1. Background and preparations

2. Ambush

3. Aftermath

4. Songs

5. See also

6. References

7. External links

• {{Flagicon image|Flag of the British Army.svg}} British Army
• {{Flagicon image|Flag of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.svg|size=23px}} RUC

The Loughgall Ambush took place on 8 May 1987 in the village of Loughgall, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. An eight-man unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched an attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) base in the village. An IRA member drove a digger with a bomb in its bucket through the perimeter fence, while the rest of the unit arrived in a van and fired on the building. The bomb exploded and destroyed almost half of the base. Soldiers from the British Army's Special Air Service (SAS) then returned fire both from within the base and from hidden positions around it in a pre-planned ambush, killing all of the IRA attackers.^[3] Two of them were subsequently found to have been unarmed when they were killed.^[3][5]

A civilian was also killed and another wounded by the SAS after unwittingly driving into the ambush zone and being mistaken for IRA attackers.^[3]

The joint British Army/RUC operation was codenamed Operation Judy.^[6][7] It was the IRA's biggest loss of life in a single incident during The Troubles.^[8] In 2015, it was announced that a fresh inquest was to be held.^[9]

Background and preparations

The IRA's East Tyrone Brigade was active mainly in eastern County Tyrone and neighbouring parts of County Armagh. By the mid-1980s it had become one of the IRA's most aggressive formations. Members of the unit, such as Jim Lynagh and Pádraig McKearney, advocated a strategy of destroying bases and preventing them being rebuilt or repaired in an attempt to "deny ground" to British forces.^[10][11] In 1985, Patrick Joseph Kelly became its commander and began implementing the strategy. In 1985 and 1986, it carried out two major attacks on Royal Ulster Constabulary bases.^[12] The first was an attack on the RUC barracks in Ballygawley on 7 December 1985, in which two police officers were shot dead. The second was an attack on an RUC base at The Birches on 11 August 1986. In both attacks, the bases were raked with machine-gun fire and then severely damaged with homemade bombs. In the attack at The Birches, they had breached the base's perimeter fence with a digger that had a bomb in its bucket.^[11] It was planned to use the same tactic in an attack on the lightly-manned Loughgall base.^[11][13]

The British security forces however had received detailed intelligence about the IRA's plans.^[6] It is believed that this was obtained by RUC Special Branch and the British Army's Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU).^[11] It has been alleged that the security forces had a double agent inside the IRA unit, and that he was killed by the SAS in the ambush.^[14] Other sources claim that the security forces had instead learned of the ambush through other surveillance methods.^[15] In his book, Terrorism: Inside A World Phenomenon, Barry Davies states that the date and time of the attack was eventually confirmed by a telephone tap.^[16] According to historian and former Professor of Politics at Queen's University Belfast Richard English, information of the attack had not come from within the unit, though Tony Gormley was known to security forces as a well-paid Special Branch informant.^[17]

Three local RUC officers worked at the station, which was only open part-time, from 9 AM to 11 AM, and from 5 PM to 7 PM daily. On the day of the attack, two RUC Headquarters Mobile Support Unit (HMSU) officers were placed in the station to accompany the local RUC officer who was to carry on the normal running of the station.^[4][3] The HMSU was the RUC's equivalent of the SAS. Six SAS soldiers in plain clothes, including the commander, were positioned inside.^[3] Another eighteen SAS soldiers in uniform were hidden in five locations in wooded areas around the station.^[3]

The IRA's attack involved two teams. One team was to drive a digger with a bomb in its bucket through the base's perimeter fence and light the fuse. At the same time, another team would arrive in a van and open fire on the base,^[2] with the aim of killing the three RUC officers as they came off duty.^[18] Both teams would then leave the area in the van.^[2] To avoid security checkpoints, the bomb was ferried by boat across Lough Neagh, from Ardboe to Maghery.^[19] The van and digger that would be used were hijacked in the hours leading up to the attack.^[2] The van, a blue Toyota HiAce, was stolen by masked men from a business in Dungannon. At about the same time, the unit's commander James Lynagh was spotted in the town, suggesting the van might be used in the attack.^[16] The digger (a backhoe loader) was taken from a farm at Lislasly Road, about two miles west of Loughgall. Two IRA members stayed at the farm to stop the owners raising the alarm. Declan Arthurs drove the digger, while two others drove ahead of him in a scout car. The rest of the unit travelled in the van from another location, presumably also with a scout car.^[2] When a covert observation post monitoring the digger reported that it was being moved, the SAS took up its positions.^[16]

Ambush

The IRA unit arrived in Loughgall from the north-east shortly after 7PM,^[2] when the station was scheduled to close for the night. They were armed and wearing bulletproof vests, boilersuits, gloves and balaclavas.^[2] The digger drove past the police station, turned around and drove back again with the Toyota van carrying the main IRA assault party doing the same.^[20] Not seeing any activity in the station in their two slow passes of it, members of the IRA unit felt that something was amiss,^[20] and debated whether to continue, but decided to go ahead with the attack.^[18] Tony Gormley and Gerard O'Callaghan got out of the van and joined Declan Arthurs on the digger, according to journalist Peter Taylor, "literally riding shotgun", with weapons in one hand and a lighter in the other.^[20] At about 7:15 Arthurs drove the digger towards the station.^[2] In the front bucket was 200–400 lb^[19] of semtex inside an oil drum, partially hidden by rubble and wired to two 40-second fuses.^[16] The other five members of the unit followed in the van with Eugene Kelly driving, unit commander Patrick Kelly in the passenger seat, whilst in the rear were Lynagh, Pádraig McKearney, and Seamus Donnelly.^[20] The digger crashed through the light security fence and the fuses were lit. The van stopped a short distance ahead and, according to the British security forces, three of the team jumped out and fired on the building with automatic weapons.^[6] Author Raymond Murray disputes this.^[2] According to Taylor, and co-corroborated by the ECHR report, Patrick Kelly jumped from the passenger seat and, followed by others, immediately opened fire on the building, either to encourage the rest to resolve the dispute about going ahead with the attack, or possibly because this was the way previous attacks had begun.^[20] At the same time, the bomb detonated, the blast destroying the digger and badly damaging the building, injuring three members of the security forces within.^[21]

