The Troubles in Armagh

The Troubles in Armagh recounts incidents during The Troubles in the town (from 1994, city) of Armagh, Northern Ireland; the violence was substantial enough for the city to be referred to by some as "Murder Mile". Over the course of the Troubles, although mainly concentrated in the years from 1969 until 1994, the small city of around 15,000 people, including some outlying areas, saw 86 deaths, including those of a number of people from the city who lost their lives elsewhere in Troubles-related incidents.

1969

14 August 1969 – John Gallagher, a 30 year old married father of three children, became one of the first victims of the Troubles after being shot in the back by B-Specials members who opened fire on a crowd after trouble had erupted in the Shambles area of the city. Eyewitnesses have stated that Gallagher wandered into the crowd after leaving a pub under the influence of alcohol and had not been involved in any disorder. According to the Scarman tribunal set up to investigate events at the outbreak of the Troubles, the actions of the B-Specials in that incident amounted to 'grave misconduct'. in 1990, John Gallagher's daughter was injured in an IRA bomb attack which killed three Royal Ulster Constabulary members and a Catholic nun in the city.

1971

10 August – Norman Watson, a 53 year old Protestant civilian and member of the Orange Order, was shot dead by the British Army in the Irish Street area during an exchange of fire with IRA members, after serious violence had erupted across Northern Ireland when internment without trial had been introduced on the previous day. Watson was driving in his car with his wife at the time and had not been involved in any violence.

1972

29 March – Ruby Johnson, a 38 year old Protestant civilian from Ballintemple near Newtownhamilton in south Armagh, died seven weeks after suffering serious burns when the bus she was a passenger in was attacked by a gang of youths during trouble at the Ring Road area of the city. The inquest into her death heard that at least two petrol bombs were thrown through the windows of the Ulsterbus, setting her alight after the vehicle was engulfed in flames. Journalist Sean O'Hagan, who grew up in Armagh and whose father witnessed the incident, 30 years later wrote a piece on her death for the Guardian. 26 April – Lawrence Jubb, a 22 year old soldier with the Royal Engineers and from Doncaster, England, died when the recovery lorry he was driving overturned and trapped him and two other soldiers after it was stoned by children near the entrance to the Drumarg estate. According to the book Lost Lives, which chronicles every death in the Troubles up until the year 1999, local people were reported as attempting to rescue the trapped soldiers, including a nurse whose husband was a republican prisoner in the Long Kesh prison camp at the time. 7 August – In the third incident of its kind to take place within a small area of the city that year, Geoffrey Knipe, a 24 year old soldier from Bradford, England serving with the Royal Dragoon Guards was killed when youths said to be between the ages of 10 and 17 attacked his vehicle with stones at the Ring Road flyover, with one brick smashing through the front windscreen of his vehicle and hitting him on the head, killing him instantly. 25 October – John Michael Morrell, a 32 year old soldier from Macclesfield, England died 10 days after being injured in a Provisional IRA booby-trap explosion at a house in the heavily republican Drumarg estate which injured him and four other soldiers from the South Staffordshire Regiment. Lost Lives, the chronology which attempts to list the name of everyone who died in the Troubles, mistakenly lists his death as having occurred in south Armagh. 15 December – Frederick Greeves, a 40 year old member of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was shot dead on the Moy Road by the Official IRA outside the factory that he worked in. in 1974 a man was sentenced to life in prison for his killing. 18 December – William Johnson, a 48 year old local elected councillor for the Ulster Unionist Party and a member of the Police Authority, is found shot dead near the border after being taken by the Provisional IRA from a house in the Drumarg estate, where he had been carrying out work. Another man who had been abducted with him but later released unharmed, told a court that the gunmen who were questioning them in a vacant house in County Monaghan searched both men and found documents relating to the Police Authority on Johnston. According to Lost Lives, which chronicles the deaths of those who died in the Troubles, this is the likely reason that Johnston was shot dead.

