Strabane ambush

Strabane was one the IRA's most deadly strong holds during The Troubles. IRA and Irish National Liberation Army Volunteers in Strabane carried out attack after attack against the British security forces, between 1971 and 1991 no fewer than 16 attacks were launched by Irish Republicans against British troops and RUC police which resulted in the death of at least one member of the British security forces in each of those attacks, the British Army and RUC bases in Strabane were constantly attacked with sniper fire, bombings, grenades, mortar attacks and RPG attacks. Strabane was once the most bombed town in Europe in proportion to its size, and was the most bombed town in Northern Ireland.[2][3]

A few weeks earlier in December 1984 the SAS carried out two ambushes against the Provisional IRA Derry Brigade which killed four IRA volunteers, in the first in the Kesh ambush Kieran Fleming and another IRA volunteer was killed, four days later Kieran's cousin William Fleming and Danny Doherty were killed in another ambush.[4][5]

Charles Breslin commander of the IRA unit in Strabane

On the 23 February 1985 an IRA active service unit while returning weapons or bringing new weapons to an arms cache in Plumbridge Road in Strabane were suddenly ambushed by British Army Special Air Service (SAS) unit and all three IRA volunteers were killed on the spot.[6] Local witness said they heard that no warning to surrender was given by the SAS as the men entered a field which is when the SAS unit fired over 100 rounds at the Volunteers killing them instantly.[7] The IRA volunteers killed at Strabane were unit Commander Charles Breslin (21) and Michael Devine (22) and his brother David Devine (16). David Devine was the youngest IRA volunteer killed in the conflict by enemy forces.[8]

This ambush was the first in a number of high-profile SAS and undercover soldier ambushes and operations between 1985 - 1992 especially targeting the IRA's units around the Fermanagh, Tyrone & Armagh borders. A year later the IRA's Fermanagh commander Séamus McElwaine was killed during an ambush,[9] and in 1987 eight IRA volunteers from the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade were killed in the Loughgall ambush,[10] in 1988 three IRA Volunteers were killed during Operation Flavius in Gibraltar,[11] in August of the same year three more IRA men were killed in the Ambush at Drumnakilly,[12] in 1991 three more volunteers were killed in the Coagh ambush[13] and finally in February 1992 the Clonoe ambush four IRA volunteers were killed.[14]

• Ambush at Drumnakilly
• Loughgall ambush
• Coagh ambush
• Clonoe ambush
• The Troubles in Strabane

• Moloney, Ed: A secret history of the IRA. Penguin Books (2002).
• Urban, Mark: Big Boys’ Rules: The SAS and the Secret Struggle Against the IRA. Faber and Faber (1992).