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. The team, which included Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghin O Caolain\u0026#039;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 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. By the end of the 1970s, the IRA in most of Northern Ireland had been restructured into a cell system. 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,. He was from Ashley Heights in the city and was a leading member of the Orange Order. The team, which included Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghin O Caolain's brother-in-law - Bernard McGinn from Castleblayney, Co Monaghan - were sentenced to lengthy jail terms, but released in 2000 under the Good Friday Agreement. In a statement released by the IRA at the time they denied any role in it. South Armagh, however, where the close rural community and family connections of IRA men diminished the risk of infiltration, retained its larger "battalion" structure. RM2HX09AC - File photo dated 7/8/2011 of Peter Smithwick, the senior judge who led an inquiry into claims of Garda/IRA collusion into the murder of two RUC officers, has died aged 85. The incident caused outrage among South Armagh residents, provided the IRA with many new recruits and created a hostile climate where local people were prepared to tolerate the killing of security force members. [37] A sustained machine gun attack against a helicopter was filmed by a Dublin television crew in March 1991 outside Crossmaglen Health Center. The chief of staff and head of the IRA is Thomas "Slab" Murphy, a millionaire racketeer and smuggler from south Armagh who was instrumental in bringing about the 1994 ceasefire and then planning the London Docklands bombing which broke it. } [6], South Armagh has a long Irish republican tradition. By the time of the final IRA ceasefire in August 1997 the south Armagh IRA leadership was already heavily involved in fuel and cigarette smuggling. The helicopter crashed while taking evasive manoeuvres after being fired at from the east side of Edenappa road. The south Armagh IRA even discovered ground not covered by the watchtowers for sniper attacks in the 1990s. The owner of the farm was also arrested. 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. subscriptionFinishDate: '1111-11-11T11:11:11Z', It exploded as they ran to a getaway car, causing the building to collapse. subscriptionStatus: purchase.granted_by_purchase.sku_code, A British border patrol searches a lorry in 1969. } else if (Object.keys(p.badge || {}).indexOf('epaper-access') > -1) { [45], In 1997, several members of the South Armagh Brigade, based in Jonesborough and Dromintee, following Michael McKevitt, left the Provisional IRA because of its acceptance of the Mitchell Principles of non-violence at a General Army Convention in October of that year and formed a dissident grouping, the Real IRA, which rejected the peace process. subtree: true, In July last year Wilson and south Armagh man Sean Gerard Hughes were returned for trial to face counts of belonging to a proscribed organisation and addressing a meeting to encourage support for . 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. Harnden was held to be in contempt of the Bloody Sunday tribunal for . He had just finished his last shift in the regiment when he was shot outside his home. Although from Armagh city, he was a member of the IRA's South Armagh Brigade. const getCookie = key => { He had charge of the IRA\u0026#039;s Border sniper team, which killed seven soldiers and two police officers in the 1990s.The team was eventually rounded up and arrested in an operation by the British Army\u0026#039;s SAS near Crossmaglen in April 1997. 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. A sniper rifle and other weapons were recovered. It is not clear how the \u0026#039;OC\u0026#039; 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. 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On 30 December 1990, Sinn Fin member and IRA volunteer,[30] Fergal Caraher, was killed by Royal Marines near a checkpoint in Cullyhanna. By the time of the final IRA ceasefire in August 1997, the South Armagh IRA leadership was already heavily involved in fuel and cigarette smuggling and 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. [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]. subscriptionStatus: 'Corporate', 27 November 34-year-old former RUC member John Martin is shot dead by the Provisional IRA at his filling station on the Mall. return cookieValue; observer.disconnect(); const getBundleValue = function (purchase, purchaseType) { 'false' : 'true'; 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. const bundleValue = getBundleValue(purchase, 'purchase'); To republicans, it is 'God's Country', the only area in the six counties where the occupiers have successfully been resisted. subscriptionStartDate: '1111-11-11T11:11:11Z', He had charge of the IRA's Border sniper team, which killed seven soldiers and two police officers in the 1990s. } const grantedBy = Object.keys(purchase).filter(function (key) { 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. 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. 