Key Events & Deaths on this day in Northern Ireland Troubles
18th March
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Wednesday 18 March 1970
Harry West and William Graig
Five Unionist Members of Parliament (MPs), including William Craig and Harry West, were expelled from the Unionist Parliamentary Party.
Saturday 18 March 1972
Ulster Vanguard held a rally in Ormeau Park, Belfast, which was attended by an estimated 60,000 people. The rally was addressed by William Craig who warned that, “if and when the politicians fail us, it may be our job to liquidate the enemy”.
Tuesday 18 March 1975
The two Price sisters, Marion Price and Dolours Price, were transferred from Durham Prison to Armagh Prison following a long protest campaign. The Price sisters had been convicted of causing explosions in London on 8 March 1973.
Thursday 18 March 1976
Merlyn Rees, then Secretary of Sate for Northern Ireland, indicated that he was opposed to any increase in the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) representing Northern Ireland.
[At this time the number was 12 but it was to be increased first to 17 and later to 18.]
A new prison at Maghaberry, County Antrim, received its first batch of prisoners.
Saturday 18 March 1995
At a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) James Molyneaux, then leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), was challenged for the position of leader by Lee Reynolds, a 21 year old student.
Molyneaux received 521 votes, Reynolds 88 votes, and there were 10 spoilt votes.
Molyneaux said that the 15 per cent who voted against him were “taking a kick at John Major through me”.
[Molyneaux announced his resignation as leader of the UUP on 28 August 1995.]
Tuesday 18 March 1997
Derrylin, County Fermanagh, was sealed off for a time following an Irish Republican Army (IRA) warning that a bomb had been left in the village.
Robert Salters, then Grand Master of the Orange Order, said that he supported the “Dromore initiative” which sought to find a compromise between local residents of the village and Orangemen.
Joel Patton, then spokesperson for the Spirit of Drumcree (SOD), was critical of the compromise.
An amateur drama group based in Dunloy, County Antrim, called off its planned appearance at a festival in Larne, County Antrim, because Loyalist posters threatening the group had appeared outside the intended venue.
The ‘Birmingham Six’ issued a libel writ against David Evans, then Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), when comments he had made about the six men in a school magazine subsequently appeared in the national media.
Orange Order Halls in Ballymena and Bellaghy were damaged in arson attacks. The Belfast Walkers Club of the Apprentice Boys of Derry (ABD) announced that they would voluntarily reroute their Easter Monday parade away from the lower Ormeau area of Belfast.
Wednesday 18 March 1998
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) arrested 15 Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) prisoners in the Maze Prison in connection with the killing of David Keys (26) on 15 March 1998 inside the Maze.
Thursday 18 March 1999
There was rioting in Portadown and Lurgan, County Armagh.
The funeral of Rosemary Nelson took place in Lurgan, it was attended by thousands of mourners. Nelson had been killed in a Loyalist attack on 15 March 1999. Father Kieran McPartlan called for an independent inquiry to be set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding her killing.
Bertie Ahern, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), Tony Blair, then British Prime Minister, and Bill Clinton, then President of the USA, issued a tripartite statement. They urged the leaders of political parties in Northern Ireland to meet the deadline set for all aspects of the Good Friday Agreement.
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Remembering all innocent victims of the Troubles
Today is the anniversary of the death of the following people killed as a results of the conflict in Northern Ireland
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die
– Thomas Campbell
To the innocent on the list – Your memory will live forever
– To the Paramilitaries –
There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, but nothing worth killing for.
4 People lost their lives on the 18th March between 1976 – 1991
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18 March 1976 James Donnelly, (39)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Defence Association (UDA)
Found stabbed to death, at the rear of Cregagh Inn, Cregagh Road, Belfast.
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18 March 1986 David Mulley, (20)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed by remote controlled bomb, hidden in derelict building detonated when joint British Army (BA) / Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol passed, Castlewellan, County Down.
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18 March 1988
Gillian Johnston, (21)
Protestant Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot while sitting in stationary car outside her home, Leggs, near Belleek, County Fermanagh.
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18 March 1991
Francis Taggart, (17)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY)
Found stabbed to death, behind leisure centre, Warren Park, Lisburn, County Antrim. —————————————
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Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them” No reasonable person would in…
Four Catholic civilians were killed by the blast—including two 13-year-old boys standing outside—and almost 50 people were injured, some severely.
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The Innocent Victims
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17 March 1976
Patrick Barnard, (13)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)
Killed in car bomb explosion, outside Hillcrest Bar, Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone.
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17 March 1976
Joseph Kelly, (57)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)
Killed in car bomb explosion, outside Hillcrest Bar, Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone
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17 March 1976
James McCaughey, (13)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)
Killed in car bomb explosion, outside Hillcrest Bar, Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone.
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17 March 1976
Andrew Small, (62)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)
Killed in car bomb explosion, outside Hillcrest Bar, Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone.
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Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this post and page are soley intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland.
They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors
In December 1980, UVF member Garnet James Busby confessed to having been one of the bombers and was sentenced to life in prison. The UVF unit responsible was the Mid-Ulster Brigade, which at the time was led by the notorious Robin Jackson.
The attack is one of many linked to the Glenanne gang, a loose association of loyalist militants and rogue members of the Northern Ireland security forces, who carried out a series of attacks against the Catholic/Irish nationalist community in the area during the 1970s.
Situation in Northern Ireland
By the mid-1970s, the conflict in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles, showed no signs of abating. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) intensified its bombing campaign to drive British forces out, and began targeting English cities. The main loyalist paramilitary groups—the UVF and Ulster Defence Association (UDA)—responded with random attacks on the local Catholic population, which in turn led to IRA reprisals against Protestants.
During 1975 the IRA was officially on ceasefire. Loyalists believed the ceasefire was part of a secret deal between the British Government and IRA which would mean a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. According to journalist Peter Taylor, the vicious tit-for-tat violence between the IRA and loyalists made 1975 one of the
In Belfast, the loyalist Shankill Butchers gang, led by Lenny Murphy, began an 18-month killing spree designed to strike terror into the Catholic community, whom they believed were giving succour to the IRA. The gang would drive around Catholic areas in a black taxi and kidnap random Catholic passersby, then torture and hack them to death. However, most tit-for-tat attacks were bombings and shootings targeting pubs, or roadside ambushes, as in the case of the Miami Showband massacre.
This saw three members of the popular Irish cabaret band shot dead at a fake military checkpoint by UVF gunmen in British Army uniforms. Two of those convicted were Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers. Investigations established that UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade commander Robin Jackson was the organizer and main gunman in the July 1975 ambush. Described as “the most notorious Loyalist paramilitary in Northern Ireland”, it was also revealed that he was a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Special Branch agent.
A further 50 paramilitary attacks have been linked to Jackson, including the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which killed 33 people.
Loyalists sought revenge, and members of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade planned to attack a nearby Catholic primary school. The operation was aborted by the UVF leadership on the grounds that it was “morally unacceptable”, would provoke a terrible response from the IRA and could spark civil war.
Harold Wilson announced on 16 March 1976 that he was resigning as British Prime Minister. That same day, the British Army defused a 200-pound IRA bomb left outside a garage in Dungannon.
The bombing
The Hillcrest Bar (now McAleer’s) on Dungannon’s Donaghmore Road, was a pub frequented by Catholics and was jointly owned by a Catholic and a Protestant. An incendiary device had been planted inside the premises the year before. On the evening of 17 March 1976, the pub was packed with revelers celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day. There was also a disco for young people being held in a school across the road.
According to writer and former British soldier Ken Wharton, a loyalist attack had been anticipated in Northern Ireland as ‘Catholic pubs’ would be packed with people enjoying the Irish holiday. Earlier that day in East Belfast, Catholic teacher John Donnelly had been drinking in the Cregagh Inn on Woodstock Road.
When one of his former students identified him as a Catholic, UDA members who happened to be in the pub forced him outside (in full view of the customers) and stabbed him to death behind the building.
That evening, UVF members parked a green Austin-Healey 1100 car outside the Hillcrest Bar. It had been stolen in Armagh nine days earlier. At 8.20 pm, the time bomb hidden in the car exploded. The blast killed three people outright and fatally wounded another.Almost 50 people were injured, nine of them severely.
The force of the blast blew out all the pub’s windows and rained debris on the footpath outside. The pub manager, who had been upstairs when the bomb detonated, said :
“everything just simply erupted around us. There was no warning”
One of those killed was Joseph Kelly (57), who had been inside the pub. Two 13-year-old boys, James McCaughey and Patrick Barnard, were in the street near the car bomb when it went off; James was mutilated beyond recognition and Patrick would die of his horrific injuries in hospital the following day.
The boys were on their way to a disco at a school across the road. Andrew Small (62) was walking past with his wife and was also killed in the blast. All of the victims were Catholic civilians with no links to republican paramilitary groups.
The getaway car used by the bombers had been stolen in Portadown. It was found burnt out a mile from the bomb site.
Responsibility
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Glenanne Gang
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The 17 March bombing is one of the attacks that the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) has attributed to the Glenanne gang. This was a loose alliance of loyalist militants (in particular the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade) and rogue members of the Northern Ireland security forces: the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the British Army’s Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). The group carried out a series of attacks against Catholics/Irish nationalists in the area during the 1970s.
The PFC requested that Professor Douglass Cassel (formerly of Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago) convene an international inquiry to investigate allegations of collusion between loyalists and the security forces in sectarian killings. This international team concluded in their 2006 report that the Hillcrest Bar bombing was one of the attacks perpetrated by the Glenanne gang.
In December 1980, Dungannon UVF member Garnet James Busby confessed to having been part of the bombing unit. He also confessed to other attacks, including another Dungannon pub bombing, and the double murder of married couple Peter and Jenny McKearney in 1975. Although Busby named three other men involved in the Hillcrest Bar bombing he was the only one convicted. At his trial, an RUC inspector told the court that the same UVF group had carried out the Miami Showband killings.
In 1981 Garnet Busby received six life sentences for the murders of the McKearneys, Joseph Kelly, Andrew Small, James McCaughey and Patrick Barnard. He was sent to the Maze Prison.
Key Events & Deaths on this day in Northern Ireland Troubles
17th March
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Monday 17 March 1975
Thomas Smith (26), then an Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoner, was shot dead by the Irish Army during an attempted escape from Portlaoise Prison, County Laois, Republic of Ireland.
Wednesday 17 March 1976
Four Catholic civilians were killed by a bomb planted by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) outside the Hillcrest Bar, Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone.
David Jones (23), a British soldier, was shot dead by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during a gun battle in a field near Maghera, County Derry.
Jones had been undercover at the time. Francis Hughes, then a member of the IRA, was arrested following the incident.
Wednesday 17 March 1982
Charles Haughey, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), paid a visit to the United States of America (USA) as part of St Patrick day celebrations. During the visit he called on the US government to put more pressure on Britain to consider the possibility of Irish unity.
Thursday 17 March 1983
Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States of America (USA), said that those who supported terrorism were no friends of Ireland. Edward Kennedy, then a United States (US) Senator, proposed a senate motion calling for a united Ireland.
Saturday 17 March 1984
Dominic McGlinchey, then considered leader of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), was recaptured after an exchange of gunfire with the Garda Síochána (the Irish police) and immediately extradited from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland.
