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. The dead man was a World War II veteran and had taken part in the. The latter is suspected of playing a role in the London bombings that marked the end of the IRA. , South Armagh IRA is killed on active service during an attack on Keady barracks. const onMutation = function (mutations) { j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'? Martin McGuinness, then deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, gave the main oration, while Conor Murphy, then Minister for Regional Development, introduced the families of the dead IRA members. observer.observe(document, { In a statement released by the IRA at the time they denied any role in it. 26 October Joseph Wilson, a 53-year-old part-time member of the UDR is shot dead by a Provisional IRA gunman in the supermarket he worked at in the nationalist Shambles area of the city. Between 1971 and the erection of the hilltop sites in the mid-1980s (the first in 1986), 84 members of the security forces were killed in the Crossmaglen and Forkhill areas by the IRA. const bundleValue = getBundleValue(purchase, 'corporate_account'); [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. [51][52], Since the army wind-down in 2007, security in the area is the sole responsibility of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. [28] By 1991, the RUC acknowledged that no mobile patrols had operated in South Armagh without Army support since 1975.[29]. if (cookieValue) { subscriptionStatus: purchase.granted_by_app_purchase.sku_code, The unveiling involved a large republican parade which failed to comply with the procedures of the Parades Commission. The man, who has the official title of \u0026#039;officer commanding\u0026#039; South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional IRA, is also a member of the \u0026#039;Northern Command\u0026#039;, the ruling body which effectively ran the organisation from the early 1980s. A further 75 civilians were killed in the area during the conflict,[6] as well as ten South Armagh Brigade members. She left behind a husband and three children. Harnden, Toby (1999). [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. window.IMP.config = flipPayConfig; } vars.user.subscriptionStatus = subscriberCookie.subscriptionStatus || ''; observer.disconnect(); const flipPayJsUrl = 'https://cdn.flip-pay.com/clients/inm/flip-pay.js'; He was the only IPLO member to die while attacking state forces. McGinn, who laughed when he received his life sentence, died in December 2013 from a suspected heart attack in Monaghan town, aged 56. Contents 1 Background October 21 2015 11:41 PM The mother of a young man who was beaten to death by a south Armagh IRA gang has demanded that Sinn Fin members stop "protecting" her son's killers. South Armagh has long been the IRA stronghold and any defections would be a devastating blow to the leadership. ","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/"}]} Michael McKevitt and his wife Bernadette were evicted from their home near Dundalk. He is a close associate of the Provos' Border boss, Thomas 'Slab' Murphy, Gerry Adams and other figures in Sinn Fein. 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. }; "The last armoured patrol in South Armagh, attacked in Crossmaglen October 1975 killing Cpl Gleeson. This page was last edited on 13 July 2022, at 18:49. } 20 December Austin Smith, a 44-year-old Catholic member of the UDR, is shot dead by the Provisional IRA as he returned to his home on the Windmill estate in a heavily nationalist part of the city. It was one of the few times the SAS didn't shoot members of an IRA active service unit on armed operations. 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. document.body.addEventListener('fp_user_event', function (event) { On 7 August of that year, Harry Thornton, a 29-year-old sewage worker from South Armagh was shot and killed by the British Army while staying in a car outside Springfield Road base in Belfast, he and his coworker Arthur Murphy having been mistaken for gunmen. if (eventType === 'access_resolved' || eventType === 'access_resolved ') { His Catholic girlfriend was driving behind him in her car when the explosion happened. } catch (e) { In March 1989, two senior RUC officers were killed in an ambush near Jonesborough. if (isGrantedBy('whitelist_rule')) { A British border patrol searches a lorry in 1969. The fact that the IRA executed the action despite the presence of a British Army watchtower nearby, caused outrage among British and Irish parliamentary circles. Hair tattoos becoming increasingly popular among men in Ireland. return 'home-delivery'; A sniper rifle and other weapons were recovered. return { A unit of the IRA's South Armagh Brigade fired a heavy improvised mortar at the British Army base in Crossmaglen, County Armagh. The Sunday Independent has 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 made on the man in order to save embarrassment for the 'movement'. He is a close associate of the Provos' Border boss, Thomas 'Slab' Murphy, Gerry Adams and other figures in Sinn Fein. document.head.append(script); 23 April 38-year-old Protestant John Robinson is shot dead by the Provisional IRA outside the Mullacreevie estate. vars.user.userID = subscriberCookie.userID || ''; const getBundleValue = function (purchase, purchaseType) { } window.loadGTM = function () { Nine of these were killed in the February 1985 Newry mortar attack. [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]. return 'premium'; Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images "And almost overnight the smugglers of South Armagh, under the control of the IRA, started bulk-buying . 