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. He was returning from his shift at, 21 February 29-year-old on-duty RUC sergeant William Gordon Wilson is killed when a Provisional IRA bomb is detonated behind the door of a derelict pub in the nationalist Shambles area close to the city centre. 24 March William Elliott, a-52-year old Protestant civilian from Ashley Gardens in the city is shot dead by the Provisional IRA in the village of, 15 August Norman Kerr, a 28-year-old Protestant from, 22 August The UVF's Glenanne Gang launched a gun and bomb attack on McGleenan's Bar on Upper English Street in the Shambles area of the city. 1,168 Following. window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; const vars = JSON.parse('{"attributes":{"inmproduct":"amp","virtualview":"false"},"category":{"pageType":"Article","primaryCategory":"Irish News","regionals":"","sectionId":"77","subCategory1":"n\/a","subCategory2":"n\/a","subCategory3":"n\/a","subCategory4":"n\/a"},"page":{"pageName":"In:Irish News:South Armagh IRA rocked as \u0027OC\u0027 is outed as a \u0027tout\u0027","pageTitle":"South Armagh IRA rocked as \u0027OC\u0027 is outed as a \u0027tout\u0027","publication":"Independent.ie"},"user":{"gigyaID":"","subscriptionStatus":"","subscriptionStartDate":"","subscriptionFinishDate":"","userID":""},"article":{"articleID":"34944633","articleType":"News","articleLayout":"standard","author":"Jim Cusack","createdAt":"2016-08-06 22:16:02","modifiedAt":"2016-08-06 22:40:34","publishedAt":"2016-08-07 01:30:00","wallType":"none","wallVisible":"false","relatedContent":{"gallery":0,"news":3,"photos":1,"soundcloud":0,"videos":0},"source":"Sunday Independent","tags":"","topics":""}}' || '{}'); observer.observe(document, { McGinn, who laughed when he received his life sentence, died in December 2013 from a suspected heart attack in Monaghan town, aged 56. window.showSubscriberElements(); Orange County; Winter Garden; Seminole Street; 537 Seminole Street Winter Garden, FL 34787. }; }); When they arrived, they were surrounded by 16 SAS men, who ordered them to surrender. const script = document.createElement('script'); 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. [15] In response, the British government stated that it was dispatching the Special Air Service (SAS) to South Armagh, although the SAS had been present in the area for many years. 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. Neighborhood North of Turnpike Subdivision Pleasant Park. subscriptionStatus: 'Whitelist', const observer = new MutationObserver(onMutation); subscriptionFinishDate: purchase.granted_by_purchase.finish_at, [19] This was the biggest single loss of life inflicted on the British Army in its deployment in Northern Ireland (Operation Banner). Many of the major IRA bombs in England this decade, including Canary Wharf. 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. subscriptionStartDate: purchase.granted_by_app_purchase.original_start_at, subscriptionFinishDate: '', 9 March James Hogg, a 23-year-old Protestant civilian and member of the Orange Order, was shot dead in what is thought to have been a sectarian revenge attack by the INLA. const onMutation = function (mutations) { . // Stop listening for mutations once we know this listener has been registered. Web Site Copyright 1995-2023 WGBH Educational Foundation. OCFire Rescue. When there, Ms Smyth was followed upstairs by five men, who savagely beat and strangled her. if (element.tagName === 'BODY' && ! })(); Premium subscribers enjoy unlimited access to all articles. The UDR member who fired the fatal shot was later brought to court on manslaughter charges but was found not guilty in the non-jury trial. Inside the council chambers that night Charles Armstrong had called for councillors to stand for a minute's silence for Adrian Carroll, who had been shot dead six days earlier in the city. In 1984, his son-in-law Herbert Burrows will be killed in an IRA booby-trap explosion close to the scene of Wilson's death. [26], In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the IRA elsewhere in Northern Ireland found that nine out of ten planned operations were aborted. Subsequently, the British Army gave up the use of roads to the IRA in South Armagh. 8 November 17-year-old Protestant Trevor Foster dies in a Provisional IRA booby-trap bomb explosion meant for his father, a member of the UDR. Wed 19 Mar 2003 20.45 EST. Purchase Price. When they arrived, they were surrounded by 16 SAS men, who ordered them to surrender. } 31 July 1993 - A British Army mobile checkpoint was fired at by an IRA sniper at Newtownhamilton, County Armagh. These bases acted as information-gathering centres and also allowed the British Army to patrol South Armagh more securely. He retired as president of Ireland's District Court and in 2006 went on to lead a tribunal of inquiry into alleged Garda collusion in the 1989 murders of two RUC officers in south Armagh. window.loadGTM = function () { } else { He was due to retire in five weeks. }; Harnden, Toby (1999). It was one of the few times the SAS didn't shoot members of an IRA 'active service unit' on armed operations. } else if (Object.keys(p.badge || {}).indexOf('premium') > -1) { He is a close associate of the Provos' Border boss, Thomas 'Slab' Murphy, Gerry Adams and other figures in Sinn Fein. Sniper attacks in the city and was a member of the Bloody tribunal... 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