Since the beginning of its campaign in 1970, the Provisional IRA has carried out many improvised land mine and roadside bomb attacks on British forces in the region. In September 1972, three British soldiers are killed when their armoured vehicle is blown up by an IRA land mine at Sanaghanroe, near Dungannon. In March 1974, two IRA members are killed on the Aughnacloy Road near Dungannon when a land mine they are planting explodes prematurely.
The Dungannon attack occurs just months after the Warrenpoint ambush on August 27, 1979, where the IRA kills eighteen British soldiers with roadside bombs in south County Down — the deadliest single attack on British forces during The Troubles.
On December 16, 1979, two armoured British Army Land Rovers are driving along Ballygawley Road, about two miles outside Dungannon. A unit of the IRA had planted a 600–1,000-pound (270–450 kg) improvised land mine in a culvert under the road at Glenadush. When the second vehicle reaches the culvert, the land mine is detonated by remote control from a concealed location, showcasing their evolving tactics in guerrilla warfare and ambush strategy. The blast is powerful enough to launch the armoured Land Rover into the air and killing four soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Artillery outright: William Beck (23), Keith Richards (22), Simon Evans (19), and Allan Ayrton (23).
Marrinan becomes ill with infantile paralysis at the age of five, and as a result is tutored privately. He has no formal training in art but is largely influenced by his reading matter, particularly the American comic strips of Bud Fisher. The variety of facial expressions that Fisher can achieve, with only a pencil, intrigues and inspires him. Likewise, the images evoked by Celtic mythology and religious art also contributes to his visual language, and many hours are spent in the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery studying the paintings in their collection.
Marrinan exhibits with the Ulster Academy of Arts from an address at 524 Donegall Road, Belfast, entering “The Wee Gate, Earl Street, Belfast” (1931) and “The Painter’s Father” and the “Apache” (1934), which is judged “picture of the year.” He last exhibits with a landscape, “Connemara,” along with four other works in 1949.
Marrinan paints and sketches portraits of many notable Irish figures, among which is the charcoal drawing of northern Fenian Robert Johnston (1934; National Gallery of Ireland) and a sketch of the Donegal storyteller Niall Duffy (University College Dublin). His literary portraits include one of Brian Friel. He holds a one-man show in 1951 at 55a Donegall Place, Belfast, where he exhibits a bust of John McLaverty. He takes an interest in sculpture although painting and drawing remain his preferred form of expression. Important commissions are for a memorial portrait (completed 1952) of Éamonn Ceannt for Ceannt Barracks officers’ mess, Curragh Camp, County Kildare, and for a portrait of Vice-brigadier Peadar Clancy for Clancy Barracks, Dublin. He paints two memorial portraits of PresidentJohn F. Kennedy, one of which is in the Irish Club, London.
Marrinan is an honorary member of the Royal Ulster Academy and exhibits with them every year from 1950 onward, showing a portrait of Mrs. Padraig Marrinan in 1967 (no other details of his marriage are known). He is preparing for an exhibition to be held at the Irish Club, London, in 1974, but dies on October 25, 1973, at Tyrone County Hospital in Omagh. He is then living at James Street, Omagh.
(From: “Marrinan, Padraig H.” by Ruth Devine, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: “The River Lee, Cork City, Ireland” by Padraig Marrinan, oil on canvas)
Jackson is one of seven children of John Jackson, farmhand, and his wife Eileen. As a teenager he participates in Paisleyite demonstrations against the Northern Ireland civil rights movement. He is already a local “hard man” who cultivates an air of menace. After a brief period in Australia, he returns home and serves in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) from 1972 to 1975. He also joins the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and is alleged to have committed his first murders in 1973. He is arrested in 1973 after the doorstep killing of a BanbridgeCatholic who works in the shoe factory that employs Jackson. The victim’s wife identifies Jackson as the murderer, but the charge is withdrawn after she admits to a degree of prompting by the police.
Jackson is a leading member of a UVF gang linked to about 100 murders carried out at random against Catholic civilians between 1973 and 1979, earning for the north Armagh and east Tyrone area the nickname “the murder triangle.” He also allegedly helps to plan the Dublin and Monaghan car bombings of May 17, 1974, killing thirty-three civilians, and orchestrates the attack on the Miami Showband on July 31, 1975. He becomes UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade commander in 1975. Never convicted of any of the numerous murders attributed to him, he is however jailed between 1979 and 1983 for arms possession.