He became the first Republican to be extradited to face charges related to the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Monday 17 March 1986
Garret FitzGerald, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), was in Washington for the St Partick’s Day celebrations and to meet with Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States of America (USA).
Tuesday 17 March 1987
St Patrick’s Day. Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States, announced the first payment of $50 million to the International Fund for Ireland (IFI). The IFI was one of the initiatives in the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA).
Thursday 17 March 1994
Bill Clinton, then President of the USA, attended a St Patrick’s Day conference in Washington and called upon the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to “lay down their arms”.
The Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) held its annual general meeting. James Molyneaux, then leader of the UUP, addressed the meeting and rejected any proposals for north-south political institutions as part of a political settlement.
Friday 17 March 1995
Adams Attends White House Reception
Gerry Adams, then President of Sinn Féin (SF), attended the St Patrick’s Day reception hosted by Bill Clinton, then President of the United States of America (USA), at the White House. A delegation from the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) also attended the reception. The group met with Edward Kennedy, then a US Senator.
Monday 17 March 1997
Billy Hutchinson, then a spokesperson for the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), received a warning from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) that the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) was planning to assassinate him.
John Kinsella, who had been sentenced in 1994 for 20 years for possession of explosives, had his case referred to the Court of Appeal in London.
John Major, then British Prime Minister, announced the date of the general election as 1 May 1997.
Tuesday 17 March 1998
First St Partick’s Day Parade in Belfast Loyalist paramilitaries carried out a bomb attack on St. Comgall’s parish centre in Larne, County Antrim.
[It was believed that the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) was responsible for the attack. There were no injuries and only minor damage to the hall.]
An ‘official’ St. Patrick’s day parade took place in Belfast.
[This was the first time since the establishment of the state that a parade had received backing from Belfast City Council. The organising committee had stated their wish to have a cross-community celebration. Following the parade a number of Unionist councillors, particularly members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) claimed that Irish Republican Army (IRA) slogans were shouted by people in the crowd. Unionists also objected to the fact that the ‘tricolour’ (the Irish national flag) was displayed by some spectators. The objections following the parade in 1998 was to result in Belfast City Council withdrawing funds for future parades.]
In the cafeteria of the House of Commons Ken Maginnis, then Security Spokesperson of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), took down two ‘tricolour’ flags that were part of a display for St. Patrick’s day and threw them into the Thames river saying he “did not think they would pollute the river too much”.
This incident happened while his colleague and party leader David Trimble was in the United States of America (USA) for the St Patrick’s day celebrations. While in Washington Trimble had a meeting with Bill Clinton, then President of the United States of America (USA). Clinton was believed to have urged Trimble to hold a face-to-face meeting with Gerry Adams, then President of Sinn Féin (SF).
[The UUP later said that it was not interested in a “stunt meeting” with Adams.]
A number of other Northern Ireland politicians also made the trip to the USA for St. Patrick’s day.
Wednesday 17 March 1999
Frankie Curry, a prominent former member of the Red Hand Commando (RHC), was shot dead in a street off the Shankill Road. The Red Hand Defenders (RHD) blamed the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) for the killing.
[The shooting raised fears of a potential feud amongst Loyalist paramilitaries. In an interview published in the Sunday Life (a Belfast based newspaper) after his death Curry admitted killing 16 people but he denied that he was a member of the RHD. In 2001 it became apparent that the RHD was a cover name used by both the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the UVF.]
There were violent confrontations in Portadown, County Armagh, with 40 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers being injured. Vigils were held across Northern Ireland in protest at the killing of Rosemary Nelson on 15 March 1999.
Bill Clinton, then President of the USA, urged political leaders in Northern Ireland to lift their sights above short-term difficulties when he was presented with shamrock by Bertie Ahern, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), at the White House.
David Trimble, then leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), held a 30 minute meeting in the White House with Gerry Adams, then President of Sinn Féin (SF).
While St Patrick’s Day events took place in over 500 cities all over the world there was no official parade in Belfast.
The Unionist controlled Belfast City Council had withdrawn funds for the parade.
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Remembering all innocent victims of the Troubles
Today is the anniversary of the death of the following people killed as a results of the conflict in Northern Ireland
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die
– Thomas Campbell
To the innocent on the list – Your memory will live forever
– To the Paramilitaries –
There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, but nothing worth killing for.
14 People lost their lives on the 17th March between 1973 – 1999
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17 March 1973 Michael Gay, (21)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed in land mine attack on British Army (BA) mobile patrol, Parkanaur, near Dungannon, County Tyrone.
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17 March 1973 Lindsay Mooney, (19)
Protestant Status: Ulster Defence Association (UDA),
Killed by: Ulster Defence Association (UDA) Died in premature bomb explosion while parking car outside Kirk’s Lounge Bar, Cloughfinn, near Lifford, County Donegal.
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17 March 1974
Cyril Wilson, (37)
Protestant Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Shot by sniper while on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) mobile patrol, Rathmore, Craigavon, County Armagh.
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17 March 1974 Michael Ryan, (23)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Shot by sniper while on British Army (BA) mobile patrol, Foyle Road, Brandywell, Derry.
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17 March 1975 Thomas Smith, (28)
nfNIRI Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: Irish Army (IA) From County Dublin. Shot during attempted escape from Portlaoise Prison, County Laois
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17 March 1976
Joseph Kelly, (57)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Killed in car bomb explosion, outside Hillcrest Bar, Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone.
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17 March 1976
Andrew Small, (62)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Killed in car bomb explosion, outside Hillcrest Bar, Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone.
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17 March 1976
James McCaughey, (13)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Killed in car bomb explosion, outside Hillcrest Bar, Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone
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17 March 1976
Patrick Barnard, (13)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Killed in car bomb explosion, outside Hillcrest Bar, Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone.
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17 March 1977
Daniel Carville, (35)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Defence Association (UDA) Shot while driving his car slowly over ramps, Cambrai Street, Shankill, Belfast
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17 March 1978 David Jones, (23)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Undercover British Army (BA) member. Shot during gun battle with Irish Republican Army (IRA) unit in field, Lisnamuck, near Maghera, County Derry.
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17 March 1989 Niall Davies, (42)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Shot at his home, Church Road, Glengormley, near Belfast, County Antrim
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17 March 1993
Lawrence Dickson, (26)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Shot by sniper while on British Army (BA) foot patrol, Bog Road, Forkhill, County Armagh
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17 March 1999
Frankie Curry, (46)
Protestant Status: Red Hand Commando (RHC),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Shot while walking across waste ground, off Malvern Way, Shankill, Belfast. Red Hand Commando (RHC) / Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) dispute.
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Saint Patrick’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick (Irish: Lá Fhéile Pádraig, “the Day of the Festival of Patrick”), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (c. AD 385–461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland.
Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, céilithe, and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks. Christians also attend church services and the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol are lifted for the day, which has encouraged and propagated the holiday’s tradition of alcohol consumption.
Facts
St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, although he was born in Britain, around 385AD. His parents Calpurnius and Conchessa were Roman citizens living in either Scotland or Wales, according to different versions of his story.
As a boy of 14 he was captured and taken to Ireland where he spent six years in slavery herding sheep. He returned to Ireland in his 30s as a missionary among the Celtic pagans
Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival. Modern celebrations have been greatly influenced by those of the Irish diaspora, particularly those that developed in North America. In recent years, there has been criticism of Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations for having become too commercialized and for fostering negative stereotypes of the Irish.
Patrick was a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Much of what is known about Saint Patrick comes from the Declaration, which was allegedly written by Patrick himself. It is believed that he was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest in the Christian church. According to the Declaration, at the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland.
It says that he spent six years there working as a shepherd and that during this time he “found God”. The Declaration says that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, where a ship would be waiting to take him home. After making his way home, Patrick went on to become a priest.
Facts
Legend has it that he used the native shamrock as a symbol of the holy trinity when preaching and brought the Latin alphabet to Ireland.
According to tradition, Patrick returned to Ireland to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. The Declaration says that he spent many years evangelising in the northern half of Ireland and converted “thousands”. Patrick’s efforts against the druids were eventually turned into an allegory in which he drove “snakes” out of Ireland (Ireland never had any snakes).
Tradition holds that he died on 17 March and was buried at Downpatrick. Over the following centuries, many legends grew up around Patrick and he became Ireland’s foremost saint.
Celebration and Traditions
Today’s St Patrick’s Day celebrations have been greatly influenced by those that developed among the Irish diaspora, especially in North America. Until the late 20th century, St Patrick’s Day was often a bigger celebration among the diaspora than it was in Ireland.
Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, céilithe (Irish traditional music sessions), and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks.
There are also formal gatherings such as banquets and dances, although these were more common in the past. St Patrick’s Day parades began in North America in the 18th century but did not spread to Ireland until the 20th century.
The participants generally include marching bands, the military, fire brigades, cultural organizations, charitable organizations, voluntary associations, youth groups, fraternities, and so on. However, over time, many of the parades have become more akin to a carnival. More effort is made to use the Irish language; especially in Ireland, where the week of St Patrick’s Day is “Irish language week“. Recently, famous landmarks have been lit up in green on St Patrick’s Day.
Christians also attend church services and the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol are lifted for the day. Perhaps because of this, drinking alcohol – particularly Irish whiskey, beer or cider – has become an integral part of the celebrations. The St Patrick’s Day custom of ‘drowning the shamrock’ or ‘wetting the shamrock’ was historically popular, especially in Ireland. At the end of the celebrations, shamrock is put into the bottom of a cup, which is then filled with whiskey, beer or cider. It is then drank as a toast; to St Patrick, to Ireland, or to those present. The shamrock would either be swallowed with the drink, or be taken out and tossed over the shoulder for good luck.
Facts
Miracles attributed to him include the driving of serpents out of Ireland. However, evidence suggests post-glacial Ireland never had any snakes in the first place
Wearing of the Green
According to legend, Saint Patrick used the three-leaved shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to Irish pagans.
On St Patrick’s Day it is customary to wear shamrocks and/or green clothing or accessories (the “wearing of the green”). St Patrick is said to have used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish. This story first appears in writing in 1726, though it may be older. In pagan Ireland, three was a significant number and the Irish had many triple deities, a fact that may have aided St Patrick in his evangelisation efforts.
Patricia Monaghan says there is no evidence that the shamrock was sacred to the pagan Irish.[21] However, Jack Santino speculates that it may have represented the regenerative powers of nature, and was recast in a Christian context—icons of St Patrick often depict the saint:
“with a cross in one hand and a sprig of shamrocks in the other”.
Roger Homan writes, “We can perhaps see St Patrick drawing upon the visual concept of the triskele when he uses the shamrock to explain the Trinity”.
The colour green has been associated with Ireland since at least the 1640s, when the green harp flag was used by the Irish Catholic Confederation. Green ribbons and shamrocks have been worn on St Patrick’s Day since at least the 1680s.
The Friendly Brothers of St Patrick, an Irish fraternity founded in about 1750, adopted green as its colour.
Facts
Wearing green, eating green food and even drinking green beer, is said to commemorate St Patrick’s use of the shamrock – although blue was the original colour of his vestments.
