On This Day PIRA

The three Rudman brothers were from West Hartlepool in Co Durham. Two of them, Thomas and Jack, were twins and all three joined the Light Infantry, a regiment with historic connections to Co Durham. It was formed by the amalgamation of the four remaining light infantry regiments of the Light Infantry Brigade including the Durham Light Infantry in 1968. John Rudman On 14th September 1971 21 year old John Ronald Rudman was among soldiers dispatched to Coalisland following disturbances in the town.  IRA murderers opened fire on the lead Land Rover with pump action shotguns, a rifle and a Thompson submachine gun.  Four women had what the News Letter at the time described as "miraculous escape" when their car was caught in the ambush.  They were returning from a party at Granville when they overtook the army convoy only to come under a hail of gunfire. The soldiers in some of the vehicles jumped out and took cover on the side of the road shouting anxiously for the w...

Garrison is a small village in rural Co Fermanagh close to the border with Co Leitrim in the Republic of Ireland. It obtained its name after a barracks was erected there by the Williamite forces following the Battle of Aughrim. Despite its connection to the iconic period of Orange history Garrison was and remains a strongly Republican village, something underscored by the fact that under the aborted proposals of the Irish Boundary Commission in 1925 it would have been transferred from Northern Ireland to the Irish Free State.  There was, nonetheless, a small Protestant population in the village in the 1970s. The events of 1st March 1972 were to change that. IRA murder victim Thomas (Johnny) Fletcher Thomas Fletcher, known as Johnny, was a forestry worker as well as working a small 20-acre farm which straddled the border. He had married 3 years previously. Johnny enjoyed shooting and darts, a sport in which his left handedness resulted in some comment. He was als...

The nature of the PIRA campaign was such that often times those they murdered didn’t have a chance to display what would be described as heroism. Shooting an unarmed teacher in the back in a school, a farmer on his tractor or a man making his way to work repeatedly in the back of the head are probably best described as dirty. I am aware that the act of serving in the security forces during the years of terror took tremendous courage. That said, when you make your way through the catalog of PIRA murders every so often you encounter someone whose bravery stands out. People like RUC man James Hazlett   whose story I may return to in a later post.  On my twitter account and on the blog I try to focus on the many forgotten cases rather than those which many have heard about before. I’m aware that there will be lots of readers who know something of this story but I’m also conscious that it is probably better misremembered than remembered due to the song referenced in the t...

Those of you who follow the twitter feed faithfully will have noticed that I paid tribute to the contribution of Thomas Cooke’s son in helping me with this project. When I started this blog I always intended to write one of the early posts about the case of Thomas Cooke as a case study in how the IRA operated. In one sense the story of Thomas Cooke’s murder as far as documented history goes begins on 23rd March 1987. IRA murder victim Leslie Jarvis IRA murder victim Austin Wilson IRA murder victim John Bennison Around  9pm  that evening 61 year old Leslie Jarvis , a prison lecturer in Magilligan, was sitting in his car outside Magee College where he was attending night classes when three masked men approached. Six shots were fired through the windscreen, hitting Jarvis in the head. The gunmen were then seen casually walking away. Just under an hour later students were leaving the college when a boobytrap bomb on the back seat of the car exploded, re...