| Castleblayney bombing | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Troubles | |
  Car bomb site | |
| Location | Castleblayney, County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland |
| Coordinates | 54.120°N 6.738°W |
| Date | 7 March 1976 |
Attack type | Car bomb |
| Deaths | 1 |
| Injured | 17 |
| Perpetrators | Ulster Volunteer Force, Ulster Defense Regiment, part of Glenanne gang |
On 7 March 1976 a car bomb exploded outside the Three Star Inn pub, in Castleblayney, County Monaghan, killing one man and injuring 17 other people. The attack has been attributed to the Glenanne gang. [1]
Since at least 5 August 1969, Ulster loyalists had been planting bombs across the Irish border [2] in the Republic, most of them had been planted by the Ulster Volunteer Force, a few had been planted by the Ulster Freedom Fighters of the UDA, and at least one by the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV). These early bombs were small and only did small structural damage to a certain target. [3]
The worst of these bombings happened in May 1974 when 34 people were killed and 300 injured in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. [4]
On 14 February 1976, a month before the bomb at Castleblayney, a UVF bomb exploded in the main street of the small border town of Swanlinbar in County Cavan. There were no injuries. [5]
At around 8.20 pm a car bomb, for which no warning had been given, exploded outside the Three Star Inn in Castleblayney, killing 56 year-old Patrick (Packie) Mone instantly. Patrick had a wife called Anna and was a bicycle-mechanic. Despite prompt medical attention, he died on his way to hospital in the ambulance. Additionally, 17 people were injured in the blast which caused much damage in the immediate vicinity. Loyalist and Glenanne gang member John Weir claimed Mone was not the intended target, the 8.20 pm Derry-Dublin bus which usually ran like clock-work was the intended target but it was late by about two minutes. Weir also claimed that the attack was carried out by RUC officer Laurence McClure and UDR soldier Robert McConnell, using explosives provided by UDR Captain John Irwin and stored beforehand at James Mitchell's farmhouse. A memorial to Patrick Mone was erected near the site of the bombing in Castleblayney. [6] [7]
On the 17 March, 10 days after the Castleblaney bombing, the Glenanne gang carried out another car bomb attack in the Hillcrest Bar bombing which killed four more people (including two 13 year olds) and injured 50. [8]
This article recounts the violence and other effects related to The Troubles in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Much of it has been related to the Drumcree parade dispute.
The Protestant Action Force (PAF) was a front group used by Ulster loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland when claiming responsibility for a number of attacks during the Troubles. First used in 1974, attacks by individuals claiming to be members of the PAF killed at least 41 Catholic civilians. The PAF was most commonly used by members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). All of the attacks claimed by the PAF in Armagh and Tyrone counties from 1974 to 1976 have been linked to the Glenanne gang, which was a group consisting of members of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade along with rogue Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police officers. A six-year period of no attacks claimed by the PAF ended in 1982; during the 1980s, the PAF claimed 15 attacks in the Belfast area and two in County Armagh. UDR soldiers were convicted of two attacks in Armagh. The PAF claimed its last attacks in the early 1990s, all of which were in north Armagh and were alleged to involve members of the security forces.
The Reavey and O'Dowd killings were two coordinated gun attacks on 4 January 1976 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians died after members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, broke into their homes and shot them. Three members of the Reavey family were shot at their home in Whitecross and four members of the O'Dowd family were shot at their home in Ballydougan. Two of the Reaveys and three of the O'Dowds were killed outright, with the third Reavey victim dying of brain haemorrhage almost a month later.
Robert John Jackson, also known as The Jackal, was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary and part-time soldier. He was a senior officer in the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) during the period of violent ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. Jackson commanded the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade from 1975 to the early 1990s, when Billy Wright took over as leader.
William Henry Wilson Hanna MM was a high-ranking Ulster loyalist who founded and led the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) until he was killed, allegedly by Robin Jackson, who took over command of the brigade.
John Francis Green, was a leading member of the North Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, holding the rank of Staff Captain and Intelligence Officer. He was killed in a farmhouse outside Castleblayney, County Monaghan, by members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). According to Intelligence Corps member Fred Holroyd, Special Reconnaissance Unit officer Robert Nairac was involved in Green's killing. Green's was one of the 87 killings attributed by the Pat Finucane Centre to the group of Ulster loyalist paramilitaries, Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary officers known as the Glenanne gang. No one was ever prosecuted for the killing.
This is a timeline of actions by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group since 1966. It includes actions carried out by the Red Hand Commando (RHC), a group integrated into the UVF shortly after their formation in 1972. It also includes attacks claimed by the Protestant Action Force (PAF), a covername used by the UVF. Most of these actions took place during the conflict known as "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
The Glenanne gang or Glenanne group was a secret informal alliance of Ulster loyalists who carried out shooting and bombing attacks against Catholics and Irish nationalists in the 1970s, during the Troubles. Most of its attacks took place in the "murder triangle" area of counties Armagh and Tyrone in Northern Ireland. It also launched some attacks elsewhere in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. The gang consisted of British soldiers from the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and members of the Mid-Ulster Brigade of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Twenty-five British soldiers and police officers were named as purported members of the gang. Details about the group have come from many sources, including the affidavit of former member and RUC officer John Weir; statements by other former members; police, army and court documents; and ballistics evidence linking the same weapons to various attacks. Since 2003, the group's activities have also been investigated by the 2006 Cassel Report, and three reports commissioned by Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron, known as the Barron Reports. A book focusing on the group's activities, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, by Anne Cadwallader, was published in 2013. It drew on all the aforementioned sources, as well as Historical Enquiries Team investigations. The book was the basis for the 2019 documentary film Unquiet Graves, directed by Sean Murray.