The phrase “wearing of the green” comes from a song of the same name, which laments United Irishmen supporters being persecuted for wearing green. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the colour green and its association with St Patrick’s Day grew.
The wearing of the ‘St Patrick’s Day Cross’ was also a popular custom in Ireland until the early 20th century. These were a Celtic Christian cross made of paper that was “covered with silk or ribbon of different colours, and a bunch or rosette of green silk in the centre”.
Celebrations by region
Ireland
A St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin
A St Patrick’s Day religious procession in Downpatrick, where Saint Patrick is said to be buried
Saint Patrick’s feast day, as a kind of national day, was already being celebrated by the Irish in Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries. In later times, he became more and more widely seen as the patron of Ireland.
Saint Patrick’s feast day was finally placed on the universal liturgical calendar in the Catholic Church due to the influence of Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding in the early 1600s. Saint Patrick’s Day thus became a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. It is also a feast day in the Church of Ireland, which is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church calendar avoids the observance of saints’ feasts during certain solemnities, moving the saint’s day to a time outside those periods. St Patrick’s Day is occasionally affected by this requirement, when 17 March falls during Holy Week.
Facts
St Patrick was said to have proclaimed that everyone should have a drop of the “hard stuff” on his feast day after chastising an innkeeper who served a short measure of whiskey. In the custom known as “drowning the shamrock”, the shamrock that has been worn on a lapel or hat is put in the last drink of the evening.
This happened in 1940, when Saint Patrick’s Day was observed on 3 April to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and again in 2008, where it was officially observed on 14 March. St Patrick’s Day will not fall within Holy Week again until 2160. However, the popular festivities may still be held on 17 March or on a weekend near to the feast day.
In 1903, St Patrick’s Day became an official public holiday in Ireland. This was thanks to the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903, an act of the United Kingdom Parliament introduced by Irish Member of Parliament James O’Mara. O’Mara later introduced the law which required that public houses be shut on 17 March after drinking got out of hand, a provision that was repealed in the 1970s.
The first St Patrick’s Day parade in Ireland was held in Waterford in 1903. The week of St Patrick’s Day 1903 had been declared Irish Language Week by the Gaelic League and in Waterford they opted to have a procession on Sunday 15 March. The procession comprised the Mayor and members of Waterford Corporation, the Trades Hall, the various trade unions and bands who included the ‘Barrack St Band’ and the ‘Thomas Francis Meagher Band’.
The parade began at the premises of the Gaelic League in George’s St and finished in the Peoples Park, where the public were addressed by the Mayor and other dignitaries.
On Tuesday 17 March, most Waterford businesses—including public houses—were closed and marching bands paraded like they had two days previously. The Waterford Trades Hall had been emphatic that the National Holiday be observed.
On St Patrick’s Day 1916, the Irish Volunteers – an Irish nationalist paramilitary organization – held parades throughout Ireland. The authorities recorded 38 St Patrick’s Day parades, involving 6,000 marchers, almost half of whom were said to be armed. The following month, the Irish Volunteers launched the Easter Rising against British rule. This marked the beginning of the Irish revolutionary period and led to the Irish War of Independence and Civil War.
The dyeing of the Chicago River
During this time, St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Ireland were muted, although the day was sometimes chosen to hold large political rallies.
The celebrations remained low-key after the creation of the Irish Free State; the only state-organized observance was a military procession and trooping of the colours, and an Irish-language mass attended by government ministers.
In 1927, the Irish Free State government banned the selling of alcohol on St Patrick’s Day, although it remained legal in Northern Ireland. The ban was not repealed until 1961.
The first official, state-sponsored St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin took place in 1931.
In the mid-1990s the government of the Republic of Ireland began a campaign to use St Patrick’s Day to showcase Ireland and its culture. The government set up a group called St Patrick’s Festival, with the aims:
To offer a national festival that ranks amongst all of the greatest celebration in the world
To create energy and excitement throughout Ireland via innovation, creativity, grassroots involvement, and marketing activity
To provide the opportunity and motivation for people of Irish descent (and those who sometimes wish they were Irish) to attend and join in the imaginative and expressive celebrations
To project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal.
The first St Patrick’s Festival was held on 17 March 1996. In 1997, it became a three-day event, and by 2000 it was a four-day event. By 2006, the festival was five days long; more than 675,000 people attended the 2009 parade. Overall 2009’s five-day festival saw almost 1 million visitors, who took part in festivities that included concerts, outdoor theatre performances, and fireworks. Skyfest forms the centrepiece of the festival.
The topic of the 2004 St Patrick’s Symposium was “Talking Irish”, during which the nature of Irish identity, economic success, and the future were discussed. Since 1996, there has been a greater emphasis on celebrating and projecting a fluid and inclusive notion of “Irishness” rather than an identity based around traditional religious or ethnic allegiance.
The week around St Patrick’s Day usually involves Irish language speakers using more Irish during Seachtain na Gaeilge (“Irish Language Week”).
Facts
Popular Irish toasts on St Patrick’s Day, include: may the roof above us never fall in, and may we friends beneath it never fall out.
Christian leaders in Ireland have expressed concern about the secularisation of St Patrick’s Day. In The Word magazine’s March 2007 issue, Fr Vincent Twomey wrote, “It is time to reclaim St Patrick’s Day as a church festival”. He questioned the need for “mindless alcohol-fuelled revelry” and concluded that “it is time to bring the piety and the fun together”.
The biggest celebrations outside the cities are in Downpatrick, County Down, where Saint Patrick is said to be buried. The shortest St Patrick’s Day parade in the world takes place in Dripsey, County Cork. The parade lasts just 100 yards and travels between the village’s two pubs.
Great Britain
St Patrick’s Day parade in London usually takes place at Trafalgar Square.
In Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother used to present bowls of shamrock flown over from Ireland to members of the Irish Guards, a regiment in the British Army consisting mostly of soldiers from Ireland. The Irish Guards still wear shamrock on this day, flown in from Ireland.
Christian denominations in Great Britain observing his feast day include The Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.
Horse racing at the Cheltenham Festival attracts large numbers of Irish people, both residents of Britain and many who travel from Ireland, and usually coincides with St Patrick’s Day.
Birmingham holds the largest St Patrick’s Day parade in Britain with a city centre parade over a two-mile (3 km) route through the city centre. The organisers describe it as the third biggest parade in the world after Dublin and New York.
London, since 2002, has had an annual St Patrick’s Day parade which takes place on weekends around the 17th, usually in Trafalgar Square. In 2008 the water in the Trafalgar Square fountains was dyed green.
Liverpool has the highest proportion of residents with Irish ancestry of any English city.[55] This has led to a long-standing celebration on St Patrick’s Day in terms of music, cultural events and the parade.
Manchester hosts a two-week Irish festival in the weeks prior to St Patrick’s Day. The festival includes an Irish Market based at the city’s town hall which flies the Irish tricolour opposite the Union Flag, a large parade as well as a large number of cultural and learning events throughout the two-week period.
Facts
St. Patrick’s Day was first celebrated in America in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1737. Around 34 million modern Americans claim Irish ancestry.
The Scottish town of Coatbridge, where the majority of the town’s population are of Irish descent, also has a Saint Patrick’s Day Festival which includes celebrations and parades in the town centre.
Glasgow has a considerably large Irish population; due, for the most part, to the Irish immigration during the 19th century. This immigration was the main cause in raising the population of Glasgow by over 100,000 people.
Due to this large Irish population, there are many Irish-themed pubs and Irish interest groups who hold yearly celebrations on St Patrick’s day in Glasgow. Glasgow has held a yearly St Patrick’s Day parade and festival since 2007.
St Patrick’s Day, while not a legal holiday in the United States, is nonetheless widely recognised and observed throughout the country as a celebration of Irish and Irish-American culture. Celebrations include prominent displays of the colour green, eating and drinking, religious observances, and numerous parades. The holiday has been celebrated in North America since the late 18th century.
Canada
Montreal hosts one of the longest-running and largest St Patrick’s Day parades in North America.
One of the longest-running and largest St Patrick’s Day parades in North America occurs each year in Montreal, whose city flag includes a shamrock in its lower-right quadrant. The yearly celebration has been organised by the United Irish Societies of Montreal since 1929.
The parade has been held yearly without interruption since 1824. St Patrick’s Day itself, however, has been celebrated in Montreal since as far back as 1759 by Irish soldiers in the Montreal Garrison following the British conquest of New France.
In Manitoba, the Irish Association of Manitoba runs a yearly three-day festival of music and culture based around St Patrick’s Day.
In 2004, the CelticFest Vancouver Society organised its first yearly festival in downtown Vancouver to celebrate the Celtic Nations and their cultures. This event, which includes a parade, occurs each year during the weekend nearest St Patrick’s Day.
In Quebec City, there was a parade from 1837 to 1926. The Quebec City St-Patrick Parade returned in 2010 after more than 84 years. For the occasion, a portion of the New York Police Department Pipes and Drums were present as special guests.
There has been a parade held in Toronto since at least 1863. The Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team was known as the Toronto St. Patricks from 1919 to 1927, and wore green jerseys. In 1999, when the Maple Leafs played on St Patrick’s Day, they wore green St Patrick’s retro uniforms. There is a large parade in the city’s downtown on the Sunday before 17 March which attracts over 100,000 spectators.
Some groups, notably Guinness, have lobbied to make Saint Patrick’s Day a national holiday.
Facts
It is believed that St Patrick died on March 17 in 461AD. It is a national holiday in Ireland, and on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean, which was founded by Irish refugees. It is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland and a provincial holiday in the Canadian province of Newfoundland
In March 2009, the Calgary Tower changed its top exterior lights to new green CFL bulbs just in time for St Patrick’s Day. Part of an environmental non-profit organisation’s campaign (Project Porchlight), the green represented environmental concerns. Approximately 210 lights were changed in time for Saint Patrick’s Day, and resembled a Leprechaun‘s hat. After a week, white CFLs took their place. The change was estimated to save the Calgary Tower some $12,000 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 104 tonnes.
Argentina
Celebrations in Buenos Aires center on Reconquista street.
In Buenos Aires, a party is held in the downtown street of Reconquista, where there are several Irish pubs; in 2006, there were 50,000 people in this street and the pubs nearby.
Neither the Catholic Church nor the Irish community, the fifth largest in the world outside Ireland, take part in the organisation of the parties.
Montserrat
The tiny island of Montserrat is known as the “Emerald Island of the Caribbean” because of its founding by Irish refugees from Saint Kitts and Nevis. Montserrat is one of three places where St Patrick’s Day is a public holiday, along with Ireland and the Canadian province of Newfoundland & Labrador. The holiday in Montserrat also commemorates a failed slave uprising that occurred on 17 March 1768.
Switzerland
While Saint Patrick’s Day in Switzerland is commonly celebrated on 17 March with festivities similar to those in neighbouring central European countries, it is not unusual for Swiss students to organise celebrations in their own living spaces on St Patrick’s Eve. Most popular are usually those in Zurich’s Kreis 4. Traditionally, guests also contribute with beverages and dress in green.
Russia
Moscow hosts an annual Saint Patrick’s Day festival.