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. return { Neighborhood North of Turnpike Subdivision Pleasant Park. 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. subscriptionStatus: 'Corporate', if (subscriberCookieStatus === "undefined") { 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. if (isGrantedBy('corporate_account')) { // Check window.dataLayer object or create. listenForFlipPayEvents(); On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. He is a close associate of the Provos' border boss Thomas 'Slab' Murphy, Gerry Adams and other figures in Sinn Fein. const gigyaID = getCookie('guid'); 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. Although from Armagh city, he was a member of the IRA's, 31 July George Walsh, a 51-year-old member of the RUC, was shot dead when two INLA gunmen opened fire on the car he was sitting in outside, 2 August Two British soldiers are killed in a Provisional IRA landmine explosion on the Cathedral Road. 'false' : 'true'; } } else { McGinn, who laughed when he received his life sentence, died in December 2013 from a suspected heart attack in Monaghan town, aged 56. Sources say that shortly before they were captured the team was given orders by the man not to carry any weapons when they were directed to a farm to collect their sniper rifle for an operation. return cookieValue; const eventType = event.detail.event_type; [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. if (isGrantedBy('purchase')) { It exploded as they ran to a getaway car, causing the building to collapse. }; meteredAccess: purchase.metered_paywall, }; meteredAccess: purchase.metered_paywall, 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. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. The loyalties of many people in Northern Ireland's South Armagh are with the neighboring Irish republic. const subscriberCookieName = 'subscriber'; 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. One of the men who killed her, long-time UVF member Stephen Manners, was himself shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries in 2001 in what is thought to have been an internal hit. })(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-KJF4'); 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. He is said to have given the order for the brutal beating, which turned into the murder of Paul Quinn, the innocent 21-year-old who happened to have been involved in a violent row with another local Provo who had assaulted a young woman in October 2007. 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, which effectively ran the organisation from the early 1980s. The dead youth, from the townland of Ballymoran just outside Armagh city, was learning to drive and had offered to put his father's car in the garage when the explosion happened. Three British soldiers and a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) member were wounded. meteredAccess: purchase.metered_paywall, const element = mutation.target; South Armagh, however, where the close rural community and family connections of IRA men diminished the risk of infiltration, retained its larger "battalion" structure. [6], South Armagh has a long Irish republican tradition. He was eventually killed during an attack on the RUC barracks in Keady in November 1973. Following intelligence that the IRA were using farms as bases of operations / weapons caches, the Police, assisted by Army intelligence operatives, began a series of surveillance and search operations. Shortly afterwards, the Army abandoned road transport in South Armagh." bodyAvailable = true; The new Irish Sea Border: What does it mean? subscriptionStartDate: purchase.granted_by_app_purchase.original_start_at, "The fools, the fools, the fools, they have left us our Fenian dead. The customs building itself was later destroyed in an IRA bomb attack in 1986. His younger brother, a member of the UDR, had lost both legs in an IRA attack on the Mall in 1982. Although from Armagh city, he was a member of the IRA's South Armagh Brigade. The men were taken out of their minibus and then . }; He was later acquitted of any charges, but he eventually agreed in 2006 to pay 500,000 for cross-border smuggling. At that moment, a gun battle was taking place on the ground between British soldiers and members of the South Armagh Brigade. The Sunday Independent has 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 made on the man in order to save embarrassment for the 'movement'. Photo caption # 10: Richard English, Armed Struggle, A History of the IRA, page 172, Transcripts of the Commons debate over the security situation in NI and the Cullaville incident (. Sources say that shortly before they were captured, the team was given orders by the 'OC' not to carry any weapons when they were directed to a farm to collect their sniper rifle for an operation. 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. Wed 17 Sep 2014 11.51 EDT. const getSubscriptionStatus = function (purchase) { vars.user.subscriptionStartDate = subscriberCookie.subscriptionStartDate || ''; Most of the South Armagh IRA stayed within the Provisional movement, but there were reports of the brigade aiding the dissidents in different actions before the signing of the agreement, among them the bombings of Moira and Portadown, and mortar attacks on a security base at Forkhill and a watchtower at Glassdrumman. [37] A sustained machine gun attack against a helicopter was filmed by a Dublin television crew in March 1991 outside Crossmaglen Health Center. 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