if (vars.article.wallType === 'registration') { Then, in January 1976, after a series of loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) attacks on Catholic civilians in the border areas (including the Reavey and O'Dowd killings the previous day), the group shot and killed ten Protestant workmen in the "Kingsmill massacre" near Bessbrook. [60], "The Saracen armoured car blown up by a culvert bomb at Lurganculleboy, near Crossmaglen in October 1975, killing Corporal Edward Gleeson. [39] By 1994, the only way for the British army to travel safely across South Armagh and some border areas of Tyrone and Fermanagh was on board troop-carrying Chinook helicopters.[40]. A sniper rifle and other weapons were recovered. [5] Between 1970 and 1997 the brigade was responsible for the deaths of 165 members of British security forces (123 British soldiers and 42 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers). The team, which included Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghin O Caolain's brother-in-law, Bernard McGinn from Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, were sentenced to lengthy jailed terms but released in 2000 as part of the prisoner amnesty. } In 1986, the British Army erected ten hilltop observation posts in South Armagh. // Regionals Container The latter is suspected of playing a role in the London bombings that marked the end of the IRA. The customs building itself was later destroyed in an IRA bomb attack in 1986. The single Mk-15 mortar bomb landed 40 yards (37m) short of the perimeter fence. South Armagh IRA rocked as 'OC' is outed as a 'tout', It is not clear how the OC came to be exposed as an agent but he is believed to have been recruited by British Intelligence in the late 1980s or early 1990s. To republicans, it is 'God's Country', the only area in the six counties where the occupiers have successfully been resisted. The dead man was a World War II veteran and had taken part in the. 31 July 1993 - A British Army mobile checkpoint was fired at by an IRA sniper at Newtownhamilton, County Armagh. He had charge of the IRA's Border sniper team, which killed seven soldiers and two police officers in the 1990s. vars.article.userWall = 'none'; window.dataLayer.push(vars); [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. meteredAccess: purchase.metered_paywall, meteredAccess: purchase.metered_paywall, . 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. 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. The team, which included Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghin O Caolain's brother-in-law, Bernard McGinn from Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, were sentenced to lengthy jailed terms but released in 2000 as part of the prisoner amnesty. He was eventually killed during an attack on the RUC barracks in Keady in November 1973. !gigyaID ? const subscriberCookieStatus = getCookie(subscriberCookieName) || '{}'; On 30 December 1990, Sinn Fin member and IRA volunteer,[30] Fergal Caraher, was killed by Royal Marines near a checkpoint in Cullyhanna. window.showSubscriberElements = true; Watch: Peter Crouch sings the Fields of Athenry with Liverpool fans in Dublin pub, Senior Tory begrudgingly backs Sunaks bitter pill Brexit deal as DUP split over support, Teachers union claims it was excluded from new pay talks, Jay Blades made chancellor of former university and receives honorary doctorate, Badenoch clashes with MPs over menopause discrimination law, Search teams using every resource they can in hunt for Constance Martens baby. The following August, two RUC constables were killed by a car bomb in Crossmaglen. [10], However, the IRA campaign in the area did not begin in earnest until 1971. subscriptionStartDate: '1111-11-11T11:11:11Z', 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. } else if (Object.keys(p.badge || {}).indexOf('premium') > -1) { The new Irish Sea Border: What does it mean? [35] The shooting down of the Lynx in 1994 during a mortar attack on Crossmaglen barracks is regarded by Toby Harnden as the most successful IRA operation against a helicopter in the course of the Troubles. Travelling overland in South Armagh eventually became so dangerous that the British Army began using helicopters to transport troops and supply its bases - a practice that had to be continued until the late 1990s. } } [50], After the Provisional IRA announced its intention to disarm and accept peaceful methods in July 2005, the British government announced a full demilitarisation plan which included the closing of all British Army bases in South Armagh by 2007. [58][59] The IRA control over the roads across the border in South Armagh enabled them to impose 'taxes' on every cross-border illegal enterprise. The board of finance Wednesday voted 4-2 in favor of using $300,000 in funding to repair the Grange Pool.Repairs to the nearly 60-year-old pool have been estimated between $300,000 to $350,000. Dates in bold indicate a death by a sniper. It was one of the few times the SAS didn't shoot members of an IRA 'active service unit' on armed operations. if (isGrantedBy('purchase')) { These squads were responsible for killing seven soldiers and two RUC members until the Caraher team was finally caught by the Special Air Service in April 1997. }); The man, who has the official title of 'officer commanding' South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional IRA, is also a member of the 'Northern Command', the ruling body which effectively ran the organisation from the early 1980s. A sniper rifle and other weapons were recovered. const bundleValue = getBundleValue(purchase, 'purchase'); 