The first St Patrick’s Day parade took place in Russia in 1992. Since 1999, there has been a yearly “Saint Patrick’s Day” festival in Moscow and other Russian cities.
The official part of the Moscow parade is a military-style parade and is held in collaboration with the Moscow government and the Irish embassy in Moscow. The unofficial parade is held by volunteers and resembles a carnival. In 2014, Moscow Irish Week was celebrated from 12 to 23 March, which includes St Patrick’s Day on 17 March.
Over 70 events celebrating Irish culture in Moscow, St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh, and Volgograd were sponsored by the Irish Embassy, the Moscow City Government, and other organisations.
Asia
St Patrick’s Parades are now held in many locations across Japan. The first parade, in Tokyo, was organised by The Irish Network Japan (INJ) in 1992.
The Irish Association of Korea has celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day since 1976 in Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. The place of the parade and festival has been moved from Itaewon and Daehangno to Cheonggyecheon.
Chris Hadfield wearing green in the International Space Station on St Patrick’s Day, 2013
Astronauts on board the International Space Station have celebrated the festival in different ways. Irish-American Catherine Coleman played a hundred-year-old flute belonging to Matt Molloy and a tin whistle belonging to Paddy Moloney, both members of the Irish music group
The Chieftains, while floating weightless in the space station on Saint Patrick’s Day in 2011. Her performance was later included in a track called “The Chieftains in Orbit” on the group’s album, Voice of Ages.
Chris Hadfield took photographs of Ireland from earth orbit, and a picture of himself wearing green clothing in the space station, and posted them online on Saint Patrick’s Day in 2013. He also posted online a recording of himself singing “Danny Boy” in space.
Criticism
In recent decades, St Patrick’s Day celebrations have been criticized, particularly for their association with public drunkenness and disorder. Some argue that the festivities have become too commercialized and tacky, and have strayed from their original purpose of honouring St Patrick and Irish heritage. Journalist Niall O’Dowd has criticized recent attempts to recast St Patrick’s Day as a celebration of multiculturalism rather than a celebration of Irishness.
St Patrick’s Day celebrations have also been criticized for fostering demeaning stereotypes of Ireland and Irish people. An example is the wearing of ‘leprechaun outfits’, which are based on derogatory 19th century caricatures of the Irish.
In the run up to St Patrick’s Day 2014, the Hibernians successfully campaigned to stop major American retailers from selling novelty merchandise that promoted negative Irish stereotypes.
Some have described St Patrick’s Day celebrations outside Ireland as displays of “Plastic Paddyness“; where foreigners appropriate and misrepresent Irish culture, claim Irish identity, and enact Irish stereotypes.
Facts
Dublin has a parade that attracts hundreds of thousands of people, while in Chicago the river is dyed green for a few hours. The biggest parade is normally held in New York, while the largest celebration in the southern hemisphere is in Sydney, Australia
As international forces and local anti -ISIS fighters pile on the pressure ISIS is gradually losing control of its own members and cracks are beginning to unravel the Jihadi army of psychopathic killers and their deluded followers of Islam.
Desertion among their members has become such an issue that it carries a mandatory death sentence and according to local sources the majority of deserters are foreign and European fighters whom have become disillusioned with the harsh conditions and religious fanaticism.
In recent months/weeks many of Islamic States top commanders , generals and high profile foreign fighters have been killed by international and local opposition actions and their area of control is diminishing almost daily.
Earlier this week Abu Omar the Chechen , a leading member and beloved commander of the terrorist group had reportedly been killed and if this is true this will be another major blow to the merchants of death and their twisted ideology.
In the past three days alone it has been reported that ISIS have executed approx. 100 of its member for refusing to fight , leaving the battle field and other derelictions of their duty.
Whatever the truth of these executions one thing is clear, hopefully the monster that is ISIS is beginning to implode and is slowly devouring itself from the inside out.
Karma always collects its debts and perhaps it is knocking on the door of these evil bastards and making them pay for their twisted and brutal crimes against humanity..
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March 16th 2016
50 Executions
ISIS executes over 50 of its own fighters for trying to escape battlefront
Terrorist group of the ISIS has publicly executed dozens of its own militant fighters who fled the fighting fronts with Iraqi forces.
The militants were arrested after evacuating their fighting positions in ar-Rutba and Hit districts, west of Ramadi.
The ISIS fighters were detained and executed at the hands of fellow fighters in Mosul city of Iraq’s northwestern Nineveh province, local sources reported on Tuesday.
“Daesh military leadership in Mosul considered them as traitors and beheaded them in front of hundreds of people, including commanders and Sharia officials,” an eyewitness said using an acronym for ISIS.
“They were mostly Iraqi fighters who fought in ISIS ranks in Anbar province,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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March 15th 2016
35 Executions
ISIS militants executes 35 members for refusing to fight against Iraqi army
An Iraqi security source in Nineveh Province announced on Sunday, that ISIS executed 35 of its militants for refusing to join the battle against the Iraqi forces on the outskirts of the city of Mosul (405 km north of Baghdad).
The source said in a statement “ISIS executed 35 of its fighters, after refusing to join the combat axes on the outskirts of the city of Mosul.”
The source, who asked to remain anonymous, added, “ISIS carried out the execution by firing squad in the forest.”
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March 14th 2016
21 Executions
ISIS executes 21 of its fighters in Mosul after fleeing from battles
A local source in Nineveh Province announced on Sunday, that the so-called ISIS executed 21 of its militants in the city of Mosul (405 km north of Baghdad), after fleeing from the ongoing battles west of the province.
“Today, ISIS executed 21 of its fighters in the city of Mosul, after fleeing from the combat axes in Makhmour, Waski Mosul, Khazar, Nuran and Bashiqa,” pointing out that, “The executed fighters also refused to join the battles in these areas,” the source said.
The source, who asked anonymity, added, “The terrorist gang carried out the execution by firing squad in one of its camps in Mosul.”
Key Events & Deaths on this day in Northern Ireland Troubles
16th March
Saturday 16 March 1974
Two British soldiers were shot dead by members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) near Crossmaglen, County Armagh.
Tuesday 16 March 1976
Harold Wilson, then British Prime Minister, announced that he was resigning as leader of the Labour Party and thus as Prime Minister. [On 5 April 1976 James Callaghan succeeded Wilson.]
Friday 16 March 1979 Bennett Report
(Cmnd 7497)
The committee headed by the English judge Harry Bennett, which was set up to investigate allegations of ill-treatment of people held in interrogation centres in Northern Ireland, published its report (Bennett Report, Cmnd 7497).
The report found that there were instances where there was medical evidence of injuries sustained in police custody which were not self-inflicted.
[The report made a number of suggestions and the Labour government undertook to implement two major recommendations. The first that closed-circuit television cameras should be installed in interview rooms and the second that those being detained should have access to their solicitor after 48 hours in custody.
When the Conservative Party came to power in May 1979 the new government implemented most of the remaining recommendations in the report.]
Wednesday 16 March 1988
Milltown Cemetery Killings
During the funerals, at Milltown Cemetery in Belfast, for the three Irish Republican Army (IRA) members killed in Gibraltar (6 March 1988) a Loyalist gunman, Michael Stone, launched a grenade and gun attack on mourners.
Three people were killed and 50 injured. The whole episode was recorded by television news cameras. The police and the army had withdrawn to avoid any confrontation with the mourners. Stone was chased to a nearby motorway were he was attacked by a number of mourners. The police arrived in time to save his life.
[The main loyalist paramilitary groups denied any involvement with Stone. One of those killed, Kevin Brady, was a member of the IRA.]
A Catholic civilian died eight months after being shot in Belfast.
Tuesday 16 March 1993
John Major, then British Prime Minister, said that his government would not bring forward legislation to allow for devolved government in Scotland or Wales.
Wednesday 16 March 1994
John Wheeler, then NIO Security Minister, turned down a request from the Bloody Sunday Justice Group for a new inquiry into the killings in Derry on 30 January 1972.
[A new Inquiry was eventually announced on 29 January 1998.]
Thursday 16 March 1995
A small bomb containing Semtex explosives partially exploded while being defused by British Army technical officers in Newry, County Down.
[The Irish Republican Army (IRA) later denied responsibility for the device.]
Sunday 16 March 1997
There were reports that a compromise had been reached over the disputed 12 July Orange Order parade in Dromore, County Tyrone. The Orange Order denied that a compromise had been achieved.
An article in the Sunday Post carried claims by a former member of the Parachute Regiment of the British Army that on ‘Bloody Sunday’ (30 January 1972) some of his fellow soldiers had deliberately killed unarmed civilians.
John Bruton, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), called on the British government to investigate this new evidence
Tuesday 16 March 1999
Ronnie Flanagan, then Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), announced that David Phillips, then Chief Constable of Kent, had been asked to oversee the investigation into the murder of Rosemary Nelson. He also invited the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to assist.
[Both these moves were viewed as an attempt to try to counter calls by Nationalists for an independent international inquiry into the events surrounding the death of Nelson. Although the FBI initially became involved in the case it later withdrew.]
Bertie Ahern, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), who was in Washington, said the relationship between Irish Republican Army (IRA) decommissioning and the setting up of the Northern Executive was the one remaining difficulty. He indicated to the leader of the political parties in Northern Ireland that he expected them to meet the 2 April 1998 deadline for the implementation of institutions set out in the Good Friday Agreement.
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Remembering all innocent victims of the Troubles
Today is the anniversary of the death of the following people killed as a results of the conflict in Northern Ireland
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die
– Thomas Campbell
To the innocent on the list – Your memory will live forever
– To the Paramilitaries –
There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, but nothing worth killing for.
12 People lost their lives on the 16th March between 1972 – 1989
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16 March 1972 Carmel Knox, (20)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY)
Killed when bomb exploded in public toilet, Market Street, Lurgan, County Armagh
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16 March 1973
William Kenny, (28)
Protestant Status: Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Off duty. Abducted while driving his car, Halliday’s Road, New Lodge, Belfast. Found shot a short time later in entry off Edlingham Street, New Lodge, Belfast.
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16 March 1974 Roy Bedford, (22)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot by snipers, while on British Army (BA) foot patrol, Moybane, near Crossmaglen, County Armagh.
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16 March 1974
Philip James, (22)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot by snipers, while on British Army (BA) foot patrol, Moybane, near Crossmaglen, County Armagh.
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16 March 1975
Mildred Harrison, (26)
Protestant Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)
Killed during bomb explosion while on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol passing Ormeau Arms Bar, High Street, Bangor, County Down
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16 March 1977 Alexander Watters, (62)
Protestant Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: not known (nk)
Shot while cycling along road between Tobermore and Draperstown, County Derry.
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16 March 1983 William Miller, (26)
Protestant Status: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF),
Killed by: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)
Shot while travelling in stolen car, Elmwood Avenue, off University Road, Belfast
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16 March 1988
Kevin Mulligan, (27)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF)
Died eight months after being shot at his workplace, a garage, Lord Street, off Albertbridge Road, Belfast. Injured on 17 July 1987.
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16 March 1988
Caoimhin MacBradaigh, (30)
Catholic Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY)
Killed in grenade and gun attack on mourners at the funeral of three Irish Republican Army (IRA) members killed at Gibraltar, Milltown Cemetery, Falls, Belfast.
