By the end of the 1970s, the IRA in most of Northern Ireland had been restructured into a cell system. The Sunday Independent has learned that the South Armagh 'OC' was outed as a 'tout' earlier this year and that shortly afterwards an IRA bodyguard team was sent from Belfast to ensure that no attack was made on the man in order to save embarrassment for the 'movement'. } 22 January Derek Monteith, a 35-year-old inspector in the RUC, is shot dead by the Provisional IRA in the kitchen of his home in Kilburn Park off the Portadown Road in the city. } 14 November Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) chairman of Armagh District Council and part-time major in the UDR Charles Armstrong is killed in a Provisional IRA booby-trap bomb explosion as he sat in his car outside the council's headquarters at the Palace Demense. if (event.detail.object.access === true) { He had charge of the IRA\u0026#039;s Border sniper team, which killed seven soldiers and two police officers in the 1990s.The team was eventually rounded up and arrested in an operation by the British Army\u0026#039;s SAS near Crossmaglen in April 1997. There were also frequent gun attacks on foot patrols. premium_content: false, [17] Corden-Lloyd's subordinates had been accused of brutality against Catholic civilians in Belfast in 1971. return cookieValue; 18 April IPLO member Martin Corrigan from Railway Street in the city is shot dead by British Army soldiers at Kinnego, a few miles from Armagh. }; if (isGrantedBy('purchase')) { The second most senior IRA man in south Armagh is being protected amid claims that he worked as an agent for British intelligence, according to usually reliable security sources. A key player in a vicious IRA sniper squad in south Armagh will be freed from prison under the Good Friday agreement within 16 months, despite yesterday receiving one of . The Sunday Independent has learned that the South Armagh 'OC' was outed as a 'tout' earlier this year and that shortly afterwards an IRA bodyguard team was sent from Belfast to ensure that. meteredAccess: purchase.metered_paywall, in Britain", "Closure of the Maze: All Out; Terrorist killers and bombers are freed from jail", "Murder verdicts quashed in Ulster sectarian killing", "AN IRISHMAN'S DIARY Kevin Myers on the Anne Marie Smyth case", "Lives lost in 'peace': Chris Thornton on Stephen Manners", "Two policemen killed in separate Ulster attacks", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Troubles_in_Armagh&oldid=1118192779, All Wikipedia articles written in Hiberno-English, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 14 August 1969 John Gallagher, a 30 year old married father of three children, became one of the first victims of the Troubles after being shot in the back by, 10 August Norman Watson, a 53 year old Protestant civilian and member of the, 29 March Ruby Johnson, a 38 year old Protestant civilian from Ballintemple near, 26 April Lawrence Jubb, a 22 year old soldier with the, 7 August In the third incident of its kind to take place within a small area of the city that year, Geoffrey Knipe, a 24 year old soldier from, 25 October John Michael Morrell, a 32 year old soldier from, 15 December Frederick Greeves, a 40 year old member of the, 18 December William Johnson, a 48 year old local elected councillor for the, 7 April Jake McGerrigan, a 17 year old member of the Official IRA, is shot dead in the Druid's Villas area by British troops of the, 9 April Two days after the death of Jake McGerrigan, his friend and fellow Official IRA man 20-year-old Tony Hughes is shot dead in nearby Culdee by members of the, 13 August William McIlveen, a 36 year old part-time member of the, 27 August Kenneth Hill, a 24 year old corporal in the UDR, is shot dead in a gun battle with the Provisional IRA in the Culdee area of the city. }); [51][52], Since the army wind-down in 2007, security in the area is the sole responsibility of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. 'false' : 'true'; The South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) operated during the Troubles in south County Armagh. According to Lost Lives, it is assumed that he was killed in retaliation for a UVF gun attack on a Catholic man in the city earlier that day. But there's more: discover your full benefits now. subscriptionStartDate: purchase.granted_by_app_purchase.original_start_at, 18 October 67-year-old Protestant Herbert John Anderson is shot dead by the Provisional IRA who ambushed his taxi on the Armagh to, 19 April Agnes Wallace (40), a Prison Officer, was killed and three female colleagues were injured in an, 2 June Alan Dunne (36), an off-duty member of the RUC, and David Stinson (32), a, 9 June Peadar McElvenna, a 24-year-old Provisional IRA member from Convent Close in the city, is shot dead after an IRA attack on the RUC barracks in Keady, south Armagh. RM2HX09AC - File photo dated 7/8/2011 of Peter Smithwick, the senior judge who led an inquiry into claims of Garda/IRA collusion into the murder of two RUC officers, has died aged 85. return key.indexOf('granted_by_') > -1; 24 July 1990 Joshua Willis (35), William Hanson (37) and David Sterritt (34), all members of the RUC, and, 1 March 24-year-old Paul Sutcliffe, who came from. } The workers' bus was stopped and the one Catholic worker taken aside before the others were killed. Unlike other operations in which the SAS were involved, members of the sniper team were not killed. return; document.cookie = subscriberCookieName + "=" + JSON.stringify(cookieData) + ';path=/;domain=' + domain + ';max-age='+cookieExpiryInSeconds; window.showSubscriberElements(); userID: purchase.granted_by_purchase.user_id, His father-in-law, Joseph Wilson, a member of the UDR, had been shot dead by the Provisional IRA a short distance away in 1976. Many men in the area served in the Fourth Northern Division of the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence (191921) and, unlike most of the rest of the Northern Ireland IRA, on the republican side in the Irish Civil War (192223). 