Jackson marries Eileen Maxwell in the late 1960s. They have a son and two daughters. The marriage does not survive his imprisonment and after his release he moves to Donaghcloney, County Down, where he lives with a much younger girlfriend. He remains active in loyalist paramilitarism but takes a less prominent role. He survives several Irish Republican Army (IRA) attempts on his life, including the detonation of a car bomb outside his house. In 1984, the editor of the Belfast edition of the Sunday World is shot and wounded after publishing articles denouncing “the Jackal,” the nickname by which the press calls Jackson during his lifetime.
After the Anglo–Irish Agreement of 1985, Jackson is briefly linked to Ulster Resistance (UR), a paramilitary group founded by associates of Ian Paisley. He allegedly assists the rearming and reorganisation of the Mid-Ulster UVF under Billy Wright after the killing of his brother-in-law and alleged accomplice, Roy Metcalf, by the IRA in 1988. Relations between Wright and Jackson cool after the killing of a Catholic in Donaghcloney by Wright’s men leads to Jackson being called in for questioning, and he supports the UVF leadership in its 1996–97 dispute with Wright. He is also the focus of recurring allegations about collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and elements of the security forces in mid-Ulster, including claims that he operated on behalf of British military intelligence who shielded him from prosecution.
Jackson dies of lung cancer at the age of 49 at his Donaghcloney home on May 30, 1998. He is buried on June 1 in a private ceremony in the St. Bartholomew Church of Ireland churchyard in his native Donaghmore, County Down. His grave, close to that of his parents, is unmarked apart from a steel poppy cross. His father had died in 1985 and his mother outlives him by five years.
Considerable uncertainty surrounds his involvement in many of the crimes attributed to him, but there is no doubt that he is a cold-blooded multiple murderer and one of the most sinister “hard men” of loyalist paramilitarism.
(From: “Jackson, Robin” by Patrick Maume, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)
The Irish Times reports that “This stretch of road has been a favourite ambush spot for successive generations of IRA men since the 1920s.” The Provisional IRA has been attacking British Army patrols and convoys with roadside bombs regularly since the beginning of the Troubles in the early 1970s. Most of these attacks take place in rural parts of Northern Ireland, especially eastern and southern County Tyrone (where the IRA’s Tyrone Brigade is active) and southern County Armagh (heartland of the South Armagh Brigade). In August 1979, the IRA ambushes a British Army convoy with two large roadside bombs near Warrenpoint, killing eighteen soldiers. This is the deadliest attack on the British Army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. In December 1979, four more British soldiers are killed on Ballygawley Road in the Dungannon land mine attack. In May 1981, five British soldiers are killed when their Saracen APC is ripped apart by a roadside bomb at Altnaveigh, County Armagh. In July 1983, four Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers are killed when their vehicle strikes an IRA land mine near Ballygawley, County Tyrone. In December 1985, the Tyrone IRA launches an assault on the police barracks in Ballygawley, shooting dead two officers and destroying the barracks with a bomb.
On the night of August 19/20, 1988, an unmarked 52-seater bus is transporting 36 soldiers of The Light Infantry from Aldergrove Flying Station to a military base near Omagh. The soldiers, who came from England, have just finished 18 months of a two-year tour of duty in Northern Ireland and are returning to the base after a short holiday.
As it is driving along the main road from Ballygawley to Omagh, at about 12:30 a.m., IRA members remotely detonate a roadside bomb containing 200 pounds (91 kg) of Semtex. According to police, the bomb had been planted in a vehicle by the roadside and had been detonated by command wire from 330 yards (300 m) away. A statement by one of the survivors claims instead that the roadside bomb was made of “two fertilizer bags filled with Semtex.” The blast hurls the bus 30 metres down the road and throws the soldiers into neighbouring hedges and fields. It leaves a crater 6 feet deep and scatters body parts and twisted metal over a wide area. Witnesses describe finding dead, dying and wounded soldiers strewn on the road and caught in the wreckage of the bus. Others are walking around “stunned.” Some of the first to arrive on the scene and offer help are loyalist bandsmen of the Omagh Protestant Boy’s Band returning from a parade in Portadown, who have also been traveling in buses.