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16 March 1988
Thomas McErlean, (20)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY)
Killed in grenade and gun attack on mourners at the funeral of three Irish Republican Army (IRA) members killed at Gibraltar, Milltown Cemetery, Falls, Belfast.
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16 March 1988
John Murray, (26)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: non-specific Loyalist group (LOY)
Killed in grenade and gun attack on mourners at the funeral of three Irish Republican Army (IRA) members killed at Gibraltar, Milltown Cemetery, Falls, Belfast.
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16 March 1989 John Irvine , (49)
Protestant Status: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot at his home, Skegoneill Avenue, Skegoneill, Belfast.
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My autobiography: A Belfast Child is now available to pre-order on Amazon , launch date is 30th April.
Forkhill or Forkill (from Irish: Foirceal) is a small village and civil parish in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland, in the ancient barony of Upper Orior. It is within the Ring of Gullion and in the 2011 Census it had a recorded population of 498.
It was also one of the most dangerous and unforgiving places on earth for British soldiers and other security force personnel during the 30 year “conflict” and the South Armagh IRA seemed able to slaughtered at will and the areas nickname “Bandit Country” was written in the blood of the innocent.
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BBC Panorama – Bandit Country, South Armagh
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See Below for more details on the South Armagh IRA
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Never forget
They died serving their country
I salute you all!
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They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them
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Below is a list of British army & other security personnel whom lost their lives in or around the Forkhill area during the troubles , hero’s one and all. The most famous name on the list is Captain Robert Nairac , whose body has never been recovered and is named as one the Disappeared.
I have included civilians and republican deaths at the end of the list.
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Died two days after being injured when detonated booby trap bomb in derelict house, Mullaghbawn, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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14 December 1974 Michael Gibson, (20)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Shot by snipers while on joint British Army (BA) / Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol, Killeavy, near Forkhill, County Armagh. He died 30 December 1974.
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14 December 1974
David McNeice, (19)
Protestant Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Shot by snipers while on joint British Army (BA) / Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol, Killeavy, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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17 July 1975
Edward Garside, (34)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by remote controlled bomb, hidden in milk churn, detonated when British Army (BA) foot patrol passed, Tullydonnell, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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17 July 1975
Robert McCarter, (33)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by remote controlled bomb, hidden in milk churn, detonated when British Army (BA) foot patrol passed, Tullydonnell, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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17 July 1975
Calvert Brown, (25)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by remote controlled bomb, hidden in milk churn, detonated when British Army (BA) foot patrol passed, Tullydonnell, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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17 July 1975 Peter Willis, (37)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by remote controlled bomb, hidden in milk churn, detonated when British Army (BA) foot patrol passed, Tullydonnell, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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21 November 1975
Simon Francis, (29)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by booby trap bomb hidden in abandoned rifle close to crashed car, Carrive, near Forkhill, County Armagh
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14 May 1977
Robert Nairac, (29)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Undercover British Army (BA) member. Abducted outside Three Step Inn, near Forkhill, County Armagh. Presumed killed. Body never recovered.
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by remote controlled bomb hidden in parked car, detonated when British Army (BA) foot patrol passed, Forkhill, County Armagh.
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16 December 1979
Peter Grundy, (21)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by booby trap bomb hidden in derelict house, while on British Army (BA) foot patrol, Forkhill, County Armagh.
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01 January 1980
Gerard Hardy, (18)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: British Army (BA) Undercover British Army (BA) member. Shot in error, by other British Army (BA) members while setting ambush position, Tullydonnell, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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01 January 1980 Simon Bates, (23)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: British Army (BA) Undercover British Army (BA) member. Shot in error, by other British Army (BA) members while setting ambush position, Tullydonnell, near Forkhill, County Armagh
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09 August 1980
Brian Brown, (29)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by remote controlled bomb while on British Army (BA) foot patrol, Forkhill, County Armagh
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31 January 1984
William Savage, (27)
Protestant Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed in land mine attack on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) armoured patrol car, Drumintee Road, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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31 January 1984
Thomas Bingham, (29)
Protestant Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed in land mine attack on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) armoured patrol car, Drumintee Road, near Forkhill, County Armagh
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17 March 1993
Lawrence Dickson, (26)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Shot by sniper while on British Army (BA) foot patrol, Bog Road, Forkhill, County Armagh.
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Innocent Civilians Killed in Forkhill
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10 March 1974 Michael Gallagher, (18)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Injured by booby trap bomb hidden in abandoned car, Dromintee, near Forkhill, County Armagh. Intended for British Army (BA) foot patrol. He died 14 March 1974.
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10 March 1974
Michael McCreesh, (15)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by booby trap bomb hidden in abandoned car, Dromintee, near Forkhill, County Armagh. Intended for British Army (BA) foot patrol.
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19 January 1975
Patrick Toner, (7)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by booby trap bomb in field near his home, Forkhill, County Armagh.
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12 June 1976
Liam Prince, (26)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: British Army (BA) Shot while travelling in his car at British Army (BA) Vehicle Check Point (VCP), near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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02 April 1977 Hugh Clarke, (30)
Protestant Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Republican Action Force (RepAF) Found shot, Tullymacreeve, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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25 June 1978 Patrick McEntee, (54)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Found shot, Ballsmill, near Forkhill, County Armagh. Alleged informer.
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12 December 2001 Derek Lenehan, (27)
nfNI Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) From Dublin. Died several hours after being found shot in the legs, by the side of New Road, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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Republicans Terrorists Killed in Forkhill
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15 April 1976
Peter Cleary, (25)
Catholic Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: British Army (BA) Shot by undercover British Army (BA) member, shortly after being detained at a friend’s home, Tievecrom, near Forkhill, County Armagh.
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05 March 1982
Seamus Morgan, (24)
Catholic Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Found shot near Forkhill, County Armagh. Alleged informer.
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14 March 1987 Fergus Conlon, (31)
Catholic Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA),
Killed by: Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) Irish Republican Socialist Party member. Found shot, Clontigora, near Forkhill, County Armagh. Irish National Liberation Army / Irish People’s Liberation Organisation feud
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Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade
The South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) operated during the Troubles in south County Armagh. It was organised into two battalions, one around Jonesborough and another around Crossmaglen. By the 1990s, the South Armagh Brigade was thought to consist of about 40 members,[1] roughly half of them living south of the border.[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.[3] Compared to other brigades, the South Armagh IRA was seen as an ‘independent republic’ within the republican movement, retaining a battalion organizational structure and not adopting the cell structure the rest of the IRA was forced to adopt after repeated intelligence failures.[4]
As well as paramilitary activity, the South Armagh Brigade has also been widely accused of smuggling across the Irish border.[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). A further 75 civilians were killed in the area during the conflict,[6] as well as ten South Armagh Brigade members.[7] The RUC recorded 1,255 bombings and 1,158 shootings around a radius of ten miles from the geographic center of South Armagh in the same period.[6]
At the beginning of the Northern Ireland Troubles in August 1969, rioters, led by IRA men, attacked the RUC barracks in Crossmaglen, in retaliation for the attacks on Catholic/nationalist areas in Belfast in the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969.[citation needed] After the split in the IRA in that year, the South Armagh unit sided with the Provisional IRA rather than the Official IRA. The following August, two RUC constables were killed by a bomb in Crossmaglen. A week later, a British soldier was killed in a firefight along the border.[9]
However, the IRA campaign in the area did not begin in earnest until 1971. In August of that year, two South Armagh men were shot and one killed by the British Army in Belfast, having been mistaken for gunmen.[citation needed] This caused outrage in the South Armagh area, provided the IRA with many new recruits and created a climate where local people were prepared to tolerate the killing of security force members.[10]
During the early 1970s, the brigade was mostly engaged in ambushes of British Army patrols. In one such ambush in August 1972, a Ferret armoured car was destroyed by a 600 lb landmine, killing one soldier. There were also frequent gun attacks on foot patrols. 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. According to author Toby Harnden, the decision was taken shortly after a Saracen armoured vehicle was destroyed by a culvert bomb near Crossmaglen, on 9 October 1975. Subsequently, the British Army gave up the use of roads to the IRA in South Armagh.[11] IRA volunteer Éamon 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. He was identified as the IRA’s chief technical officer by the Central Intelligence Agency.[12] Another noted IRA commander at that time was the commanding officer of the first battalion, Captain Michael McVerry. He was eventually killed during an attack on the RUC barracks in Keady in November 1973. Around this time IRA engineers in South Armagh pioneered the use of home-made mortars which were relatively inaccurate but highly destructive.[13]
In 1975 and 1976, as sectarian violence increased in Northern Ireland, the South Armagh Republican Action Force, allegedly a cover-name for the South Armagh Brigade, carried out two attacks against Protestants. In September 1975 they attacked an Orange lodge in Newtownhamilton, killing five members of the lodge. 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. The workers’ bus was stopped and the one Catholic worker taken aside before the others were killed.[14] 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.[15] While loyalist attacks on Catholics declined afterwards and many Protestants became more reluctant to help the UVF, the massacre caused considerable controversy in the republican movement.
By the end of the 1970s, the IRA in most of Northern Ireland had been restructured into a cell system. South Armagh, however, where the close rural community and family connections of IRA men diminished the risk of infiltration, retained its larger “battalion” structure. On 17 February 1978 the commander of the 2nd Battalion Royal Green Jackets, Lieutenant Colonel Ian Corden-Lloyd, was killed and two other soldiers injured when the Gazelle helicopter he was travelling in was attacked by an IRA unit near Jonesborough. At that moment, a gun battle was taking place on the ground between British soldiers and members of the South Armagh Brigade. The helicopter crashed while taking evasive manoeuvres after being fired at from the east side of Edenappa road.[16] Corden-Lloyd’s subordinates had been accused of brutality against Catholic civilians in Belfast in 1971.[17] In August 1979, a South Armagh unit killed 18 soldiers in the Warrenpoint ambush.[18] This was the biggest single loss of life inflicted on the British Army in its deployment in Northern Ireland (Operation Banner).
A number of South Armagh IRA members were imprisoned by the end of the 1970s and took part in the blanket protest and dirty protest in pursuit of political status for IRA prisoners. Raymond McCreesh, a South Armagh man, was among the ten republican hunger strikers who died for this goal in the 1981 hunger strike. The South Armagh Brigade retaliated for the deaths of the hunger strikers by killing five British soldiers with a mine that destroyed their armoured vehicle near Bessbrook.[19]
1980s
During the mid-1980s, the brigade focused its attacks on the RUC, killing 20 of its members between 1984 and 1986. Nine of these were killed in the February 1985 Newry mortar attack.[20]
In 1986, the British Army erected ten hilltop observation posts in South Armagh. These bases acted as information-gathering centres and also allowed the British Army to patrol South Armagh more securely. 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. After this, 24 security force personnel and Lord Justice Gibson and his wife were killed in the same areas, roughly a third of the previous yearly rate.
