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Tag Archives: Mountnorris (County Armagh)


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The Kingsmill Massacre

The Kingsmill massacre, also referred to as the Whitecross massacre, is a mass shooting that takes place on January 5, 1976, near the village of Whitecross in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Gunmen stop a minibus carrying eleven Protestant workmen, line them up alongside it and shoot them. Only one victim survives, despite having been shot 18 times. A Catholic man on the minibus is allowed to go free. A group calling itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force claims responsibility. It says the shooting is retaliation for a string of attacks on Catholic civilians in the area by Loyalists, particularly the killing of six Catholics the night before. The Kingsmill massacre is the climax of a string of tit for tat killings in the area during the mid-1970s, and is one of the deadliest mass shootings of the Troubles.

On January 5, 1976, just after 5:30 p.m., a red Ford Transit minibus is carrying sixteen textile workers home from their workplace in Glenanne. Five are Catholics and eleven are Protestants. Four of the Catholics get out at Whitecross and the bus continues along the rural road to Bessbrook. As the bus clears the rise of a hill, it is stopped by a man in combat uniform standing on the road and flashing a torch. The workers assume they are being stopped and searched by the British Army. As the bus stops, eleven gunmen in combat uniform and with blackened faces emerge from the hedges. A man “with a pronounced English accent” begins talking. He orders the workers to get out of the bus and to line up facing it with their hands on the roof. He then asks, “Who is the Catholic?” The only Catholic is Richard Hughes. His workmates, now fearing that the gunmen are loyalists who have come to kill him, try to stop him from identifying himself. However, when Hughes steps forward the gunman tell him to “get down the road and don’t look back.”

The lead gunman then says, “Right,” and the others immediately open fire on the workers. The eleven men are shot at very close range with automatic rifles, which includes Armalites, an M1 carbine and an M1 Garand. A total of 136 rounds are fired in less than a minute. The men are shot at waist height and fall to the ground, some falling on top of each other, either dead or wounded. When the initial burst of gunfire stops, the gunmen reload their weapons. The order is given to “Finish them off,” and another burst of gunfire is fired into the heaped bodies of the workmen. One of the gunmen also walks among the dying men and shoots them each in the head with a pistol as they lay on the ground. Ten of them die at the scene: John Bryans (46), Robert Chambers (19), Reginald Chapman (25), Walter Chapman (23), Robert Freeburn (50), Joseph Lemmon (46), John McConville (20), James McWhirter (58), Robert Walker (46) and Kenneth Worton (24). Alan Black (32) is the only one who survives. He had been shot eighteen times and one of the bullets had grazed his head. He says, “I didn’t even flinch because I knew if I moved there would be another one.”

After carrying out the shooting, the gunmen calmly walk away. Shortly after, a married couple comes upon the scene of the killings and begin praying beside the victims. They find the badly wounded Alan Black lying in a ditch. When an ambulance arrives, Black is taken to a hospital in Newry, where he is operated on and survives. The Catholic worker, Richard Hughes, manages to stop a car and is driven to Bessbrook Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) station, where he raises the alarm. One of the first police officers on the scene is Billy McCaughey, who had taken part in the Reavey killings. He says, “When we arrived it was utter carnage. Men were lying two or three together. Blood was flowing, mixed with water from the rain.” Some of the Reavey family also come upon the scene of the Kingsmill massacre while driving to hospital to collect the bodies of their relatives. Johnston Chapman, the uncle of victims Reginald and Walter Chapman, says the dead workmen were “just lying there like dogs, blood everywhere”. At least two of the victims are so badly mutilated by gunfire that immediate relatives are prevented from identifying them. One relative says the hospital mortuary “was like a butcher’s shop with bodies lying on the floor like slabs of meat.”

Nine of the dead are from the village of Bessbrook, while the bus driver, Robert Walker, is from Mountnorris. Four of the men are members of the Orange Order and two are former members of the security forces: Kenneth Worton is a former Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier while Joseph Lemmon is a former Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) officer. Alan Black is appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours, for his cross-community work since the massacre.