Eight of the soldiers are killed and the remaining 28 are wounded. The soldiers killed are: Jayson Burfitt (aged 19), Richard Greener (aged 21), Mark Norsworthy (aged 18), Stephen Wilkinson (aged 18), Jason Winter (aged 19), Blair Bishop (aged 19), Alexander Lewis (aged 18) and Peter Bullock (aged 21). This is the single biggest loss of life for the British Army from an IRA attack in Northern Ireland since the Warrenpoint ambush in 1979, although eleven off-duty British soldiers had been killed in the Droppin Well bombing in 1982, carried out by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). An account from one of the survivors is published in Ken Wharton‘s book A Long Long War: Voices from the British Army in Northern Ireland, 1969–98 (2008).
An inquest into the attack is told that the road is usually off-limits to military vehicles, due to the threat from the IRA. The driver of the bus, who is also a soldier, claims he had been directed on to the road by diversion signs. The inquest hears that signs had not been placed by the police or the roads service. The IRA denies placing any signs and says that military buses often use the road. The mother of one of those killed accuses the British military of negligence and claims it is “trying to conceal the truth.”
Shortly thereafter, the Provisional IRA issues a statement claiming responsibility. It says that the attack had been carried out by its Tyrone Brigade and adds: “We will not lay down our arms until the peace of a British disengagement from Ireland.” The security forces suspect that an informer may have told the IRA of the bus’s route and the time it would pass a specific spot. After the attack, the British military decides to start ferrying their troops to and from East Tyrone by helicopter to avoid any future attacks like this.
Tom King, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, says there is “some evidence” that the explosives used are part of a consignment from Libya. He also states that the possibility of reintroducing internment is “under review”. Libyan weaponry enables the IRA to mount some of its biggest operations during its campaign. The Ballygawley bus bombing is believed to be one of these attacks. One former IRA member later suggests that Semtex explosive was not crucial to the outcome of the attack, saying, “we were having plenty of success without Semtex… at Ballygawley we ‘only’ got eight, but it was a bus of about fifty-six. If we’d used a fertiliser bomb, the whole bus would have been destroyed.”
On August 30, 1988, three IRA members are ambushed and killed by the Special Air Service (SAS) at Drumnakilly, County Tyrone. According to author Nick Van der Bijl, the men—Gerard Harte, Martin Harte and Brian Mullin—are identified by British intelligence as the perpetrators of the bombing. Peter Taylor, instead, says that only Mullin is suspected, and that plans for the SAS operation were already underway at the time of the IRA attack.
Two months after the attack, the British Government introduces the broadcasting ban. It means that the voices of Sinn Féin and IRA members are not allowed to be broadcast on television or radio. The Ballygawley bus bombing is believed to have influenced the Government’s decision to introduce the ban.
According to state papers declassified in 2019, the attack sparks “panic” in the British Government, and tension between the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the British Army over who is at fault for the security lapse. British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher warns RUC chief, John Hermon, that she will no longer send British troops over “in waves to be killed.”
Nationalist forces enter Newcastle West, County Limerick, on Monday, August 7, 1922, after a twelve-hour battle, in which twelve anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, sometimes referred to as Irregulars, are killed. The casualties of the Nationalists are less than those of the Irregulars.
Taking little respite after Sunday’s labors, the Nationals advance from Rathkele on Monday morning, and by midday are in sight of their fresh objective. Armored cars enter the town and machine gun fire is directed against a party of Irregulars, causing many casualties.
When the artillery goes into action against the headquarters of the Irregulars, the Irregulars flee precipitately along Cord road.
Owing to the slow progress in the operations in Southern Ireland, the meeting of Dáil Éireann, scheduled to open Saturday, is postponed again.
The official army bulletin announces that the Nationals captured Castle Island on Saturday, August 5. It says that the counties of Cork and Kerry with a part of South Tipperary and a small area in County Waterford are the only districts held by the Irregulars with any degree of security.