In March 1989, two senior RUC officers were killed in an ambush near Jonesborough. Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan were returning from a meeting with the Garda Síochána in the Republic of Ireland, where they had been discussing a range of issues including ways of combating IRA attacks on the cross-border rail link, when they were ambushed.[21] This incident was investigated by the Smithwick Tribunal into alleged collusion between the IRA and the Gardaí.[22] As the divisional commander for South Armagh, Breen was the most senior policeman to have been killed during the Troubles.[23]
South Armagh became the most heavily militarized area in Northern Ireland. 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.[24]
1990s
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the IRA elsewhere in Northern Ireland found that nine out of ten planned operations failed to materialize.[25] However, the South Armagh Brigade continued to carry out varied and high-profile attacks in the same period.[26] By 1991, the RUC acknowledged that no mobile patrols had operated in South Armagh without Army support since 1975.[27]
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.[29] 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. The truck bombs were sent to England by ferry.[30] On 22 April 1993, the South Armagh IRA unit took control of the village of Cullaville near the border with the Republic, for two hours, making good use of dead ground. 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.[31][32]
The South Armagh Brigade was by far the most effective IRA brigade in shooting down British helicopters during the conflict. They carried out 23 attacks on British Army helicopters during the Troubles, bringing four down on separate occasions: the Gazelle shot down in February 1978 near Jonesborough,[16] a Lynx in June 1988, while in 1994 another Lynx and an RAF Puma were shot down in March and July respectively.[33] 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.[34] A sustained machine gun attack against a helicopter was filmed by a Dublin television crew in March 1991 outside Crossmaglen Health Center. There was no reaction from British security although the RUC/Army base was just 50 yards away.[35][36] The only successful IRA attack against an Army helicopter outside South Armagh was carried out by the East Tyrone Brigade near Clogher, County Tyrone, on 11 February 1990.[37] By 1994, the safest way for the British army to travel across South Armagh and some areas of Tyrone and Fermanagh was on board troop-carrying Chinook helicopters.[38]
Ceasefires and the peace process
Borucki sangar, a British army outpost in Crossmaglen with a republican flag on top during an Ógra Shinn Féin protest some time before its removal in 2000
The IRA ceasefire of 1994 was a blow to the South Armagh Brigade, in that it allowed the security forces to operate openly in the area without fear of attack and to build intelligence on IRA members.[39] When the IRA resumed its campaign in 1996-97, the South Armagh IRA was less active than previously,[40] although one of the sniper teams killed one soldier and seriously wounded an RUC constable. But the snipers also lost a number of their most skilled members, such as Mícheál Caraher, who were arrested and imprisoned just weeks before the second ceasefire. The capture of the sniper team was the single major success for the security forces in South Armagh in more than a decade,[41] and was arguably among the most important of the Troubles,[42] but by then, the IRA and Sinn Féin had achieved huge political gains towards their long-term goals.[43] The last major action of the brigade before the last IRA ceasefire was a mortar attack on Newtownhamilton RUC/Army barracks, on 12 July 1997. The single Mk-15 mortar bomb landed 40 yards short of the perimeter fence.[42]
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. Their discontent was deepened by Sinn Féin’s signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Most of the South Armagh IRA stayed within the Provisional movement, but there were reports of them aiding the dissidents throughout 1998.[44] The Omagh bombing of August 1998, a botched Real IRA operation which killed 29 civilians, was prepared by dissident republicans in South Armagh.[45] Thomas Murphy and the leadership of the IRA in the area have allegedly since re-asserted their control, expelling dissidents from the district under threat of death. Michael McKevitt and his wife Bernadette were evicted from their home near Dundalk.[46] IRA members in South Armagh ceased cooperating with the RIRA after the Omagh bombing.[47]
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. The normalisation process, negotiated under the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement in exchange for the complete decommissioning of IRA weaponry, was one of the main goals of the republican political strategy in the region.[48][49]
Senior IRA figures in South Armagh, notably Thomas Murphy, are alleged to have been involved in large-scale smuggling across the Irish border and money-laundering. Other alleged illegal activities involve fraud through embezzlement of agricultural subsidies and false claims of property loss. In 2006, the British and Irish authorities mounted joint operations to clamp down on smuggling in the area and to seize Thomas Murphy’s assets.[51][52] 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. Belton was shot and injured by other members of the patrol, but managed to flee to the Republic. He was later acquitted of any charges, but he eventually agreed in 2006 to pay €500,000 for cross-border smuggling.[53][54] 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.[55][56] The IRA control over the roads across the border in South Armagh enabled them to impose ‘taxes’ on every cross-border illegal enterprise.[56]
One of the first leaders of the Provisional IRA, Seán Mac Stíofáin, supported the use of snipers in his book Memories of a Revolutionary, attracted by the motto “one shot, one kill”.[6] The majority of soldiers shot dead in 1972 (the bloodiest year of the conflict in Northern Ireland) fell victim to IRA snipers.[7]
The AR-18 Armalite rifle became the weapon of choice for IRA members at this time.[9]
The British Army assessment of the conflict asserted that the IRA sniping skills often did not match those expected from a well-trained sniper.[10] The report identifies four different patterns of small arms attacks during the IRA campaign, the last being that developed by the South Armagh sniper units.[11]
Sniper teams in South Armagh
The rifles
During the 1980s, the IRA relied mostly on weaponry smuggled from Libya.[12][13][14] The regular shipments from the United States, once the main source of arms for the republicans through the gunrunning operations of George Harrison, were disrupted after he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1981.[15] The smuggling scheme suffered a further blow when the Fenit-based trawler Marita Ann, with a huge arms cache from Boston, was captured by the Irish Naval Service in 1985.[16]
However, between the mid-1980s and the 1990s there was some small-scale activity,[17] leading to the purchase of US-made Barrett M82 and M90 rifles,[18] which became common weapons for the South Armagh snipers. According to letters seized by US federal authorities from a Dundalk IRA member, Martin Quigley, who had travelled to USA to study computing at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania,[19] the organisation managed to smuggle an M82 to the Republic of Ireland just before his arrest in 1989. He was part of a bigger plot to import electronic devices to defeat British Army counter-measures against IRA remote-controlled bombs.[20]
In August 1986, another M82 had been sent in pieces from Chicago to Dublin, where the rifle was re-assembled.[21] At least two of the M90 rifles were bought as recently as six months after the first IRA ceasefire.[22] It was part of a batch of two sold to Michael Suárez, a Cuban resident of Cleveland, on 27 January 1995 by a firearms dealer; Suárez later passed the weapons to an Irishman, who finally shipped the rifles, their ammunition and two telescopic sights to the Republic of Ireland.[23] An unidentified leading figure inside the IRA sniper campaign, quoted by Toby Harnden, said that:
What’s special about the Barrett is the huge kinetic energy… The bullet can just walk through a flak jacket. South Armagh was the prime place to use such weapon because of the availability of Brits. They came to dread it and that was part of its effectiveness.[24]
Three of the security forces members killed in this campaign were instead the victims of 7.62×51mm rounds. Five missed shots belonged to the same kind of weapon.[25] Harnden recalls a Belgian FN FAL rifle recovered by the Gardaí near Inniskeen in 1998 as the possible source of these bullets.[26]
Shootings
Contrary to the first British Army assessment and the speculation of the press,[27] there was not just a single sniper involved.[5] According to Harnden, there were two different teams,[28] one responsible for the east part of South Armagh, around Dromintee, the other for the west, in the area surrounding Cullyhanna.[29] The volunteer in charge of the Cullyhanna unit was Frank “One Shot” McCabe, a senior IRA member from Crossmaglen.[2] Each team comprised at least four members, not counting those in charge of support activities, such as scouting for targets and driving vehicles. Military officials claim that the Dromintee-based squad deployed up to 20 volunteers in some of the sniping missions.[30] The teams made good use of dead ground to conceal themselves from British observation posts.[31]
Between 1990 and 1997, 24 shots were fired at British forces. The first eight operations (1990–1992), ended in misses. On 16 March 1990, the Barret M82 was used for first time by the IRA. The target was a checkpoint manned by soldiers of the Light Infantry regiment on Сastleblaney Road. A single .50 round pierced the helmet and skimmed the skull of Lance Corporal Hartsthorne, who survived with minor head injuries.[32][33] In August 1992, one team mortally wounded a Light Infantry soldier. By April 1997 seven soldiers and two policemen had been killed. An RUC constable almost lost one of his legs in what became the last sniper attack during the Troubles.
Another six rounds achieved nothing, albeit two of them near-missed the patrol boat HMS Cygnet, in Carlingford Lough[26] and another holed Borucki sangar, a British Army outpost in Crossmaglen square.[33] On 31 July 1993 at 10:00 pm a British Army patrol which had set a mobile checkpoint on Newry Road, near Newtownhamilton, was fired at by an IRA sniper team. The British soldiers returned fire, but there were no injuries on either side.[34] The marksman usually fired from a distance of less than 300 metres, despite the 1 km effective range of the rifles. Sixteen operations were carried out from the rear of a vehicle, with the sniper protected by an armour plate in case the patrols returned fire.[35] At least in one incident, after the killing of a soldier in Forkhill on 17 March 1993, the British Army fired back at the sniper’s vehicle without effect.[36] The IRA vehicles were escorted by scout cars, to alert about the presence of security checkpoints ahead.[35]
Two different sources include in the campaign two incidents which happened outside South Armagh; one in Belcoo, County Fermanagh, where a constable was killed,[37] the other in West Belfast, in June 1993.[33] An RUC investigation following the latter shooting led to the discovery of one Barrett M82, hidden in a derelict house. It was later determined that this rifle was the weapon responsible for the first killing in South Armagh in 1992.[38] Another Barrett is reported to have been in possession of the IRA team in the Occupation of Cullaville in South Armagh in April 1993.[39]
A third unrelated sniper attack, which resulted in the death of a British soldier, was carried out by the IRA at New Lodge, North Belfast, on 3 August 1992.[40] Two other soldiers were wounded by snipers at New Lodge in November 1993[41] and January 1994. Two people were arrested and a loaded rifle recovered in the aftermath of the latter incident.[42] On 30 December 1993 Guardsman Daniel Blinco became the last soldier killed by snipers in South Armagh before the first IRA ceasefire in 1994.[43] His killing, along with the reaction of the MP of his constituency, was covered by the BBC´s Inside Ulster,[44] which also showed Blinco’s abandoned helmet and the hole made by the sniper’s bullet on the wall of a pub.[45] The tabloid press of that time started calling the sniper ‘Goldfinger’ or ‘Terminator’, the nicknames current in Crossmaglen’s bars.[26] The last serviceman killed by snipers at South Armagh, Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, was also the last British soldier to die by hostile fire during the Troubles, on 12 February 1997. Restorick’s killing resulted in a public outcry; Gerry Adams called his death “tragic” and wrote a letter of condolence to his mother.[46][47]
The IRA ceasefire from 31 August 1994 gave an opportunity to the British to collect intelligence to be used against the snipers.[49] The truce was strongly resented by South Armagh IRA members.[50] During the ceasefire, an alleged member of the Drumintee squad, Kevin Donegan, was arrested by an RUC patrol in relation to the 1994 murder of a postal worker in the course of an armed robbery.[51][52] When the IRA ended the ceasefire with the bombing of the London Docklands in February 1996, some volunteers had already abandoned the organisation, while others had turned to criminal activities.[53][54] The period after the ceasefire saw little IRA activity in South Armagh.[55]
Following two successful attacks in 1997, on 10 April a Special Air Service unit captured four men from the sniper team based in the west of the region, responsible for several deaths. After a brief fist fight, James McArdle, Michael Caraher, Bernard McGinn and Martin Mines were seized at a farm near Freeduff and handed over to the RUC. The British troops were under strict orders to avoid IRA casualties.[22] A Barrett M90 rifle was seized,[56] which forensic and intelligence reports linked only to the 1997 shootings.[57] It was hinted that there was an informer, a suggestion dismissed by the Ombudsman report.[58]
McGinn provided the RUC with a lot of information about IRA activities, and even betrayed Frank McCabe, the IRA commander behind the sniper campaign,[2][59] but he eventually withdrew his statement.[60] One of the key players in the British campaign against the South Armagh sniper was Welsh Guards‘ Captain Rupert Thorneloe, according to journalist Toby Harnden. Thorneloe worked as an intelligence liaison officer between the 3rd Infantry Brigade and the RUC Special Branch. Thorneloe, who reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, was killed in July 2009 by an improvised explosive device during the war in Afghanistan.[3] Another senior figure involved in the British efforts against the sniper squads was SAS Staff Sergeant Gaz Hunter,[4] whose experience in South Armagh dated back to 1975.[61] Despite the sense of relief among British forces after the arrests,[62] there was concern over the other two Barrett rifles still in possession of the South Armagh Brigade.[60]
One of the IRA volunteers captured, Michael Caraher, was the brother of Fergal Caraher, a Sinn Féin member and IRA volunteer[63] killed by Royal Marines at a checkpoint on 30 December 1990 near Cullyhanna.[8] Michael, also shot and wounded in the same attack, had lost a lung in the aftermath.[64] Despite some witnesses claiming that the shooting was unprovoked, the Marines involved were acquitted by Lord Chief Justice Hutton.[65] The shooting of Guardsman Daniel Blinco in Crossmaglen took place on the second anniversary of the killing of Fergal Caraher.[43] Michael Caraher was thought to be the shooter in several attacks,[66] but he was only indicted for the case of the maimed constable. He was defended by solicitor Rosemary Nelson, later killed by the loyalist organisation Red Hand Defenders.[67] The other three men of the sniper team were convicted in 1999 for six killings, two of them unrelated to the sniping operations (the deaths of two men when one of the team’s members, James McArdle, planted the bomb at Canary Wharf in 1996).[62]
The capture of the sniper unit was the greatest success for the security forces in South Armagh in more than a decade.[68][69] The men were set free 18 months later under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.[62] The Dromintee sniper party was never caught.