1973

7 April – Jake McGerrigan, a 17 year old member of the Official IRA, is shot dead in the Druid's Villas area by British troops of the Parachute Regiment, who also badly wounded fellow OIRA man John Nixon, later to take part in the 1980 republican hunger strike in the Maze Prison. The army, who had fired from the adjoining Windmill Hill, claimed that this was after they had come under fire from two positions in nearby Navan Street and that a few minutes after the reported firing they had spotted a number of armed men walking in a military-style formation and fired one shot towards them which passed through Jake McGerrigan and into John Nixon. However, civilian witnesses at the scene stated that they had seen no guns lying near the dead youth's body, and the inquest into his death heard swabs taken from his hands and those of John Nixon showed no traces of lead residue. He was given a full republican funeral at which an estimated 8000 mourners attended. Lost Lives, the chronology which attempts to list the name of everyone who died in the Troubles, mistakenly lists his death as having occurred in March. 9 April – Two days after the death of Jake McGerrigan, his friend and fellow Official IRA man 20-year-old Tony Hughes is shot dead in nearby Culdee by members of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The dead man was the quartermaster for the group in north Armagh and had been moving guns into a car at the time in preparation for a retaliatory attack for the death of Jake McGerrigan. Official Republican leader Cathal Goulding gave the graveside oration at his funeral. Lost Lives, the chronology which attempts to list the name of everyone who died in the Troubles, mistakenly lists his death as having occurred in March. 13 August – William McIlveen, a 36 year old part-time member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), is shot dead by the Provisional IRA at the gates of the factory on the Cathedral Road where he worked as a security guard. In 1982, the dead man's brother Wilfred, a former member of the UDR, will be killed by an IRA booby-trap bomb. 27 August – Kenneth Hill, a 24 year old corporal in the UDR, is shot dead in a gun battle with the Provisional IRA in the Culdee area of the city. Earlier in the day two large no-warning car bombs left by the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force had exploded in streets nearby, miraculously killing no-one, and he had been in the area helping to clear it after a car parked there was wrongly thought to have contained another bomb. The dead man came from Drumsherriff, near Loughgall.

1974

19 February - The Ulster Volunteer Force bomb the Catholic-owned Traynor's pub a few miles outside of Armagh city on the Armagh to Moy road, killing a Catholic, 46-year-old Patrick Molloy, and a Protestant member of the Orange Order, 49-year-old Jack Wylie. It is suspected that the particular UVF unit which carried out the massacre was part of what has become known as the Glenanne Gang, a particularly violent alliance of paramilitaries, policemen and soldiers within the UVF and which is thought to have been responsible for around 120 deaths, mostly of innocent Catholic civilians. In 1981 a self-confessed UVF man and neighbour of Jack Wylie was jailed for life for the bombing. 17 June – 34-year-old Geraldine Corrigan died two days after being shot by what is thought to have been a member of the Official IRA during a botched robbery at her family's supermarket on the Cathedral Road. According to the victim's sister-in-law, who was present at the time of the incident, two masked men entered demanding money and fired two shots into the ceiling when Corrigan refused to hand over any cash. After that a struggle ensued in which Corrigan was shot at point-blank range in the head. The gunmen then escaped in a Ford Cortina which was found abandoned a short time later in the Windmill Hill area of the city. She left behind a husband and three children.

1975 24 March – William Elliott, a-52-year old Protestant civilian from Ashley Gardens in the city is shot dead by the Provisional IRA in the village of Silverbridge in south Armagh, after being mistaken for a police officer. Elliott had gone to investigate a robbery at a post office in the village, which the RUC believed had been set up to lure police into the area, when gunmen fired about 30 shots at him and his colleague. Elliott died at the scene. He had served in the Royal Navy in the Second World War and had been head postmaster in Armagh city from 1960 until 1972. 15 August – Norman Kerr, a 28-year-old Protestant from Portadown was shot dead by the Provisional IRA in Market Street in the city centre bar where he worked as a DJ. The dead man was a close friend of UVF member Harris Boyle who had died in the Miami Showband Massacre the month before. The IRA claimed it was in possession of Harris Boyle's diary, which had been stolen from a swimming pool in Portadown, and that it had killed Kerr because of an alleged association with undercover British Army operative Robert Nairac. 22 August – The UVF's Glenanne Gang launched a gun and bomb attack on McGleenan's Bar on Upper English Street in the Shambles area of the city. One gunman opened fire while another planted the bomb. It exploded as they ran to a getaway car, causing the building to collapse. John McGleenan (45), Patrick Hughes (30) and Thomas Morris (22), all Catholic civilians, were killed. Thomas Morris died six days later on 28 August.

1976

25 January – David McDowell, a 26-year-old member of the UDR from Alexander Park in the city, is accidentally shot dead by a member of the Queen's Dragoon Guards at an army observation post near the border which had come under sustained IRA fire earlier in the day. He had stopped his bus to talk to soldiers when one of them accidentally discharged his gun, shooting McDowell dead. He had survived an IRA bid on his life three years previously. 9 April – 73-year-old Catholic pensioner Michael Sweeney is killed when the UVF launch a bomb attack on Lenny's Bar in the Railway Street area of the city, which also injuries 14 other people. The dead man was a World War II veteran and had taken part in the Dunkirk evacuation. 26 October – Joseph Wilson, a 53-year-old part-time member of the UDR is shot dead by a Provisional IRA gunman in the supermarket he worked at in the nationalist Shambles area of the city. He was married and had nine children. In 1984, his son-in-law Herbert Burrows will be killed in an IRA booby-trap explosion close to the scene of Wilson's death.

1977

18 October – 67-year-old Protestant Herbert John Anderson is shot dead by the Provisional IRA who ambushed his taxi on the Armagh to Keady road. The dead man had been in the RUC but had retired from the police two years earlier. He was from Barrack Street in the city. In 1980 a 20-year-old man from Keady was given a life sentence for Herbert's killing and those of three others.

1979