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. The UVF killed 40 people in East Tyrone between 1988 and 1994. [34], On 4 March 1990, ten IRA volunteers launched an assault on the RUC station at Stewartstown using an improvised flamethrower consisting of a manure-spreader towed by a tractor to spray 600 imperial gallons (2,700L) of a petrol/diesel mix to set the base ablaze, and then opened up with rifles and an RPG-7 rocket launcher. [123] The IRA alleged that Dallas was a senior UVF member[124] but this was denied by his family, the police, and the UVF. Euroscepticism had a long history in the area, he says, before Ireland went into the EU. 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). May has said that the British do not want a return to the Border of old. Sean O'Farrell was wounded and attempted to escape. One RUC officer was injured. Nobody cares.. The four, Peter Clancy, Kevin Barry O'Donnell, Sean O'Farrell and Patrick Vincent, were killed at Clonoe after an attack on the RUC station in Coalisland. The oldest child in a Catholic family of five, Kelly was born in the largely Protestant town of Carrickfergus. [95] The fortified[96] courthouse in Cookstown was meanwhile damaged by two bombs planted there on 15 October 1993. According to the indictment, another IRA member slipped into the United States from Canada with a munitions shopping list that included night vision glasses for a Ruger mini-14, 2000 nonelec . Lynagh refers to the high proportion of social-welfare recipients in Monaghan, the county's "low-wage and no-wage economy" and his work distributing charity food to families. Even a few customs posts stopping HGVs crossing the Border would not change that, McKearney says. Their brothers, Pdraig McKearney and Jim Lynagh, were among eight members of the IRA's east Tyrone brigade killed by the SAS during an attack on an RUC station in the Protestant village of. Several people was evacuated, and the bomb disposal squad struggled 10 hours to defuse the device. 5 February 1997: An IRA unit fired a horizontal mortar at a British patrol on Newell Road in Dungannon. A five-mile (8km) chase followed before the IRA volunteers managed to escape on foot. Their brothers, Pdraig McKearney and Jim Lynagh, were among eight members of the IRAs east Tyrone brigade killed by the SAS during an attack on an RUC station in the Protestant village of Loughgall, in Co Tyrone, in May 1987. Her extradition from Northern Ireland was refused in 2007. Although logically it makes more sense for Sinn Fin to start an armed campaign, that is not going to happen no chance, he says. One of the workers killed, Robert Dunseath, was also a soldier of the Royal Irish Rangers. 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. [58] From 1985 onwards, the IRA in East Tyrone had been the forefront of a wide IRA campaign against British military facilities. There were no casualties. In 1988 he had been caught in possession of a 1,000lb bomb and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Next to the living-room window, with its panoramic views of the farmland and gorse-filled hedgerows of this part of the Border, is an imposing portrait that shows the tradition of agrarian agitation McGeough hails from. The group were also responsible for the . The peace process is dead if you cant throw up the old monster of potential violence, he says. [91][84], 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. [7], Members of the East Tyrone Brigade had previously carried out two attacks on RUC bases in their operational area, described by author Mark Urban as "spectaculars". 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. On these two occasions the stations were destroyed, and, in the first case, two of the occupants killed. [82][86], A brigade statement claims that late on the evening of 26 April 1993, a "variation" of the Mark-15 was fired at a British Army position on an open field near the river Fury, a few miles east of Clogher. [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. See: Attack on UDR Clogher barracks From then onwards the Brigade was fighting for its life, and by the time of the IRA Ceasefire in 1997, PIRA's feared East Tyrone Brigade was a shadow of its former self. [41] 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. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. [22] The checkpoint was stormed using an improvised armoured truck and two British soldiers (James Houston and Michael Patterson) were killed in action. 25 Feb/23. [4] The theory involved creating "no-go zones" that the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) did not control and gradually expanding them. Dates highlighted in bold indicate three or more fatalities. That was a security situation. The ambush took place outside the village of Pomeroy. Brexit will not lead to a return to bloodshed in Northern Ireland, says one Provisional IRA veteran. They brought peanuts and fed the squirrels, he says.. Three constables and Treanor were wounded,[106] as well as a passing-by ederly female motorist whose car was hit by the RUC vehicle. [6] Journalist Kevin Toolis states that from 1985 onwards, the brigade led a five-year campaign that left 33 security facilities destroyed and nearly 100 seriously damaged. The escape of former IRA chief of staff Seamus Twomey, Tyrone man Kevin Mallon and JB O'Hagan from north Armagh, caused a country-wide sensation and considerable embarrassment to the Dublin. What would it achieve? McIntyre says in his home, on an estate in Drogheda, Co Louth. A third former republican paramilitary suggests that Ireland would be better off in an economic bloc with the UK rather