Conclusions
Barrett M-82 rifle, the main weapon used by the sniper squads
The IRA sniping activities further restricted the freedom of movement of the British Army in South Armagh by hindering their patrols. The MoD issued a new type of body armour, which was both expensive (£4,000) and too heavy (32 lbs) for use on patrol.[70] The morale of the troops was so low that some servicemen had to be disciplined for remaining in shelter while under orders to check vehicles.[71] A British major said that:
That meant that to some extent the IRA had succeeded in forcing troops off the ground and it made helicopters more vulnerable so we had to guard against using them too much.[6]
The IRA strategy also diverted a large amount of British security resources from routine operations to tackle the threat.[72] Until the 1994 ceasefire, even the SAS was unable to prevent the attacks. The IRA ceasefire between 1994 and 1996 made surveillance easier for the RUC and the British Army,[73] leading to the success against the Caraher team.[74] The security forces set the ground for an SAS ambush by deploying a decoy patrol, but this counter-sniper operation failed twice. At the end, the sniper squad was tracked to a farm complex and arrested there.[75]
By the second IRA ceasefire, another team was still operational, and two Barrett rifles remained unaccounted for.[76] The campaign is viewed as the most efficient overall IRA operation in Northern Ireland for this period.[77]
A Highway Code-style sign saying “SNIPER AT WORK” was mounted by the IRA near Crossmaglen and became an icon of the republican cause
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IRA’s top sniper Bernard McGinn is found dead in his Monaghan home
The sniper who killed the last British Army victim of the Troubles shot by the IRA has died at his home, reportedly of natural causes.
Bernard McGinn was the infamous IRA sniper who shot Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick dead in Bessbrook in February 1997.
The South armagh sniper was one of the most feared figures of The Troubles, shooting down soldiers from as far away as half a mile. He became a folk hero in Republican circles while derided by others.
McGinn was 56 when he was found dead at his home in Monaghan town on Saturday.
Police say it is thought he died of natural causes with a post mortem due to be held on Monday.
An IRA volunteer at the age of 15, McGinn was the son of a local Sinn Fein councillor and the brother-in-law of current Sinn Fein deputy and Health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin.
Top ISIS commander ‘Omar the Chechen ‘ believed to have been killed in airstrike.
This is the third or fourth time he has reportedly been killed and like any death of Islamic States top leaders confirmation is slow and details are often hidden behind the fog of war.
However US sources are confident they have got it right this time and if so this will be a major blow to the disciples of hate and the twisted ideology of Islamic State and their deluded followers.
Slowly slowly catch the monkey
Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)
According to todays Independent ISIS opposition is at the ‘ gates of Raqqa ‘ as Syrian Democratic Forces reclaim villages from their control
The Syrian Democratic Forces have been celebrating a string of victories as they reclaim villages from Isis control, putting them within 20 miles of Raqqa
Without a doubt the forces against IS are slowly gaining the upper hand and IS’s area of control is reducing almost daily. Desertion among their members has become such an issue that it carries a mandatory death sentence and according to local sources the majority of deserters are foreign and European fighters whom have become disillusioned with the harsh conditions and religious fanaticism.
Whatever is causing disharmony among these monstrous Jihadists is good news for the world in general and the death of the Chechen is another nail in the coffin which will send these scum straight to HELL!
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Abu Omar the Chechen Dead
The United States has confirmed that ISIS commander Omar al-Shishani, also known as “Omar the Chechen,” is dead, CBS News’ David Martin reports.
According to officials, he survived an initial attack carried out in the beginning of March, but has since died of his wounds, Martin reports. A U.S. official previously said an attack was carried out March 4 by multiple waves of planes and drone aircraft.
Al-Shishani, whose real name was Tarkhan Batirashvili, was described as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) equivalent of a Secretary of Defense. He was an ethnic Chechen from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.
The U.S. government had a longstanding $5-million bounty for information leading to his being brought to justice.
In announcing the strike last week, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said it occurred near al-Shaddadeh, a former ISIS stronghold that was captured in February by the U.S.-backed, predominantly Kurdish Syria Democratic Forces. He said the ISIS leader held numerous senior military positions within the group, including “minister of war,” and was based in Raqqa, Syria.
Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili (Georgian: თარხან ბათირაშვილი; February 11, 1986 – March 14, 2016), known by his nom de guerreAbu Omar al-Shishani (Arabic: أبو عمر الشيشاني, Abū ‘Umar ash-Shīshānī , “Abu Omar the Chechen”)[9] or Omar al-Shishani, was a GeorgianKist jihadist who served as a commander for the Islamic State in Syria, and a former sergeant in the Georgian Army.[9]
In May 2013, Batirashvili was appointed northern commander for ISIL, with authority over ISIL’s military operations and forces in northern Syria, specifically Aleppo, al-Raqqah, Latakia, and northern Idlib Provinces.By late 2013, he was the ISIL amir (leader) for northern Syria and was operating in and around Aleppo Province. He was also in charge of fighters from Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus.[10] Units under his command participated in major assaults on Syrian military bases in and around Aleppo, including the capture of Menagh Airbase in August 2013.[3] He was considered “one of the most influential military leaders of the Syrian opposition forces”.[2] By mid-2014, Batirashvili was a senior ISIL commander and Shura Council member based in al-Raqqah, Syria.[10]
Batirashvili died from his injuries several days after being the target of a 4 March 2016 U.S. Airstrike near the al-Shaddadi region in Northern Syria, according to U.S. officials
Batirashvili grew up in the largely Kist-populated village of Birkiani, located in the Pankisi Gorge in northeast Georgia. In his youth, he worked as a shepherd in the hills above the gorge. Later in the 1990s, the Pankisi Gorge was a major transit point for rebels participating in the Second Chechen War, and it was there that Batirashvili reportedly came into contact with the Chechen rebels moving into Russia.[17] According to his father, a young Batirashvili secretly helped Chechen militants into Russia and sometimes joined them on missions against Russian troops.[3]
Service in the Georgian Armed Forces
After finishing high school, Batirashvili joined the Georgian Army and distinguished himself as master of various weaponry and maps, according to his former commander Malkhaz Topuria, who recruited him into a special reconnaissance group.[3] His unit was trained by US special forces, and Batirashvili was reportedly a “star pupil”.[18] He rose to the rank of sergeant in a newly formed intelligence unit, and during the 2008 Russo-Georgian War he served near the front line at the Battle of Tskhinvali, spying on Russian tank columns and relaying their coordinates to Georgian artillery units.[3] Batirashvili’s unit inflicted serious damage on the Russians, and among the actions they participated in was an attack on a column of the Russian 58th Army during which the commander of the 58th Army, General Anatoly Khrulyov, was wounded.[18]
Batirashvili was never decorated for his military service.[2] He was due to be promoted to become an officer, but in 2010 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. After spending several months in a military hospital, he was discharged on medical grounds. He tried and failed to re-enlist.[3][17] Upon returning home, he was unable to secure work in the local police force. Around this time, his mother also died of cancer. According to his father, he became “very disillusioned”.[3]
Militant activity
According to the Georgian Defense Ministry, Batirashvili was arrested in September 2010 for illegally harboring weapons and was sentenced to three years in prison.[3] He was allegedly released after serving about 16 months in early 2012 and immediately left the country. According to an interview on a jihadist website, Batirashvili said that prison transformed him; “I promised God that if I come out of prison alive, I’ll go fight jihad for the sake of God”, he said.[3]
Batirashvili reportedly told his father that he was leaving for Istanbul, where members of the Chechen diaspora were ready to recruit him to lead fighters inside war-ravaged Syria; an older brother had already gone to Syria some months before.[3] In an interview, Batirashvili said that he had considered going to Yemen and briefly lived in Egypt before ultimately arriving in Syria in March 2012.[19][20]
Muhajireen Brigade
His first command was the Muhajireen Brigade, an Islamist jihadist group made up of foreign fighters that was formed in the summer of 2012. His unit became involved in the Battle of Aleppo, and in October 2012 they assisted Al-Nusra Front in a raid on an air defense and Scud missile base in Aleppo.[8]
In December 2012, they fought alongside Al-Nusra Front during the overrunning of the Sheikh Suleiman Army base in Western Aleppo. In February 2013, together with the Tawhid Brigades and Al-Nusra Front, they stormed the base of the Syrian military’s 80th Regiment near the main airport in Aleppo.[21]
In March 2013, Kavkaz Center reported that the Muhajireen Brigade had merged with two Syrian jihadist groups called Jaish Muhammad and Kataeb Khattab to form a new group called Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, or Army of Emigrants and Helpers.[22] The group played a key role in the August 2013 capture of Menagh Air Base, which culminated in a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) driven by two of their members killing and wounding many of the last remaining Syrian Armed Forces defenders.[23] A branch of the Muhajireen Brigade was involved in the 2013 Latakia offensive.[24]
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
In Mid 2013, Batirashvili made an oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and was appointed northern commander for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).[25] In August 2013, Batirashvili released a statement announcing the expulsion of one of his commanders, Emir Seyfullah, and twenty-seven of his fighters. Batirashvili accused the men of embezzlement and stirring up the animosity of local Syrians against the foreign fighters by indulging in takfir—excommunication—against other Muslims.[26] However, Seyfullah denied these allegations and claimed that the dispute was due to his refusal to join ISIL with Batirashvili.[27] In late 2013, Batirashvili was replaced as leader of Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar by another Chechen commander known as Salahuddin, as most of the Chechen members of the group did not support Batirashvili’s support of ISIL, due to their preexisting oath to the Caucasus Emirate militant group, and it’s leader Dokka Umarov.[2][6] By mid-2014, Batirashvili was a senior ISIL commander and Shura Council member operating in Ar-Raqqah, Syria.[25]
According to Batirashvili’s father, he called him once since he left for Syria to tell him that he was now married to a Chechen woman and had a daughter named Sophia.[15] For a time, Batirashvili lived with his family in a large villa owned by a businessman in the town of Huraytan just northwest of Aleppo.[28] He is said to have overseen the group’s prison facility near Ar-Raqqah, where foreign hostages may have been held.[29] By 2016, Batirashvili led special battalions of the Islamic State, in particular a unit named as ‘the group of the central directorate’ which appears to be the primary special forces strike force of the group.[30]
Reports of death or capture
Shishani has been reported as being killed on numerous occasions. In 2014, there were reports that he had been killed in various parts of Syria and Iraq in May, June, August and October, all of which proved to be untrue.[31] On 13 November 2014, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov posted on his personal Instagram account that al-Shishani had been killed, and posted a photo of a dead ginger-bearded man, however the man in the photograph was not Shishani, and Kadyrov later deleted the post. Before the post was deleted, the statement was picked up and reported on by many media outlets around the world.[31]
There were further reports of his death in 2015: in May,[32] June[33] and October.[34] On December 27, Russian News Agency TASS, quoting EIN news, claimed that American special forces had captured al-Shishani near Kirkuk in Iraq.[35] This report was denied by a Pentagon spokesman.[36]
In March 2016, several unnamed US Officials told CNN that Shishani may have been killed in a 4 March targeted airstrike, near the Syrian town of al-Shadadi; however, they were unable to confirm his death. Other officials said he had been “critically injured” in the strike, and that US military intelligence was assessing whether or not he had died.[37][38] On 12 March, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that al-Shishani had become clinically dead following the US airstrikes, with the ISIL commander in critical condition and unable to breathe without the use of life-support machines.[39][40] On 14 March 2016, two U.S. officials told CNN that there was confirmation al-Shishani had died after the airstrike
Record of a telephone conversation between Edward Heath, then British Prime Minister, and Brian Faulkner, then Northern Ireland Prime Minister, during which Heath invited Faulkner to a meeting in London on Wednesday 22 March 1972.]