The next day, a telephone caller claims responsibility for the attack on behalf of the “South Armagh Republican Action Force” or “South Armagh Reaction Force.” He says that it was retaliation for the Reavey–O’Dowd killings the night before, and that there will be “no further action on our part” if loyalists stop their attacks. He adds that the group has no connection with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The IRA denies responsibility for the killings as it is on a ceasefire at the time.

However, a 2011 report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) concludes that Provisional IRA members were responsible and that the event was planned before the Reavey and O’Dowd killings which had taken place the previous day, and that “South Armagh Republican Action Force” was a cover name. Responding to the report, Sinn Féin spokesman Mitchel McLaughlin says that he does “not dispute the sectarian nature of the killings” but continues to believe “the denials by the IRA that they were involved”. Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) Assemblyman Dominic Bradley calls on Sinn Féin to “publicly accept that the HET’s forensic evidence on the firearms used puts Provisional responsibility beyond question” and to stop “deny[ing] that the Provisional IRA was in the business of organising sectarian killings on a large scale.”

The massacre is condemned by the British and Irish governments, the main political parties and Catholic and Protestant church leaders. Merlyn Rees, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, condemns the massacre and forecasts that the violence will escalate, saying “This is the way it will go on unless someone in their right senses stops it, it will go on.”

The British government immediately declares County Armagh a “Special Emergency Area” and deploys hundreds of extra troops and police in the area. A battalion of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) is called out and the Spearhead Battalion is sent into the area. Two days after the massacre, the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson announces that the Special Air Service (SAS) is being sent into South Armagh. This is the first time that SAS operations in Northern Ireland are officially acknowledged. It is believed that some SAS personnel had already been in Northern Ireland for a few years. Units and personnel under SAS control are alleged to be involved in loyalist attacks.

The Kingsmill massacre is the last in the series of sectarian killings in South Armagh during the mid-1970s. According to Willie Frazer of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR), this is a result of a deal between the local UVF and IRA groups.

(Pictured: The minibus carrying the textile factory workers is left peppered with bullet holes and blood stains the ground after the massacre, as detectives patrol the scene of the murders)


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Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, Becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland

Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, English nobleman and soldier, becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland under Queen Elizabeth I on January 21, 1600.

Blount is born in 1563, the second son of James, 6th Baron Mountjoy, and Catherine, only daughter of Sir Thomas Legh. He is among the most distinguished of the family, succeeding as 8th Baron Mountjoy on the death in 1594 of his unmarried elder brother William, 7th Baron Mountjoy. The good fortune of his youthful and handsome looks find favour with Queen Elizabeth I which arouses the jealousy of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, leading to a duel between the two courtiers, who later become close friends.

Blount is returned to the House of Commons as MP for St. Ives, Cornwall in 1584 and for Bere Alston in 1586 and 1593, before entering the House of Lords in 1594. Between 1586 and 1598, he spends most of his time on the Continent, serving in the Netherlands and Brittany. He joins Lord Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh in their expedition to the Azores in 1597, along with his distant cousin, Sir Christopher Blount.

The downfall of Lord Essex does not damage Blount’s career. After the failure of his rebellion, Essex shocks many by denouncing his sister Penelope, who is Blount’s mistress, as a traitor, which inevitably raises the question of his own possible involvement. But the Crown, anxious to retain Blount’s services, and also to show as much leniency as possible to the defeated rebels, simply ignore the accusation.

On February 24, 1600, Blount lands in Ireland as Lord Deputy following Lord Essex and in the ensuing years brings the Nine Years’ War to an end. The leader of the rebellion, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, writes about Blount’s “refined manners” that he would lose a whole season of campaigning “while waiting until breakfast is prepared to his mind!” Despite this, Blount proves that he is quite qualified to pursue the war.

In early 1600, Blount dispatches Sir Henry Docwra with an army of 4,200 troops to land at Culmore to erect a fortress commanding the shores of Lough Foyle in the northwest of Ulster. To prevent Hugh O’Neill from sending a strong force to repulse Dowcra’s forces, Blount advances in force from Dublin to Newry causing O’Neill to fear a southern advance into Tyrone.

