History of the IRA in County Tyrone
During the period of the Troubles, no county or region of the Six Counties was left unscarred. However, there cannot be an area which suffered as much as County Tyrone.
For a period of around seven years, from 1987 to 1994, Republicans in County Tyrone, in particular east Tyrone, were subjected to a campaign by the both the SAS and the Mid-Ulster UVF, aided and abetted by their cohorts in the security forces, which aimed to terrorise Republicans and the wider Nationalist community in the area. Drive along the winding country roads in the green hills northwest of Dungannon, and you will come to a tiny hamlet called Cappagh, at the foodholds of the Sperrin Mountains. At the centre of the village, on its only street, stands a tricolour and a memorial stone with a list of the local Republican dead, amongst them Cappagh’s finest son, Martin Hurson, who died on hunger strike in Long Kesh in 1981. In this staunchly Republican area, along with its neighbouring parish of Galbally a mile down the road, which between them number around a couple of hundred people, ten volunteers were killed, most of them in the late eighties and early nineties. Four of the Loughgall Martyrs, the eight IRA volunteers shot dead in 1987 whilst attempting to bomb an RUC barracks, came from Cappagh and Galbally. Possibly the most notorious incident which occurred in Cappagh was in 1991, when a UVF unit pulled up to the village’s only pub, Boyle’s Bar. Two gunmen got out and opened fire on a car which had also just pulled up, killing three local IRA volunteers, the youngest of whom was only 17. Before firing into the bar, killing Thomas Armstrong, a local civilian.
While growing up, these lads, like all young people in the area, had suffered endless harassment and intimidation from the security forces. It is therefore no surprise that they made the decision to join the IRA. The intended target of the attack, Brian Arthurs, the IRA’s OC in east Tyrone, escaped injury by hiding behind the bar; his brother Declan was one of those killed at Loughgall. It is almost inconceivable that the UVF team managed to drive into Cappagh and make their escape unhindered, without assistance from the security forces, as the area was always heavily patrolled due to Republican activity. In the hours and days after an IRA attack, the surrounding area would have been saturated by security forces. But after the Boyle’s bar shooting, there were no roadblocks to be seen. In addition to this, a car which was found burnt out in a nearby quarry, reported by the RUC to have been the getaway car, had been said by locals to have been seen on fire before the attack, suggesting that it had been left there as a false trail.
In June 1991, an IRA unit planning to shoot a UDR soldier was ambushed and shot dead by the SAS in the Loyalist village of Coagh. Three volunteers, Laurence McNally and Michael Ryan, both from Ardboe on the shores of Lough Neagh, and Tony Doris from Coalisland, lay dead. For the families of Pete Ryan and Laurence McNally, the grief that they suffered was already all too familiar. Pete Ryan’s cousin, IRA volunteer Liam Ryan, had been shot dead by the UVF in 1989 in his bar in Ardboe along with Michael Devlin, an uninvolved civilian. In 1988, Laurence McNally’s brother, Phelim, was shot dead by the UVF whilst playing traditional music at the isolated house of his brother, Francie, who was a Sinn Fein councillor in the area. Hours later, Phelim McNally’s wife gave birth to their sixth child.
Hardly a Republican family in the area was left unscathed, but surely no family’s plight could be as tragic as that of the McKearney family, from the Moy, a little village just across from the border with County Armagh. One of those killed at Loughgall in 1987 was 33 year-old Padraig McKearney, who was on the run after escaping from Long Kesh four years earlier. This was not the first time tragedy had struck the family, and nor would it be the last. Padraig’s brother Sean had been killed on active service in 1974 when a bomb he was planting exploded prematurely. In 1992, the family was again plunged into grief, when Padraig and Sean’s brother Kevin, a father of four young children who was not involved with the IRA, was shot dead as he worked behind the counter of the family butcher shop in the Moy. His uncle, Jack McKearney, was also shot, and died three months later in hospital. In the days leading up to the attack, the family had received several threatening phone calls saying that three men “in white coats” (a reference to the butchers coats they wore) would be killed at Moy Square. Later that year, Charlie and Tess Fox, the parents of Kevin McKearney’s wife, were shot dead at their home by the UVF. Their son, Paddy Fox, had just been handed a ten year sentence for possession of explosives.