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. [10], However, the IRA campaign in the area did not begin in earnest until 1971. vars.user.subscriptionFinishDate = subscriberCookie.subscriptionFinishDate || ''; He is a close associate of the Provos' border boss Thomas 'Slab' Murphy, Gerry Adams and other figures in Sinn Fein. Purchase Price. [54][55] On 22 June 1998 a deadly incident involving fuel smuggling took place near Crossmaglen, when former Thomas Murphy employee Patrick Belton ran over and killed a British soldier attempting to stop him while driving his oil tanker through a military checkpoint. 20 December Austin Smith, a 44-year-old Catholic member of the UDR, is shot dead by the Provisional IRA as he returned to his home on the Windmill estate in a heavily nationalist part of the city. 24 February - Reginald Williamson, a 46-year-old RUC member from Armagh, is killed when a Provisional IRA booby-trap bomb explodes under his car near the village of Loughgall. He had just finished his last shift in the regiment when he was shot outside his home. October 21 2015 11:41 PM The mother of a young man who was beaten to death by a south Armagh IRA gang has demanded that Sinn Fin members stop "protecting" her son's killers. It was one of the few times the SAS didn't shoot members of an IRA active service unit on armed operations. The mortar round hit and shot down the helicopter, serial number ZD275, [1] while it was hovering over the helipad. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . $553 (2019) Beds. Earlier in the day two large no-warning car bombs left by the loyalist. The latter is suspected of playing a role in the London bombings that marked the end of the IRA. 2 . Murphy was lightly wounded and arrested by the RUC. The dead youth, from the townland of Ballymoran just outside Armagh city, was learning to drive and had offered to put his father's car in the garage when the explosion happened. } const flipPayJsUrl = 'https://cdn.flip-pay.com/clients/inm/flip-pay.js'; {"gigya.api.key":"4_CO8231Ix1RbYi2EmMbsrlw","gigya.screenset":"Default-RegistrationLogin","gigya.mobile.screenset":"Default-RegistrationLogin","gigya.authFlow.redirect":"true","gigya.check.enabled":"true","gigya.check.host":"gigya-check.independent.ie","competitions.submit.endpoint":"https://competitions-api.independent.ie/entries","competitions.api.key":"0b15feaa-62b2-45a2-8244-723a9e80748e","subscriptionwall.cookie-domain":".independent.ie","subscriptionwall.metered.missing.fields":"data.occupation,data.phone,data.salutation,data.yearofbirth,profile.firstName,profile.lastName","subscriptionwall.welcome_url.home-delivery":"https://subscribe.independent.ie/welcome/home-delivery/","subscriptionwall.welcome_url.premium-plus":"https://subscribe.independent.ie/welcome/premium-plus/","subscriptionwall.welcome_url.premium":"https://subscribe.independent.ie/welcome/premium/","kaching.enabled":"true","outbrain.kaching.enabled":"true","quantcast.enabled":"false","didomi.enabled":"true","newsletter.subscribe_url":"https://member.independent.ie/quicksubscribe/IN:Daily/subscribe","social-embed-consent-wall.enabled":"true","homepage.regional.sections.mapping":"Cork:regionals/corkman/:corkman,Dublin:regionals/dublin/:dublin,Kerry:regionals/kerryman/:kerryman,Louth:regionals/louth/:louth,Sligo:regionals/sligochampion/:sligochampion,Wexford:regionals/wexford/:wexford,Wicklow:regionals/wicklow/:wicklow","active_cmp":"didomi"} {"url":"https://shared.mediahuis.be/ka-ching/independent/ka-ching.umd.js?20210830","adunit":"m.independent.ie/Irish_News","targeting":{"art_id":"34944633","article_id":"34944633","kw":["South","Armagh","IRA","rocked","as","OC","is","outed","as","a","tout"],"gs_channels":["gs_notprocessed"],"article_type":"standard"},"platform":"MOB","pageType":"Article","lazyload":true} {"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"South Armagh IRA rocked as \u0026#039;OC\u0026#039; is outed as a \u0026#039;tout\u0026#039;","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Independent.ie","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://m.independent.ie/theme/_base/"},"@id":"independent.ie"},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.independent.ie/incoming/65cdb/34944440.ece/AUTOCROP/w1240h700/provos.jpg","height":"700","width":"1240"},"mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://www.independent.ie/"},"dateCreated":"2016-08-06T22:16:02.000Z","dateModified":"2016-08-06T22:40:34.000Z","datePublished":"2016-08-07T01:30:00Z","keywords":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://www.independent.ie/incoming/65cdb/34944440.ece/AUTOCROP/w1240h700/provos.jpg","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jim Cusack"},"description":"The second most senior IRA man in South Armagh is being \u0026#039;protected\u0026#039; amid claims that he worked as an agent for British intelligence, according to usually reliable security sources. 