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. if (isGrantedBy('whitelist_rule')) { [20], During the mid-1980s, the brigade focused its attacks on the RUC, killing 20 of its members between 1984 and 1986. }); "The fools, the fools, the fools, they have left us our Fenian dead. 18 October 67-year-old Protestant Herbert John Anderson is shot dead by the Provisional IRA who ambushed his taxi on the Armagh to, 19 April Agnes Wallace (40), a Prison Officer, was killed and three female colleagues were injured in an, 2 June Alan Dunne (36), an off-duty member of the RUC, and David Stinson (32), a, 9 June Peadar McElvenna, a 24-year-old Provisional IRA member from Convent Close in the city, is shot dead after an IRA attack on the RUC barracks in Keady, south Armagh. }; [12] IRA volunteer amon McGuire, a former Aer Lingus senior engineer, and his team claim that they were responsible for getting the British Army "off the ground and into the air" in South Armagh. [33][34], The South Armagh Brigade was by far the most effective IRA brigade in shooting down British helicopters during the conflict. [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. But the snipers also lost a number of their most skilled members, such as Mchel Caraher, who were arrested and imprisoned just weeks before the second ceasefire. The fierceness of the republicanism expressed by people like the local historians I spoke to is unsettling. Harnden was held to be in contempt of the Bloody Sunday tribunal for . ","isAccessibleForFree":"True","isPartOf":{"@type":["CreativeWork","Product"],"name":"Independent.ie","productID":"independent.ie:showcase"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Independent.ie","item":"https://m.independent.ie/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Irish News","item":"https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/"}]} vars.user.gigyaID = gigyaID || ''; [31] The South Armagh Brigade also built the bombs that were used to wreck economic targets in London during the 1990s, specially hitting the financial district. He was later acquitted of any charges, but he eventually agreed in 2006 to pay 500,000 for cross-border smuggling. 10 November Charles Neville, a 56-year-old Protestant and former member of the UDR, is killed in a Provisional IRA gun and grenade attack on his car at the Loughgall Road. const cookieData = getSubscriptionStatus(purchase); listenForFlipPayEvents(); 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. [56][57] Some sources claim that the smuggling activities not only made the South Armagh brigade self-sustained, but also provided financial support to most of the IRA operations around Northern Ireland. } {"gigya.api.key":"4_CO8231Ix1RbYi2EmMbsrlw","gigya.screenset":"Default-RegistrationLogin","gigya.mobile.screenset":"Default-RegistrationLogin","gigya.authFlow.redirect":"true","gigya.check.enabled":"true","gigya.check.host":"gigya-check.independent.ie","competitions.submit.endpoint":"https://competitions-api.independent.ie/entries","competitions.api.key":"0b15feaa-62b2-45a2-8244-723a9e80748e","subscriptionwall.cookie-domain":".independent.ie","subscriptionwall.metered.missing.fields":"data.occupation,data.phone,data.salutation,data.yearofbirth,profile.firstName,profile.lastName","subscriptionwall.welcome_url.home-delivery":"https://subscribe.independent.ie/welcome/home-delivery/","subscriptionwall.welcome_url.premium-plus":"https://subscribe.independent.ie/welcome/premium-plus/","subscriptionwall.welcome_url.premium":"https://subscribe.independent.ie/welcome/premium/","kaching.enabled":"true","outbrain.kaching.enabled":"true","quantcast.enabled":"false","didomi.enabled":"true","newsletter.subscribe_url":"https://member.independent.ie/quicksubscribe/IN:Daily/subscribe","social-embed-consent-wall.enabled":"true","homepage.regional.sections.mapping":"Cork:regionals/corkman/:corkman,Dublin:regionals/dublin/:dublin,Kerry:regionals/kerryman/:kerryman,Louth:regionals/louth/:louth,Sligo:regionals/sligochampion/:sligochampion,Wexford:regionals/wexford/:wexford,Wicklow:regionals/wicklow/:wicklow","active_cmp":"didomi"} {"url":"https://shared.mediahuis.be/ka-ching/independent/ka-ching.umd.js?20210830","adunit":"m.independent.ie/Irish_News","targeting":{"art_id":"34944633","article_id":"34944633","kw":["South","Armagh","IRA","rocked","as","OC","is","outed","as","a","tout"],"gs_channels":["gs_notprocessed"],"article_type":"standard"},"platform":"MOB","pageType":"Article","lazyload":true} {"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"South Armagh IRA rocked as \u0026#039;OC\u0026#039; is outed as a \u0026#039;tout\u0026#039;","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Independent.ie","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://m.independent.ie/theme/_base/"},"@id":"independent.ie"},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.independent.ie/incoming/65cdb/34944440.ece/AUTOCROP/w1240h700/provos.jpg","height":"700","width":"1240"},"mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://www.independent.ie/"},"dateCreated":"2016-08-06T22:16:02.000Z","dateModified":"2016-08-06T22:40:34.000Z","datePublished":"2016-08-07T01:30:00Z","keywords":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://www.independent.ie/incoming/65cdb/34944440.ece/AUTOCROP/w1240h700/provos.jpg","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jim Cusack"},"description":"The second most senior IRA man in South Armagh is being \u0026#039;protected\u0026#039; amid claims that he worked as an agent for British intelligence, according to usually reliable security sources. 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