Blount aims to avoid the mistakes of previous Lords-Deputy. After the Battle of Moyry Pass, he has it cleared, and a garrison is established there. It had long been a problem for English forces advancing into Ulster from the south. He also establishes posts with garrisons at Mountnorris and Armagh.

On July 13, 1601, Blount and his army along with Turlough McHenry O’Neill of the Fews who had recently switched to the English side in the war, have a stand-off with Hugh O’Neill’s forces at the River Blackwater. After a few shots in vain from either side, O’Neill’s forces withdraw, and Blount sends his forces to occupy the ruined Blackwater fort destroyed by O’Neill in 1595. Later O’Neill’s forces attack Blount’s camp before withdrawing. In response, the Lord-Deputy sends his forces across the river where they find strong artificially fortified fords, which would have held out against the English.

By July 15, 1601, the Lord-Deputy has secured the surrender of O’Neill’s ally Hugh Magennis. That month, he has a new fort near the old Blackwater fort erected.

Blount reports to the council in England that O’Neill is determined to prevent his forces from advancing into Tyrone and toward Dungannon. As such, he initiates a policy of burning large quantities of corn to induce a famine to drive the rebels out of their strongholds.

Blount sets about trying to entice Hugh’s forces to come out and attack by fetching some materials for the new fort from the Tyrone side of the river as well as burning more corn. Further skirmishes between Blount and O’Neill’s forces ensue during the summer of 1601.

Spanish forces land in Munster in August 1601, forcing Blount to send his forces southward leaving O’Neill remaining in his unbroken heartland of Tyrone. The Spanish arrival culminates in the Siege of Kinsale that December, which sees a major defeat of the rebels and their allies.

O’Neill during this time has also moved south to assist some of his allies, however, after some serious defeats at the hands of the forces of Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde of Connacht, he is in no place to offer any effective resistance once Blount marches once more to Tyrone in the summer of 1602.

Blount advances to the location he found the previous summer at the River Blackwater, which commands safe and secure passage into Tyrone, previously inaccessible, and sets about erecting a new fort. Having observed this, O’Neill burns his capital at Dungannon and flees to his last refuge in Glenconkeyne.

Advancing northward through Tyrone, Blount erects a fort in the townland of Magheralamfield, afterward known as Mountjoy Castle. He also christens the new fort at the Blackwater Charlemont Fort after himself.

Once in Tyrone, Blount carries out a campaign of devastation throughout it resulting in the mass hunting of rebels, spoiling of corn, the burning of houses and the killing of churls so as to force the submission of O’Neill and his remaining allies. Most symbolically, Blount has the inauguration site of the O’Neill’s at Tullyhogue Fort destroyed.

On March 30, 1603, six days after the death of Elizabeth and the accession of James I, O’Neill makes peace with Blount, signing the Treaty of Mellifont. Blount continues in office with the more distinguished title of Lord-Lieutenant. He declares amnesty for the rebels and grants them honourable terms, which causes some severe criticism from England. He shows similar moderation in putting down the abortive risings in Cork, Waterford and Wexford, where the aldermen, apparently with some vague idea of gaining greater toleration for Roman Catholics, refuse to proclaim the new King. In Cork, three insurgents are hanged after a summary trial, but the rest are acquitted or pardoned.

As part of the Plantation of Ulster, the majority of the barony of Loughinsholin is detached from County Tyrone and made part of the newly created County Londonderry. The rest of Loughinsholin along with the northern parts of Dungannon barony are merged to create the short-lived barony of Mountjoy. It is later amalgamated with the barony of Dungannon.

On his return to England, Blount serves as one of Sir Walter Raleigh’s judges in 1603, and in the same year King James I appoints him Master-General of the Ordnance as well as creating him Earl of Devonshire, granting him extensive estates. He is one of the founder members of the Spanish Company re-founded by royal charter in 1605.

Toward the end of Blount’s life, on December 26, 1605, at Wanstead House near London, in a ceremony conducted by his chaplain William Laud, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, he marries his long-time mistress Lady Penelope, formerly wife of Robert Rich, 3rd Baron Rich (later 1st Earl of Warwick) and sister of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

Blount leaves no legitimate children, and so his hereditary titles become extinct at his death on April 3, 1606, at Savoy House, London.