The streets of Dublin are lined with great crowds of people on Tuesday, August 8, for the military funeral of nine National Army soldiers who were killed in fighting the Republican Irregulars in County Kerry. Michael Collins, Chairman of the Provisional Government, and all the leading officers of the army in Dublin march beside the hearses. Each coffin is covered with the Republican tricolour. There are many clergymen and other civilians in the funeral procession.
Prominent Catholics of Dublin and Belfast are trying to effect a better understanding between the Ulster and Free State Governments, according to the Daily Mail. This newspaper further states that all efforts to this end, which have all been taken with the advice and approval of leading English Catholics, are without official character.
A message from Strabane, County Tyrone, received by the Exchange Telegraph Company on August 8 states that a settlement between the Ulster Government and the Free State authorities is imminent, the terms of agreement having been practically arranged in negotiations proceeding in London.
In Downing Street, however, all knowledge of any such Irish negotiations is disclaimed and a telegram from Belfast quotes Ulster Government officials as denying that a settlement with the Free State is imminent.
The Free State Government is also unaware of any negotiations for a settlement between the Ulster Government and the Free State authorities. It is further states that such negotiations are unlikely to take place.
(From: “Irish Irregulars Routed With Loss,” The New York Times, August 9, 1922 | Pictured: General Michael Collins inspects a soldier at Newcastle West, County Limerick, August 8, 1922)
Douglas is the eldest of nine children of John Douglas, proprietor of John Douglas & Sons Ltd, drapers and outfitters of Wexford Street and originally of Grange, County Tyrone, and his wife, Emily, daughter of John and Mary Mitton of Gortin, Coalisland, County Tyrone. The genealogy of the Douglas family to which he belongs can be traced to Samuel Douglas of Coolhill, Killyman, County Tyrone.
Douglas attends (1895–98) a small school for Quaker children and is a boarder (1898–1902) in the Friends’ School, Lisburn. In 1902, he begins a three-year apprenticeship in his father’s business.
On February 14, 1911, Douglas marries Georgina (Ena) Culley (1883–1959), originally of Tirsogue, Lurgan, County Armagh, whom he meets during his apprenticeship. Their children are John Harold Douglas, who succeeds to the family business and replaces his father as senator, and James Arthur Douglas, who becomes a well-known architect.
From an early age Douglas is fascinated by politics and influenced by the newspapers edited by Arthur Griffith. He becomes a member of the Dublin Liberal Association, whose members for the most part are Protestanthome rulers. After the 1916 Easter Rising, with George Russell and others, who also regard themselves as neither unionists nor nationalists, he sets out to promote what they term “full dominion status” for Ireland. This paves the way for the Irish Convention (1917–18), which, however, fails to reconcile the polarised political attitudes of the time.
Douglas goes on to become a very active member of Seanad Éireann between 1922 and 1936 under the constitution he had helped to prepare. In 1922, he is elected as the first vice-chairman of the Senate. The Senate is abolished in 1936 and re-established under the terms of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland. He is again an active Senator between 1938 and 1943, and from 1944 to 1954. The topics most associated with him during his work as Senator are international refugees and the League of Nations.
For some thirty years he runs the family business, and is also a director of Aspro (Ireland) Ltd, Nugent & Cooper Ltd, Philips Lamps (Ireland) Ltd, and the Greenmount & Boyne Linen Co. Ltd. In addition, he serves as president of the Linen and Cotton Textile Manufacturers Association and as a member of the council of the Federated Union of Employers.
Donal Donnelly, Irish theatre and film actor, is born to Irish parents in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on July 6, 1931. Perhaps best known for his work in the plays of Brian Friel, he has a long and varied career in film, on television and in the theatre. He lives in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States at various times, and his travels lead him to describe himself as “an itinerant Irish actor.”
Donnelly’s father, James, is a doctor from County Tyrone, and his mother, Nora O’Connor, is a teacher from County Kerry.
Donnelly gets his start in an amateur group calling itself the Globe Theatre Players. It is organised and run by Jim Fitzgerald and Monica Brophy. He then later tours with Anew McMaster‘s Irish repertory company before moving to England where he stars with Rita Tushingham in the film The Knack …and How to Get It.
