Newry Customs Office Bomb

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Newry Customs Office Bomb
Part of The Troubles
Relief Map of Northern Ireland.png
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Newry customs office
Location Newry County Armagh, Northern Ireland
Date22 August 1972
TargetNewry customs office
Attack type
Time bomb
Deaths9 (6 civilians 3 IRA volunteers
Injured20
Perpetrator Provisional IRA

On 22 August 1972 a bomb planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, an Irish republican paramilitary group, detonated prematurely at a customs office in Newry. 6 civilians and 3 IRA members were killed in the explosion. The event was one of the bloodiest of 1972, the deadliest year of The Troubles. [1] [2]

Background

Since 1971 the Provisional IRA had been waging a campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland. Gun and bomb attacks became daily occurrences in the province as the campaign continued. In January 1972 soldiers from the Parachute Regiment shot dead 14 civil rights marchers in Derry, in an event later known as Bloody Sunday (1972). The attack enraged the Nationalist community and as a result support for the IRA surged. In the coming months the ferocity of the conflict, and as a result number of casualties, rose dramatically.

While military installations and civilian businesses were targeted alike, civilians were rarely themselves targets in IRA attacks. Despite this civilians often fell accidental victim to the nascent paramilitary group's operations. This most prominently occurred on Bloody Friday (1972), when several bombs planted by the IRA exploded in quick succession in Belfast. As a result of the bombs 9 people were killed.

Newry, a mainly Nationalist town near the Irish border, was a stronghold of the IRA. Numerous attacks had already taken place in the town, leading to the deaths of seven people including, three civilians, two RUC police officers, one British soldier and one IRA Volunteer. [3] [4] [5] [6]

The attack

Three IRA members walked into the office. The bomb exploded prematurely, killing the IRA members and six civilians. A number of the civilians killed worked at the customs office. [7] [8]

Related Research Articles

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1991 Craigavon killings

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Top of the Hill bar shooting

The Top of the Hill bar shooting was a mass shooting incident that took place during the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles that occurred on 20 December 1972 at the Top of the Hill bar in a small Catholic enclave of the majority Protestant Waterside area of Derry, in which five civilians were shot dead by Loyalist paramilitaries from a unit of the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) which is a part of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). The shooting is also known locally as "Annie's Bar massacre".

This is a timeline of actions by the Official Irish Republican Army, an Irish republican & Marxist-Leninist paramilitary group. Most of these actions took place as part of a Guerrilla campaign against the British Army & Royal Ulster Constabulary and internal Irish Republican feuds with the Provisional IRA & Irish National Liberation Army from the early 1970s - to the mid 1970s during the most violent phase of "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland.

References

  1. "CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1972". cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
  2. "CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths". cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
  3. Killing of Sean Ruddy unjustified, belfasttelegraph.co.uk; accessed 25 April 2015.
  4. Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles by David McKittrick and Seamus Kelters, Mainstream Publishing (June 1, 2004); ISBN   184018504X/ ISBN   978-1840185041
  5. https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1971.html
  6. https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1972.html
  7. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/08/23/archives/explosion-in-ulster-kills-8-2-apparently-the-bombers.html
  8. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/what-if-brexit-brings-the-violence-back-1.3665559