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| the troubles in county armagh | |
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During the early seventies the brigade was mostly engaged in ambushes of British Army patrols. Traveling overland in south Armagh eventually became so dangerous that the British Army began using helicopters to transport troops and supply its bases. An IRA commander who distinguished himself 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 developed the home-made mortars which were relatively inaccurate but highly destructive. In 1975 and 1976 , as sectarian violence increased in Northern Ireland , the South Armagh Brigade under the cover-name of the South Armagh Republican Action Force carried out two horrible attacks against Protestants. In September 1975 an IRA unit attacked an Orange Order lodge in Newtownhamilton killing five Orangemen. Then, in January 1976, after a series of loyalist attacks in the border areas, the IRA shot and killed ten Protestant workmen at the " Kingsmill Massacre " near Bessbrook . The worker's bus was stopped and the one Catholic worker taken aside before the others were killed. As a response to this the British government dispatched the Special Air Service to south Armagh. Although the SAS scored several successes it was never able to fully cope with the south Armagh IRA. By the end of the seventies the IRA had been restructured into a cell system. This had proved very effective in south Armagh. In August 1979 an IRA active service unit killed 18 British soldiers in an ambush near Warrenpoint . An IRA member, Raymond McCreesh , was among the ten hunger strikers who died in 1981 . The South Armagh Brigade retaliated for the deaths of the hunger strikers by blowing up five British soldiers near Bessbrook. During the mid-eighties the brigade focused its attacks on the RUC, killing 20 of its members between 1984 and 1986 . Nine of these were killed in a mortar attack on the RUC barracks in Newry in February 1985 . In March 1989 two of the most high ranking RUC officers were killed in an ambush near Killeen . One was a chief superintendent and the other a superintendent. In 1986 the British Army erected ten observation posts in south Armagh making it the most heavily militarized area in Northern Ireland. In an area with a population of 23,000 the British stationed around 3000 troops. In December 1990 a young IRA and Sinn Fein member, Fergal Caraher , was killed by the British Army in Cullyhanna in controversial circumstances. His brother Mícéal Caraher , who was severely wounded in the shoting, later became the commander of the south Armagh sniper squad. The squad was responsible for killing seven soldiers and two policemen until it was finally caught by the SAS in April 1997. The South Armagh Brigade was the one which built the massive bombs that were used to wreck economic parts of London during the nineties. The IRA in south Armagh was the only brigade which managed to shoot down several British military helicopters during the Troubles, in 1978 , 1988 , and 1994 . In 1992 forty south Armagh IRA volunteers ambushed ten helicopters around Crossmaglen. This large-scale battle resulted in no losses for either side. After the Provisional IRA announced its intention to disarm and accept peaceful methods in July 2005 the British government announced a demilitarisation plan which involves a full British Army withdrawal from south Armagh by 2007. |
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