For many years, Donnelly tours a one-man performance of the writings of George Bernard Shaw, adapted and directed by Michael Voysey and entitled My Astonishing Self.
On television, Donnelly plays the lead role of Matthew Browne in the 1970s ITV sitcom Yes, Honestly, opposite Liza Goddard. But from the late 1950s onwards, he often appears in such British TV programs as The Avengers, Z-Cars and The Wednesday Play.
In 1968, Donnelly records an album of Irish songs, Take the Name of Donnelly, which is arranged, produced and conducted by Tony Meehan formerly of the Shadows.
Donnelly, who is a heavy smoker all his life, dies from cancer at the age of 78 in Chicago, Illinois, on January 4, 2010. He is survived by his wife, Patricia ‘Patsy’ Porter, a former dancer he met working on Finian’s Rainbow, and two sons, Jonathan and Damian. Their only daughter, Maryanne, predeceases him after being killed in a riding accident. A brother, Michael Donnelly, is a Fianna Fáil senator and councillor, and Lord Mayor of Dublin(1990–91).
(Pictured: Publicity still of Donal Donnelly as Frederick Treves in the Broadway’s play TheElephant Man)
Foster is the fourth of the six children of Presbyterian minister of Newmills congregation, James Foster, and Lydia (née Harkness). She has three brothers and two sisters. She is educated at home and is later sent to board at Miss Black’s school in Holywood, County Down. She, with her sisters Jane and Bessie, move to Belfast to establish a girls’ school, the Ladies’ Collegiate School, in the Balmoral suburbs, first at Myrtlefield Park, at 434 Lisburn Road, and then in Maryfield Park. This is after Bessie graduates from Trinity College Dublin in 1896 having studied modern languages. Their school teaches boys and girls, both day pupils and boarders. Foster and Jane teach music, and possibly other subjects as well. Their brother Henry, who works in Belfast, lives with them. All four of the siblings attend the Malone Presbyterian Church and are members of the temperance movement. Throughout her life, Foster remains attached to Newmills, visiting regularly and laying the foundation stone for the new manse in 1910. Her brother, Nevin, is the only one of the six siblings to marry and is an Irish ornithological expert.
The school closes after the deaths of Bessie in December 1917 and Jane in October 1918. The death of Henry in December 1922 leaves Foster alone, and having lost her hearing almost completely, she is in difficult circumstances. To support herself, she begins to write literary sketches and dialect verse for a number of publications such as the Northern Whig, Ireland’s Own, and the annual miscellany Ulster Parade. A selection of these writings are published as a volume, Tyrone Among the Bushes, in 1933. She also writes plays, but these are not collected or produced. She is best known for her three books which are set in rural County Tyrone around the time of Foster’s parents and her childhood. The books, The Bush that Burned (1931), Manse Larks (1936), and Elders’ Daughters (1942) are published by Quota Press in Belfast and are seen as part of the Scottish Kailyard school genre of writing. The Bush that Burned details the story of a young man becoming a minister despite opposition, and is widely read in Ulster and beyond. Aodh de Blácam references the book as evidence that there is little difference between rural Ulster Protestants and their Catholic counterparts. Manse Larks recounts a rural childhood of six siblings growing up in the minister’s house. Foster’s fondness for animals is clear from the book, she is a supporter of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), and her companion in later years is a dog named Stewart. Elders’ Daughters explores the experiences, romantic dreams and misadventures of young women subject to paternal authority in rural County Tyrone.
As Foster’s health declines and after the Belfast Blitz of April 1941, she goes to live with a married niece in Hollowbridge House near Royal Hillsborough, County Down. It is to this niece that she dictates the last chapters of Elders’ Daughters. She dies at Hollowbridge House on December 13, 1943. She is buried at Newmills Presbyterian Church, with her parents and siblings.
On May 12, 1992, a unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) East Tyrone Brigade launches a bomb attack on a British Army foot patrol near the republican stronghold of Cappagh, County Tyrone. One soldier of the Parachute Regiment, Alistair Hodgson, loses both legs as a result. The improvised land mine is described in an IRA statement as an “anti-personnel device.” Other paratroopers receive lesser wounds, according to the same statement. The incident triggers a rampage by members of the Parachute Regiment in the nearby, overwhelmingly Irish nationalist town of Coalisland, some ten miles to the east. The IRA attack is described as a “provocation” tactic, devised to produce an over-reaction by troops to make them even more unpopular among local nationalists.