Harris Boyle was an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier and a high-ranking member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary organisation. Boyle was implicated in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and took part in the attack at Buskhill, County Down when an armed UVF gang wearing British Army uniforms ambushed The Miami Showband at a bogus military checkpoint. The popular Irish cabaret band was driving home to Dublin after a performance in Banbridge. He was one of the two gunmen killed when the bomb they were loading onto the band's minibus exploded prematurely. He is sometimes referred to as Horace Boyle.
Robert William McConnell, was a Protestant murder victim of the IRA in South Armagh, later alleged to be a Ulster loyalist paramilitary who carried out or was an accomplice to a number of sectarian attacks and killings, although he never faced any charges or convictions. McConnell served part-time as a corporal in the 2nd Battalion Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and whilst no evidence has been presented he is alleged to have been a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
John Oliver Weir is an Ulster loyalist born and raised in the Republic of Ireland. He served as an officer in Northern Ireland's Royal Ulster Constabulary's (RUC) Special Patrol Group (SPG), and was a volunteer in the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). As a member of the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade led by Robin "the Jackal" Jackson, Weir was a part of the Glenanne gang, a group of loyalist extremists that carried out sectarian attacks mainly in the County Armagh area in the mid-1970s.
David Alexander Mulholland was a Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary, known to the security forces for his alleged involvement in bombing attacks. He was a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force's Mid-Ulster Brigade and was a prime suspect in the 1974 Dublin car bombings. He was named as the driver of the first of the three car bombs which exploded minutes apart in the city centre of Dublin on 17 May 1974 and left a total of 26 people dead and almost 300 injured. He was identified from police file photographs by three separate eyewitnesses during the investigation into the bombings by the Garda Síochána. According to journalist Joe Tiernan, he was offered immunity from prosecution by the Gardaí in exchange for information on his accomplices.
The Rose & Crown Bar bombing was a bomb attack carried out against a Catholic-owned pub in Belfast. The attack was carried out by the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) just less than two weeks before the start of the Ulster Workers' Council strike of May 1974 which brought down the Sunningdale power sharing agreement and just 15 days before the UVF carried out the Dublin and Monaghan bombings which killed 34 and injured 300 people, the highest casualty rate in a single day during The Troubles in either Ireland or Britain.
The Belturbet bombing occurred on 28 December 1972 when a car bomb planted by Loyalist paramilitaries exploded in the main street in the border town of Belturbet in County Cavan in the Republic of Ireland. The bomb killed two teenagers Geraldine O'Reilly (15) and Patrick Stanley (16). Nobody claimed responsibility for the bombing but security services believe the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) carried out the attack. The attack happened just a few weeks after two people were killed and 127 injured when two car bombs exploded in the centre of Dublin, Republic of Ireland on 1 December 1972. On the same day as the Belturbet bombing, two other bombs exploded in border counties, the first in Clones, County Monaghan which injured two people and the second in Pettigo in County Donegal which caused injury to a single female victim. The three bombs all exploded within 49 minutes of each other, all three bombings were believed to be part of a co-ordinated attack attributed to a single organization.
During the evening of 19 December 1975, two coordinated attacks were carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in pubs either side of the Irish border. The first attack, a car bombing, took place outside Kay's Tavern, a pub along Crowe Street in Dundalk, County Louth, Republic of Ireland - close to the border. The second, a gun and bomb attack, took place at Donnelly's Bar & Filling Station in Silverbridge, County Armagh, just across the border inside Northern Ireland. The attack has been linked to the Glenanne gang, a group of loyalist militants who were either members of the UVF, the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the closely linked UVF paramilitary the Red Hand Commando (RHC), some of the Glenanne gang were members of two of these organizations at the same time like gang leaders Billy Hanna who was in both the UVF and the UDR and who fought for the British Army during the Korean War and John Weir who was in the UVF and was a sergeant in the RUC. At least 25 UDR men and police officers were named as members of the gang. The Red Hand Commando claimed to have carried out both attacks.
The following is a timeline of actions during The Troubles which took place in the Republic of Ireland between 1969 and 1998. It includes Ulster Volunteer Force bombings such as the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in May 1974, and other Loyalist bombings carried out in the 1970s, 80s & 90s, the last of which was in 1997. These attacks killed dozens of people and injured hundreds more. Also actions carried out by Irish Republicans including bombings, prison escapes, kidnappings, and gun battles between the Gardaí (police) and the Irish Defence Forces against Republican gunmen from the Irish National Liberation Army, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and a socialist-revolutionary group, Saor Éire. These attacks killed a number of civilians, police, soldiers, and Republican paramilitaries.
The Charlemont pub attacks were co-ordinated militant Loyalist paramilitary attacks on two pubs in the small village of Charlemont, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) on the 15 May 1976. The attacks have been attributed to the Glenanne gang which was a coalition of right-wing Loyalist paramilitaries and subversive members inside the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the Ulster Defense Regiment (UDR) and the British Army.
A pub bombing or a public house bombing is an attack on a pub or public house using explosives and other bombing making material like nails, bolts, screws and similar objects which can cause horrific injuries when the bomb detonates. The Provisional IRA's Balcombe Street Gang used bolts and screws in many of their bomb attacks in the mid-1970s. Neo-nazi David Copeland used nails in his bombs.
The RTÉ Studio bombing was a 1969 bomb attack carried out by the Ulster Loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in Dublin, Ireland. It was the first Loyalist bombing in the Republic of Ireland during the Troubles.
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