7 September 61-year-old Catholic RUC man John Wasson is shot dead by the INLA outside his Duke's Grove home in a nationalist area of the city. He was finishing work building garages at the back of the Housing Executive offices on Dobbin Street when the gunman struck. 10 November Charles Neville, a 56-year-old Protestant and former member of the UDR, is killed in a Provisional IRA gun and grenade attack on his car at the Loughgall Road. } 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. The new Irish Sea Border: What does it mean? 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. It is not clear how the 'OC' came to be exposed as an agent but he is believed to have been recruited by British Intelligence in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The owner of the farm was also arrested. } else { const vars = JSON.parse('{"attributes":{"inmproduct":"amp","virtualview":"false"},"category":{"pageType":"Article","primaryCategory":"Irish News","regionals":"","sectionId":"77","subCategory1":"n\/a","subCategory2":"n\/a","subCategory3":"n\/a","subCategory4":"n\/a"},"page":{"pageName":"In:Irish News:South Armagh IRA rocked as \u0027OC\u0027 is outed as a \u0027tout\u0027","pageTitle":"South Armagh IRA rocked as \u0027OC\u0027 is outed as a \u0027tout\u0027","publication":"Independent.ie"},"user":{"gigyaID":"","subscriptionStatus":"","subscriptionStartDate":"","subscriptionFinishDate":"","userID":""},"article":{"articleID":"34944633","articleType":"News","articleLayout":"standard","author":"Jim Cusack","createdAt":"2016-08-06 22:16:02","modifiedAt":"2016-08-06 22:40:34","publishedAt":"2016-08-07 01:30:00","wallType":"none","wallVisible":"false","relatedContent":{"gallery":0,"news":3,"photos":1,"soundcloud":0,"videos":0},"source":"Sunday Independent","tags":"","topics":""}}' || '{}'); The board of finance Wednesday voted 4-2 in favor of using $300,000 in funding to repair the Grange Pool.Repairs to the nearly 60-year-old pool have been estimated between $300,000 to $350,000. [18] In August 1979, a South Armagh unit killed 18 soldiers in the Warrenpoint ambush. }; Sorry, we couldn't find what you're looking for. His younger brother, a member of the UDR, had lost both legs in an IRA attack on the Mall in 1982. 'false' : 'true'; 17 June 34-year-old Geraldine Corrigan died two days after being shot by what is thought to have been a member of the Official IRA during a botched robbery at her family's supermarket on the Cathedral Road. [46] 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 man, who has the official title of officer commanding South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional IRA, is also a member of the Northern Command, which effectively ran the organisation from the early 1980s. A sniper rifle and other weapons were recovered. They carried out 23 attacks on British Army helicopters during the Troubles, bringing five down on separate occasions: the Gazelle shot down in February 1978 near Jonesborough,[17] a Lynx in June 1988,[35] a second Lynx in February 1991,. A unit of the IRA's South Armagh Brigade fired a heavy improvised mortar at the British Army base in Crossmaglen, County Armagh. 29 April Thomas McGeary, a 48-year-old Catholic civilian, is killed by a booby-trap bomb planted in his car just outside Armagh city. vars.article.userWall = 'none'; A British border patrol searches a lorry in 1969. window.showSubscriberElements = true; Hair tattoos becoming increasingly popular among men in Ireland. It is believed that the British struck a deal whereby the IRA leaders could continue to benefit from the illicit trade so long as no further attacks on security forces or bomb attacks on commercial targets took place. const isGrantedBy = function (grant) { vars.article.wallVisible = 'false'; window.GTMLoaded = false; 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. . return 'premium'; Many of the major IRA bombs in England this decade, including Canary Wharf. subscriptionStartDate: '0000-00-00T00:00:00Z', item_group_code: "pfc_indo", The team was eventually rounded up and arrested in an operation by the British Army's SAS near Crossmaglen in April 1997. const domain = '.independent.ie'; The County of Orange closed the application period for the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program on April 30, 2021. if (isGrantedBy('app_purchase')) { subscriptionStartDate: purchase.granted_by_purchase.original_start_at, He was among a group of youths who were asked for ID by the patrol, and when an argument then broke out between them and the UDR members he was shot once in the chest at point blank range. 24 February - Anne Marie Smyth, a 26-year-old Catholic mother of two from the Longstone estate in Armagh is murdered in east Belfast by the UVF after she attended what was meant to be a party in a loyalist area. subscriptionStatus: 'Whitelist', } By the time of the final IRA ceasefire in August 1997 the south Armagh IRA leadership was already heavily involved in fuel and cigarette smuggling. 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