The deployment of the paratroopers, which begins in April has already been criticised by republican activist and former Member of ParliamentBernadette Devlin McAliskey, who denounces beatings, shootings and damages to property reportedly carried out by the troops. These previous incidents include the destruction of fishing gear and boats in the townland of Kinturk, near Ardboe, and a brawl on April 22 between soldiers and motorists at a checkpoint in Stewartstown, in which plastic bullets are fired that end with a civilian and two paratroopers wounded. Unionist politician and Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) officer Ken Maginnis, then-Member of Parliament for the area, calls for the withdrawal of the regiment after receiving a large number of complaints about their behaviour.
On May 12, two hours after the IRA ambush at Cappagh, members of the regiment seal off the town of Coalisland, ten miles east of Cappagh. According to a Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) politician, the soldiers fabricate a bogus bomb warning, while the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) states that the operation began when a joint police/military patrol was stoned by a crowd. Two pubs are ransacked by the troops and a number of civilian cars are damaged. Several people are allegedly hit with sticks. Following this, a lieutenant is suspended from duty and the regiment is removed from patrol duties in Coalisland.
On the evening of May 17, a fistfight begins at Lineside Road, where a group of young men are having a drink. A passing four-man patrol of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers regiment is challenged to a “boxing match” by the residents. The soldiers set aside their weapons and engage the youths. Noncritical injuries are reported on both sides. The official claim is that the patrol was attacked by a mob of at least 30 people. In the melée, a rifle and a light machine gun are stolen. The rifle is later recovered nearby. The youths smash a backpack radio which is left behind by the troops. Two KOSB soldiers are hospitalised, while in the end seven other soldiers, including paratroopers, receive lesser injuries, one of them hit by a car that crashes through two roadblocks set up by the British Army.
The Parachute Regiment is called to the scene again, and at 8:30 p.m., a major riot starts outside The Rossmore pub between local people and about 20 to 25 paratroopers. The soldiers claim one of their colleagues is isolated and dragged by the crowd. Some witnesses claim paratroopers were in a frenzy, showing their guns and inviting civilians to try to take them. Suddenly, shots are fired by the troops — first into the air and then toward the people outside the pub. Three civilians are rushed to hospital in Dungannon with gunshot wounds, while the soldiers return to their barracks. Another four civilians suffer minor injuries. The paratroopers claim that a “member of the growing crowd” attempted to fire the stolen machine gun at them, but the weapon jammed. One of the wounded is the brother of IRA volunteer Kevin O’Donnell, who had been killed by the Special Air Service (SAS) in February during an ambush at the nearby hamlet of Clonoe, shortly after carrying out a machine-gun attack on the local RUC base.
About 500 people attend a protest rally in Coalisland on May 19, and the wisdom of deploying the troops to patrol the town is questioned by members of the Dáil in Dublin. The Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Ireland, David Andrews, asks the British Government to withdraw the regiment. As a result, the paratroopers are redeployed outside the urban areas. The RUC claims that the stolen machine gun is found 11 days later at a farmhouse near Cappagh, along with another light machine gun and an AK-47 rifle. The IRA denies they had the machine gun in their possession. Republicans question whether the weapon had really been stolen, suggesting this was merely an excuse for the soldiers’ rampage in Coalisland. Bernardette McAliskey goes even further, suggesting that the recovery of the machine gun near Cappagh, where the initial IRA attack had taken place, was actually staged by the security forces as a publicity stunt. British officials accuse Sinn Féin of being the instigators of the riots, while Michael Mates, then Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office, states that the incidents were due to “a gang of thugs motivated by the IRA.” Eventually the battalion’s 1992 tour in Northern Ireland is scaled down, with the patrols suspended before the official end of the deployment. The Third Brigade’s commander, Brigadier Tom Longland, is replaced by Brigadier Jim Dutton. This is the first occasion that a high-ranking officer is disciplined in such a way during the Troubles.