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The Battle of Moyry Pass

The Battle of Moyry Pass begins on September 20, 1600, ending on October 9, in counties Armagh and Louth, in the north of Ireland, during the Nine Years’ War. It is the first significant engagement of forces following the cessation of arms agreed in the previous year between the Irish leader Hugh O’Neill and the English Crown commander, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

The battle is fought by the armies of O’Neill and Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, a follower of the late Earl of Essex. Mountjoy is determined to pierce O’Neill’s heartland in central and western Ulster by the Moyry Pass. In the course of the two-week assault the English troops establish a garrison near Armagh, taking heavy casualties, and Mountjoy retires with difficulty to Dundalk.

Mountjoy’s strategy for putting down O’Neill’s rebellion is gradually to constrict his territory in Ulster with a ring of fortified garrisons on the borders. To this end, he lands seaborne forces at Derry in the north of the province and at Carrickfergus in the east of Ulster. In September 1600, Mountjoy moves north from Dublin and concentrates at Dundalk in order to mount an expedition further into Ulster and re-establish a garrison at Armagh, which position had been evacuated by the English Crown forces after O’Neill’s victory at the Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598.

On September 17, 1600, Mountjoy sets out from Dundalk, intending to march to Newry and then on to Armagh. The Moyry Pass (or “Gap of the North”) is the sole point of entry to Ulster as much of the terrain is wooded and mountainous, and it has been well fortified by O’Neill with trenches and barricades. There are three lines of trenches, barricaded with earth and stone, and on the flanks the Irish have made further earth and stone works and “plashed” (twisted) the branches of low-growing trees in order to provide cover for themselves and prevent the English occupying the heights on either side of the Pass.

The English reach the pass on September 20 and set up camp just outside, to the south on Faughart Hill. Taking advantage of a misty day on the 25th, an officer named Thomas Williams (who had commanded the Blackwater Fort during the Battle of the Yellow Ford) makes a sortie into the pass. After heavy fighting he identifies the Irish defence works and returns to the English camp with 12 dead and 30 wounded. For six days heavy rain holds up the fighting, until the weather clears on October 2. The weather is important because the matchlock muskets of the day do not work in wet conditions. On October 2, Sir Samuel Bagnall leads his regiment of infantry into the Pass at the head of four other regiments. The English breach the first barricade, and Thomas Bourke’s regiment leads the way to the second and third lines of defence. The English take the second line only to find themselves in a trap, with gunfire concentrated from three sides. They try to dislodge the Irish from their remaining positions for three more hours before retreating, with the Irish in close pursuit. The English admit 46 killed and 120 wounded, but it is thought that they understated their losses throughout the campaign.

On October 5, Mountjoy sends two regiments on a flanking march over the hill to the west, with one further regiment supported by horsemen advancing up the centre of the Pass. No significant gains are made, and the regiments turn back, reporting casualties of 50 dead and 200 wounded.

By October 9 the privy councilor Geoffrey Fenton complains, “we are now but where we were in the beginning.” Mountjoy retires to Dundalk on either October 8 or 9, but on October 14 word reaches the English camp that O’Neill has abandoned the Pass and retreated to a crannog stronghold at Lough Lurcan. The most likely explanation for O’Neill’s withdrawal from his position of strength is that he is short of ammunition and food and fears a flanking attack on his rear from Newry.

Mountjoy occupies the Moyry Pass on October 17 and dismantles O’Neill’s earthworks. He marches on to Carrickban, just outside Newry, and by Sunday, November 2, sets up camp at Mountnorris, halfway between Newry and Armagh. There he builds an earthwork fort and leaves a garrison of 400 men under the command of Captain Edward Blaney. He then marches back to Dundalk via Carlingford, but is attacked on November 13 by O’Neill, close to the Fathom Pass. Mountjoys men force their way through, and the Lord Deputy claims the army lost 15–20 killed and 60–80 wounded, but a later report suggests the losses are much heavier, with 80 killed.