Within seconds the SAS opened fire on the IRA attackers from the station and from hidden positions outside with M16 and H&K G3 rifles and two L7A2 general-purpose machine guns.^[18] 600 spent British cartridge cases from the scene were recovered, with approximately 125 bullet holes in the bodywork of the van.^[3] 78 spent cartridge cases were recovered that were fired from IRA weapons.^[3] All eight IRA members were killed in the hail of gunfire; all had multiple wounds to their bodies, including their heads.^[2][22] Declan Arthurs was shot in a lane-way opposite Loughgall Football Club premises; he was unarmed and holding a cigarette lighter in his right hand.^[5][3] It has been alleged by Tim Pat Coogan that three of the wounded IRA members were shot dead as they lay on the ground after surrendering.^[23] Three other IRA members in the scout cars escaped from the scene, managing to pass through British Army and RUC check-points set up after the ambush had been sprung.^[2][18]

Two innocent civilians travelling in a car that happened to drive into the scene of the ambush while it was underway were also fired upon by the British forces. The two brothers, Anthony and Oliver Hughes, were driving home in a white Citroen GS Special car after repairing a lorry with Oliver wearing overalls similar to those being worn by the IRA unit.^[5] About 130 yards from the police station, British soldiers opened fire on their car from behind, killing Anthony (the driver) and badly wounding Oliver.^[2] The Citroen had approximately 34 bullet holes.^[3] The villagers had not been told of the operation and no attempt had been made to evacuate anyone or to seal off the ambush zone, as this might have alerted the IRA.^[7] Anthony's widow was later compensated by the British Government for the death of her husband.^[2][24]

The security forces recovered eight IRA firearms from the scene: three H&K G3 rifles, one FN FAL rifle, two FN FNC rifles, a Franchi SPAS-12T shotgun and a Ruger Security-Six revolver. The RUC linked the weapons to seven known murders and twelve attempted murders in the Mid-Ulster region.^[1] The Ruger had been stolen from Reserve RUC officer William Clement, killed two years earlier in the IRA attack on Ballygawley RUC base.^[25] It was found that another of the guns had been used in the murder of Harold Henry, a builder employed by the British Army and RUC in facilities construction in Northern Ireland.^[26]

Aftermath

The East Tyrone Brigade continued to be active until the last Provisional IRA ceasefire ten years later. SAS operations against the IRA also continued. The IRA set out to find the informer it believed to be among them, although it has been suggested that the informer, if there ever was one, had been killed in the ambush.^[14] Loughgall RUC station was attacked again on 5 September 1990, when the blast from a van bomb badly damaged it, wounding seven officers.^[27][27][28]

The IRA members killed in the ambush became known as the "Loughgall Martyrs" among IRA supporters.^[29] The men's relatives considered their deaths to be part of a deliberate shoot-to-kill policy by the security forces. Thousands of people attended their funerals, the biggest republican funerals in Northern Ireland since those of the IRA hunger strikers of 1981.^[30] Gerry Adams, in his graveside oration, gave a speech stating the British Government understood that it could buy off the government of the Republic of Ireland, which he described as the "shoneen clan" (that is, Anglophile), but added "it does not understand the Jim Lynaghs, the Pádraig McKearneys or the Séamus McElwaines. It thinks it can defeat them. It never will."^[31]

Shortly after the ambush the Provisional IRA released a statement saying: "volunteers who shot their way out of the ambush and escaped saw other volunteers being shot on the ground after being captured".^[32]

In 2001 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that ten IRA men, including the eight killed at Loughgall, had their human rights violated by the failure of the British Government to conduct a proper investigation into their deaths.^[22] The court did not make any finding that these deaths amounted to unlawful killing.^[33] In December 2011, Northern Ireland's Historical Enquiries Team found that not only did the IRA team fire first but that they could not have been safely arrested. They concluded that the British Army was justified in opening fire.^[34]

Loughgall police station was re-built and was in use until its administrative closure in August 2009.^[35] In April 2011 it was sold for private development.^[36]

Songs

See also

• Timeline of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions
• Attack on Ballygawley barracks
• Ballygawley bus bombing
• Attack on Derryard checkpoint
• Clonoe ambush
• 1997 Coalisland attack

References

External links

• Special Air Service (SAS) – Loughgall, Northern Ireland

• Yes I Am (Melissa Etheridge album)
• Yesidis
• Yesilçam
• Yes It Is
• Yes-know pen
• Yes-know pen®
• Yeslam Binladen
• Yeslam Bin Laden
• Yeslam bin Ladin
• Yeslam Bin Ladin
• Yesler Terrace, Seattle
• Yes: Live – 1975 at Q.P.R.
• Yes men
• Yes Men
• Yes Minister
• Yes (Morphine album)
• Yes (movie)
• Yes network
• YES Network
• Yes-no pen
• Yeso
• Yesod
• Yes Please!
• Yes, (Prime) Minister
• Yes Prime Minister