Friday 15 March 1974
Two members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were killed when a bomb they were planting exploded prematurely in Dungannon, County Tyrone.
A Catholic civilian was shot dead by Loyalists in Belfast.
A Protestant civilian was killed in bomb explosion in Magherafelt, County Derry.
Saturday 15 March 1975
John Fulton & StephenGoatley
Two members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) were shot dead in the Alexandra Bar, York Road, Belfast, in an attack by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). These killings were part of a feud between the two Loyalist paramilitary groups
Sunday 15 March 1981
Francis Hughes, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoner in the Maze Prison, joined Bobby Sands on hunger strike
Alan McCrum (11), a Protestant boy, was killed and 34 people injured when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) exploded a bomb in Bridge Street, Banbridge, County Down. An inadequate warning had been given.
Thursday 15 March 1984
Garret FitzGerald, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), addressed the United States Congress and called on Americans to urge the British to accept the proposals that were emerging from the New Ireland Forum.
[The report of the Forum was published on 2 May 1984.]
Sunday 15 March 1987
Two men were shot dead by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in Belfast.
Wednesday 15 March 1989
The Elected Authorities (Northern Ireland) Act became law. One of the requirements of the Act was that candidates standing in district council elections should sign a declaration that they would not express support for illegal organisations or acts of violence.
Wednesday 15 March 1995
The north White House fountain has been dyed green for Saint Patrick’s Day
The Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) announced that a delegation would be attending the St Patrick’s Day reception at the White House, Washington, despite the presence of Gerry Adams, then President of Sinn Féin (SF).
15 March 1998
David Keys (26), who had been charged with the murder of two friends at Poyntzpass, Co. Armagh, was found hanged in his cell at the Maze Prison.
Victims
Both of Keys’ wrists were also slashed. At the time the RUC said that they were treating his death as murder.
[It was believed that Keys had been beaten and then hung from a window to give the impression that he had committed suicide. Keys had elected to be held in the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) wing of the Maze Prison and it is believed that the LVF killed him either because of the intense reaction to the Poyntzpass killings on 3 March 1998 or because the LVF thought he had informed on members of the organisation. Three other men were also charged with the Poyntzpass killings. Later over a dozen members of the LVF were charged with involvement in the killing of Keys.]
Monday 15 March 1999
Rosemary Nelson Killed
Rosemary Nelson, a Lurgan solicitor, was killed by a booby trap car bomb in Lurgan, County Armagh. Nelson had been driving away from her home in her BMW car at lunchtime when the explosion happened.
The Red Hand Defenders (RHD) claimed responsibility for the murder.
[The fact that commercial explosives had been used in the bomb led some commentators to speculate that one of the mainstream Loyalist groups was involved in the killing. In the following years it became clear that the name RHD was being used as a cover name by both the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).
Nelson, who had represented Nationalist clients in several high-profile cases had complained of Loyalist paramilitary and RUC threats against her. Nationalists called for an independent international inquiry into the events surround the killing. Paul Murphy, then Secretary of State, announced a public Inquiry into the killing on 16 November 2004. The Inquiry opened on 19 April 2005.]
Loyalists carried out a petrol-bomb attack on the home of a ‘mixed-marriage’ family in Larne, County Antrim. There were no injuries as a result of the attack.
Friday 15 March 2002
The third recruitment drive for Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) was started. Figures released showed that during the second campaign a total of 525 out of 3,500 applicants were from the Republic of Ireland.
However a Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member of the Police Board criticised the high numbers of Catholics joining from the Republic and said it masked a reluctance among local Catholics to join the new police service.
John Taylor, then Ulster Unionist peer (Lord Kilclooney), gave evidence for a second day to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. He said that the decision to block the Civil Rights march on Bloody Sunday from reaching the city centre was taken at the highest political level in London. He said the Joint Security Committee (JSC) at Stormont, which he chaired at that time, had recommended the march be stopped but the decision was agreed between the Chief of the General Staff (of the British Army) and Edward Heath, then British Prime Minister
Today is the anniversary of the death of the following people killed as a results of the conflict in Northern Ireland
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die
– Thomas Campbell
To the innocent on the list – Your memory will live forever
– To the Paramilitaries –
There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, but nothing worth killing for.
23 People lost their lives on the 15th March between 1972 – 1999
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15 March 1972
William Logan, (23)
Protestant Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Shot while on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) mobile patrol, Brackaville Road, Coalisland, County Tyrone.
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15 March 1972
Christopher Cracknell, (29)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by booby trap bomb, hidden in abandoned car, Grosvenor Road, Belfast
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15 March 1972
Anthony Butcher, (24)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed by booby trap bomb, hidden in abandoned car, Grosvenor Road, Belfast.
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15 March 1973
Larry McMahon, (42)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Killed in bomb attack on his home, Circular Road, Jordanstown, Newtownabbey, County Antrim.
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15 March 1974 Patrick McDonald, (21)
Catholic Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed in premature explosion of land mine, Aughnacloy Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone
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15 March 1974 Kevin Murray, (27)
Catholic Status: Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed in premature explosion of land mine, Aughnacloy Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone
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15 March 1974 Noel McCartan, (26)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Shot while walking along Ormeau Road, near Havelock Place, Belfast.
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15 March 1974 Adam Johnston, (34)
Protestant Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed in lorry bomb explosion, Queen Street, Magherafelt, County Derry. Inadequate warning given.
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15 March 1975
John Fulton, (20)
Protestant Status: Ulster Defence Association (UDA),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Shot while in Alexandra Bar, York Road, Belfast. Ulster Defence Association (UDA) / Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) feud.
—————————————————————————
15 March 1975
Stephen Goatley, (19)
Protestant Status: Ulster Defence Association (UDA),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Shot while in Alexandra Bar, York Road, Belfast. Ulster Defence Association (UDA) / Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) feud.
—————————————————————————
15 March 1976 Julius Stephen, (34)
nfNIB Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Tube train driver. Shot shortly after bomb exploded prematurely on tube train, at West Ham Underground Station, London.
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15 March 1977 David McQuillan, (36)
Protestant Status: Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Off duty. Shot near his home, Bellaghy, County Derry.
—————————————————————————
15 March 1980 John Bateman, (18)
nfNI Status: British Army (BA),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Shot by sniper while on British Army (BA) foot patrol, Crossmaglen, County
—————————————————————————
15 March 1982
Alan McCrum, (11)
Protestant Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Killed in car bomb explosion, Bridge Street, Banbridge, County Down. Inadequate warning given.
—————————————————————————
15 March 1983
Frederick Morton, (59)
Protestant Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC),
Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA) Off duty reservist. Shot during ambush while driving his bread van, Tandragee Road, Newry, County Down.
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15 March 1986 John O’Neill, (25)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Found beaten to death at the rear of Boy’s Model School, off Ballysillan Road, Ballysillan, Belfast.
Killed by: Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) Shot while travelling in car along Springhill Avenue, Ballymurphy, Belfast. Irish National Liberation Army / Irish People’s Liberation Organisation feud.
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15 March 1987
Anthony McCarthy, (31)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) Shot while travelling in car along Springhill Avenue, Ballymurphy, Belfast. Irish National Liberation Army / Irish People’s Liberation Organisation feud.
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15 March 1988
Charles McGrillen, (25)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) Shot at his workplace, Dunne’s Stores, Annadale Embankment, Ballynafeigh, Belfast
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15 March 1993
Robert Shaw, (56)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) Shot while sitting in stationary van, Quay Road, Newtownabbey, County Antrim
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15 March 1996
Barbara McAlorum, (9)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) Shot, at her home, Ashfield Gardens, Skegoneill, Belfast. Her relative the intended target. Internal Irish National Liberation Army dispute.
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15 March 1998
David Keys, (26)
Protestant Status: Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF),
Killed by: Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) Found strangled in his cell, Long Kesh / Maze Prison, County Down. Internal Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) dispute.
—————————————————————————
15 March 1999
Rosemary Nelson, (40)
Catholic Status: Civilian (Civ),
Killed by: Red Hand Defenders (RHD) Lawyer. Killed by booby trap bomb attached to her car, which exploded shortly after leaving her home, while travelling along Ashford Grange, Lurgan, County Armagh.
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