The battle of Moyry Pass is a stalemate as Mountjoy cannot take the Pass and O’Neill cannot keep it. Mountjoy does establish a garrison at Mountnorris, but has to retire to Dundalk after taking substantial casualties. Mountjoy claims his force lost only 200 men killed and 400 wounded in the fighting from September 20 to November 13, though this may be a considerable underestimate. More, he says, died of disease. The Irish casualties are given by the English as an incredible 900–1,200 killed and wounded, but this is questionable given that the Irish were in a strong defensive position of their own choosing, behind the protection of fieldworks. These figures probably say more about what Mountjoy wanted Queen Elizabeth I to hear than about the actual casualty figures. The following year Mountjoy builds Moyry Castle to secure the pass.

(Pictured: View of the entrance to the Moyry Pass looking north from Faghart Hill)


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The Glenanne Barracks Bombing

The Glenanne barracks bombing is a large truck bomb attack carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) against a British Army (Ulster Defence Regiment) base at Glenanne, near Mountnorris, County Armagh, on May 31, 1991. The bombing leaves three soldiers dead and 14 people wounded, four of them civilians.

The bombing takes place at a time when the Northern Ireland Office arranges multi-party talks, known as the Brooke/Mayhew talks, on the future of Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin members are not invited to attend because of their links with the IRA, which prevents them from being recognised as a “constitutional” party. The talks end in failure soon after.

Built in 1972, the barracks house two companies of the 2nd Battalion, Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). Seen as an outpost, it sits on the dividing line between a Protestant area and a Catholic area. Although the military barracks itself had not been attacked by the IRA previously, seven UDR soldiers from the base had already been killed during the Troubles.

At 11:30 PM, a driverless truck loaded with 2,500 lb (1,100 kg) of a new type of homemade explosive is rolled down a hill at the rear of the barracks and crashes through the perimeter fence. According to a witness, a UDR lance corporal who alerts the base, the truck is a Mercedes, and a Toyota HiAce van carrying at least two men acts as a support vehicle. The men are seen outside the parked van, masked and armed, one with a handgun and the other with a submachine gun. This same witness alerts the base believing the IRA team are about to carry out a mortar attack, and debris thrown up on the roof by the lorry as it plunges down the hill is misinterpreted by some inside the base as a mortar projectile. Automatic fire is heard by other witnesses just before the main blast. A Reuters report claims that IRA members trigger the bomb by firing upon the driverless vehicle. It is later determined that the lorry had been stolen the day before in Kingscourt, County Cavan, in the Republic of Ireland.

The blast leaves a crater 200 ft. (61 m) deep and throws debris and shrapnel as far as 300 yards (270 m). The explosion can be heard over 30 miles (48 km) away, as far as Dundalk. This is the biggest bomb detonated by the IRA up to this point. Most of the UDR base is destroyed by the blast and the fire that follows. At first, a massive mortar attack is suspected. Some livestock are killed and windows broken around the nearby Mossfield housing as a result of the explosion. The cars parked outside the base are obliterated. Ceilings are brought down and the local primary school is also damaged.

The barracks is usually manned by eight soldiers, but at the time there are 40 people in the complex, attending a social event. Three UDR soldiers – Lance Corporal Robert Crozier (46), Private Sydney Hamilton (44) and Private Paul Blakely (30) – are killed and ten are wounded. Two of them are caught by the explosion when they come out to investigate after a sentry gives the alarm. A third dies inside the base. Four civilians are also wounded. The Provisional IRA claims responsibility two days later.

Author Kevin Toolis lists the destruction of Glenanne UDR barracks in County Armagh as part of the cycle of violence and tit-for-tat killings in neighbouring County Tyrone. The IRA later claims that the death of three of its men in the town of Coagh is a Special Air Service (SAS) retaliation for the Glenanne bombing.

The base is never rebuilt. It had outlived its operational usefulness and a decision had already been taken to close it down. The decision not to rebuild the compound raises some controversy among unionists. A memorial stone is erected by the main entrance road with the names of the UDR soldiers killed over the years while serving in Glenanne.