The last patrol takes place on June 27, when two paratroopers drown while crossing the River Blackwater. The same day there are further clashes with local residents, this time in the town of Cookstown, when a group of people that the BelfastNews Letter calls “drunken hooligans” assault a number of paratroopers trying to help an elderly man who is suffering a heart attack.
The 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment is replaced by the 1st Battalion of the Coldstream Guards.
Six soldiers face criminal charges for their roles in the May riots but are acquitted one year later. Five are bound over. Maurice McHugh, the presiding magistrate, avers that the soldiers were “not entirely innocent,” while Sinn Féin sources dub the ruling “a farce.” Dungannon priest Father Denis Faul is of the opinion that the soldiers should have been charged with conspiracy. The Ulster TelevisiondocumentaryCounterpoint of June 1993 claims that Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland, Sir Alasdair Fraser, returned the case file to the RUC recommending no prosecution. The programme also interviews Alistair Hodgson, the soldier maimed at Cappagh, who says that “had another member of my unit been injured in the way that I was, I would have been with the rest of the lads attacking the locals.” Authors Andrew Sanders and Ian S. Wood suggest that the deployment of the battalion in Coalisland and elsewhere hindered the British policy of police primacy in Northern Ireland.
Fresh clashes between local residents and troops are reported at Coalisland on March 6, 1994, a few months before the first IRA ceasefire, when a crowd assaults two soldiers after the RUC searched a car. Plastic bullets are fired, and three civilians and two soldiers are slightly injured.
(Pictured: Confrontation between a British paratrooper and a civilian in Coalisland, May 1992)
MacFarland is the elder son of John MacFarland, draper, and his second wife Margaret Jane, daughter of Rev. William Henry, a famous Covenanting Church minister. Both parents are devout Presbyterians, well educated, with strong intellectual interests.
MacFarland teaches at Repton School in Derbyshire from 1876 to 1880. A decade later, his younger brother Robert, also a Queen’s Belfast and Cambridge mathematics graduate, also teaches at Repton.
The emissaries of the provisional council of Ormond College in the University of Melbourne are impressed with MacFarland. He negotiates a salary of £600 plus the profit from “farming” the college. On March 18, 1881, he becomes the first master of Ormond College, passing the opening-day ordeal in the presence of 440 Presbyterian grandees, clergy and their ladies.
On Sir John Madden‘s death in 1918, MacFarland becomes chancellor of the university and is knighted in 1919. He presides over a period of considerable expansion, working closely with Sir John Monash, vice-chancellor from 1923, and Sir James Barrett.
MacFarland is immensely and properly proud of his careful financial management, but the erstwhile reformers are hardly tender enough in balancing economy with humanity. The professors become increasingly restive about the limited responsibility for academic matters and allocation of resources council allows them. When the issues come to a head in 1928, MacFarland’s prestige is too much for the professoriate who have great respect for his administrative capacity, humanity and reasonableness. Even in his eighties he does not retire as chancellor, probably wisely concluding that his likely successor, Barrett, will prove to be too divisive.
MacFarland’s reputation as a business manager leads to his directorship from about 1905 of the National Mutual Life Association, serving as chairman from 1928, and of the Trustees Executors and Agency Company. From 1913 he represents the Trustees Executors on the Felton Bequests Committee. He is also the popular chairman from its foundation in 1908 of the Alexandra Club Co. as the members of the leading female social club prefer men to control their finances.
In his younger days MacFarland is a vigorous cyclist and walker in the Australian Alps, Tasmania and New Zealand. By the age of 40 he is spending a month each summer trout-fishing in the South Island of New Zealand. He is also a regular golfer at Royal Melbourne and belongs to the Melbourne Club.
“Few men in any community, and almost no man in this community, can have won such universal esteem. No evil was ever spoken of him or could be thought of in connection with him; before him evil quailed. The greatest disciple of the greatest of the Greeks called his dead master ‘our friend whom we may truly call the wisest, and the justest, and the best of all men we have ever known’. And many of us can sincerely say that of John Henry MacFarland.”
(From: “Sir John Henry MacFarland (1851-1935)” by Geoffrey Serle, Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://www.adb.anu.edu.au, 1986)
seamus dubhghaill 