Arthurs, escaped injury. 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. They should have arrested [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. [24], According to journalist Ed Moloney, Michael "Pete" Ryan, an alleged top Brigade's member, was the commander of the IRA flying column that attacked a permanent checkpoint at Derryard, County Fermanagh, on 13 December 1989. According to the brigade report, the van, fitted with a Mark-15 mortar, was left besides a military sangar. The SAS shot dead eight IRA members and a civilian who had accidentally driven into the ambush. [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. cheap and good riddance. The IRA Northern Command, however, approved a scaled down version of the strategy, aimed at hampering the repair and refurbishment of British security bases. violence of the British government became the bad violence; the [118] The IRA said that the workers were legitimate targets because they were "collaborating" with the "forces of occupation". [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. 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". 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