So many Republican families in east Tyrone have been affected that it is nearly impossible to talk about them all. However I will detail one more case: that of Kathleen O’Hagan. In August 1994 the 37 year old was at home minding her 5 young boys while her husband Paddy, a former Republican prisoner, attended a family reunion. That night, UVF gunmen burst into the house, and as she cowered in the corner of the room, shot her dead. She was seven months pregnant. At 4am, Paddy O’Hagan returned to find his four oldest sons, aged from eight to four, cradling Kathleen’s body, whilst the youngest son of just eighteen months stood in a cot in the same room. Bullet marks were peppered across the wall above the baby’s cot.
Despite all these setbacks, the East Tyrone Brigade’s spirit was never broken, and more attacks followed. That they did not give up and pack it in when faced with such immense hardship and grief is a testament to the bravery and determination of the the volunteers of the East Tyrone Brigade. The names of all Tyrone Republicans who died in the fight for Irish freedom are listed below. We owe it to their memory to carry on the struggle, and make Ireland a nation once again.
le Vincent Harkin
* Vol Denis Quinn
- July 3rd, 1972
* Vol Hugh Heron
- October 16th , 1972
* Vol John Patrick Mullan -
October 16th, 1972
* Vol Eugene Devlin
- December 27th, 1972
* Vol Kevin Kilpatrick
- May 13th, 1973
* Vol Seán Loughran
- June 25th, 1973
* Vol Patrick Carty -
June 25th, 1973
* Vol Gerard McGlynn
- August 11th, 1973
* Vol Séamus Harvey
- August 11th, 1973
* Vol Daniel McAnallen
- August 16th, 1973
* Vol Patrick Quinn
- August 16th, 1973
* Vol Desmond Morgan
- November 26th, 1973
* Vol Jim McGinn -
December 15th, 1973
* Vol Patrick McDonald
- March 15th, 1974
* Vol Kevin Murray -
March 15th, 1974
* Vol Eugene Martin
- May 13th, 1974
* Vol Seán McKearney
- May 13th, 1974
* Vol Neil Lafferty
- April 26th, 1975
* Vol Paul Duffy -
February 26th, 1978
* Vol Brian Campbell
- December 4th, 1983
* Vol Colm McGirr -
December 4th, 1983
* Vol William Price
- July 13th, 1984
* Vol Charlie Breslin
- February 23rd, 1985
* Vol David Devine
- February 23rd, 1985
* Vol Michael Devine
- February 23rd, 1985
* Vol Declan Arthurs
- May 8th, 1987
* Vol Séamus Donnelly -
May 8th, 1987
* Vol Tony Gormley
- May 8th, 1987
* Vol Eugene Kelly
- May 8th, 1987
* Vol Paddy Kelly
- May 8th, 1987
* Vol Jim Lynagh -
May 8th, 1987
* Vol Pádraig McKearney
- May 8th, 1987
* Vol Gerard O’Callaghan
- May 8th, 1987
* Vol Séamus Woods
- July 7th, 1988
* Vol Brian Mullin -
August 30th, 1988
* Vol Gerard Harte
- August 30th, 1988
* Vol Martin Harte
- August 30th, 1988
* Vol James Joseph Connolly
- February 6th, 1989
* Vol Liam Ryan
- November 29th, 1989
* Vol Dessie Grew
- October 9th, 1990
* Vol Martin McCaughey
- October 9th, 1990
* Vol Noel Wilkinson
- March 3rd, 1991
* Vol John Quinn
- March 3rd, 1991
* Vol Malcolm Nugent
- March 3rd, 1991
* Vol Dwayne O’Donnell
- March 3rd, 1991
* Vol Tony Doris
- June 3rd, 1991
* Vol Lawrence McNally
- June 3rd, 1991
* Vol Pete Ryan
- June 3rd, 1991
* Vol Danny McCauley
- June 4th, 1991
* Vol Sean Anderson - October 25th, 1991
* Vol Seán O’Farrell
- February 16th, 1992
* Vol Kevin Barry O’Donnell
- February 16th, 1992
* Vol Patrick Vincent -
February 16th, 1992
* Vol Peter Clancy
- February 16th, 1992