than with the European Union. Other attendees were. [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. I think a lot of the concerns are exaggerated, says Tommy McKearney, an IRA volunteer originally from Moy, in Co Tyrone, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a part-time Ulster Defence Regiment soldier in 1976. Wheres the insurrectionary energy going to come from? Eight were killed and the rest were badly wounded. In December 1973 he is badly injured in a premature bomb . [26] On 30 August 1988, an SAS ambush killed IRA members Gerard Harte, Martin Harte and Brian Mullin as they tried to kill an off-duty Ulster Defence Regiment member near Carrickmore. They are saying to us: if you want to go down that road we are not going to step in your way. The reality of it is that after 25 years of armed conflict there is less possibility of an armed campaign of any significance. The heavy projectile landed at the rear of the small base without exploding, forcing the evacuation of Coronation Park housing state. Gerry McGeough, who is now a farmer, served time in German, US and Northern Irish prisons for paramilitary-related offences, including trying to buy Stinger surface-to-air missiles in 1983 with the aim of taking down British army helicopters. The former IRA volunteer served 18 years in the Maze prison for the murder of a UVF man in Belfast in February 1976. Her extradition from Northern Ireland was eventually denied in 2007 due to discrepancies in the claims against her. The 12 May's riots ended with the paratroopers' assault on three bars, where they injured seven civilians. It is believed to have drawn its membership from across the eastern side of County Tyrone as well as north County Monaghan and south County Londonderry. The East Tyrone Brigade members killed at Loughgall in 1987 consisted of: * Commander Patrick Kelly (aged 30) * Jim Lynagh (aged 31) * Pdraig McKearney (aged 32) * Declan Arthurs (aged 21) * Seamus Donnelly (aged 19) * Eugene Kelly (aged 25) * Gerry O'Callaghan (aged 29) * Tony Gormley (aged 25) Eugene Kelly [59], The brigade was the first to use the Mark-15 Barrack-Buster mortar in an attack on 5 December 1992 against an RUC station in Ballygawley. Lynagh is irked by the way political parties in the Brexit debate are portraying people in the Border counties as lawless Irish, similar to the people of Pakistans tribal areas, with a pathological predisposition to violence who will rush out and go to war again because they cant stand the sight of customs posts. He believes that Brexit will instead encourage various shades of dissenting republicans to engage politically and that there is a chance of a postsectarian debate among unionists, republicans and nationalists, north and south, about what is in the best economic and sovereign interests for both parts of the island. 8 July 1997: A landmine was planted by the IRA near Dungannon, leading to a bomb alert. Its all guff': Colm Lynagh, Anthony McIntyre, Gerry McGeough and Tommy McKearney Colm Lynagh, Anthony McIntyre, Gerry McGeough and Tommy McKearney. [92], 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,[85] prompted the evacuation of a nearby housing state. That was not to do with economics. Unionist opposition to a united Ireland is, as he sees it, considerably stronger than nationalist opposition to staying within the UK if treated equally. The air of foreboding he once sensed when crossing the river into the North doesnt exist today because the Border is imperceptible, he says. In June 1991, three IRA men, Lawrence McNally, Peter Ryan and Tony Dorris were lured into yet another SAS ambush at Coagh, where their car was raked with gunfire and rocket propelled grenades. [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. 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. As for the warnings made by diplomats, bureaucrats and Eurocrats about the threats to the peace process from Brexit, McIntyre says it is similar to Sinn Fins use of the peace process to expand its political influence, where the process must always undermine the peace. They were active in some of the bloodiest campaigns of the Troubles, and for three of them much of that activity took place along the Border. G Bill Gannon George Gilmore The IRA unit used the same tactics as it had done in the The Birches attack. [28] On 16 September 1989, a British sergeant of the Royal Corps of Signals (Kevin Froggett) was shot and killed by an IRA sniper while he was repairing a radio mast at Coalisland Army/RUC base. [35][36] The RUC stated the men were on their way to mount an ambush on Protestant workmen.[37]. A 'senior security source' claimed that the IRA was responsible. McKearney and Lynagh are dissenters, not dissidents; although they support the peace process they object to the policies pursued by Sinn Fin and some of their former comrades who moved into politics. [10] The first was an assault on Ballygawley base in December 1985. [29][30] On 24 March 1990, there was a gunbattle between an IRA unit and undercover British forces at the village of Cappagh, County Tyrone, when IRA members fired at a civilian-type car driven by security forces, according to Archie Hamilton, then Secretary of State for Defence. [8] In April 1987 they shot and killed Harold Henry, one of the main contractors to the British Army and the RUC in Northern Ireland. The loyalist gang operating in east Tyrone at the time used several weapons between 1988 to 1994, including R18837. Three other RUC officers who were in the building fled through a back door. 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. 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