January-March 1967

January 5th, 1967

Irish regular army units defending Kilkeel start a counterattack against the FUA.

January 6th, 1967

Irish commandos take out the FUA defensive outposts near Dromore.

January 9th, 1967

The FUA breaks off its attack on Kilkeel after sustaining heavy casualties in its fruitless attempts to dislodge the local Irish regular army defenders.

January 11th, 1967

An East German consular deputy in Shannon is hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds after unidentified assailants strafe the city’s East German consulate with machine guns. Knowing that East Germany’s European policy is solidly anti-FUA, Dublin police are quick to suspect the gunmen have FUA ties and that the motive for the attack may have been retaliation for recent statements by GDR chancellor Walter Ulbricht highly critical of the FUA’s staunchly pro-China ideology.

January 13th, 1967

78 people are killed and 119 injured when a car bomb is detonated by FUA insurgents near Cork’s central police station.

January 14th, 1967

Irish regular army units retake Dromore from the FUA.

January 16th, 1967

In retaliation for pro-Lynch statements made by Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau the previous day, FUA partisans try to storm the Canadian embassy in Dublin; the attack is defeated, but not before the insurgents manage to kill two embassy guards and a deputy cultural attaché.

January 17th, 1967

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police begin a sweep of eastern Canada in search of FUA cells; that same day Garda detectives arrest the
main gunman the previous day’s embassy attack.

January 20th, 1967

In a surprise raid on the village of Castlederg, FUA guerrillas capture dozen of Irish regular army troops along with a number of rifles and grenades.

January 22nd, 1967

RCMP detectives in Toronto arrest three Irish nationals suspected of having ties to the FUA.

January 23rd, 1967

Radio Free Ulster broadcasts an anti-Catholic diatribe so vicious it even upsets some FUA supporters.

January 24th, 1967

The Radio Free Ulster commentator responsible for the previous day’s anti-Catholic harangue is quietly relieved of his post and re-assigned to a mid-level communications post at the FUA’s so- called “people’s embassy” in Tirana, Albania.

January 28th, 1967

Using the weapons seized in the Castlederg raid just eight days earlier, FUA guerrillas attack Irish regular army troops near the neighboring town of Kilclean, killing six and wounding thirteen.

February 1st, 1967

The bodies of four of the Irish regular troops seized in the January 20th FUA raid on Castlederg are found in shallow graves three and a half miles southwest of the town. Six other regular soldiers escape from a makeshift FUA prison camp and make their way to Belfast for further debriefing on the Castlederg assault.

February 2nd, 1967

Radio Free Ulster broadcasts a two-hour-long “victory rally” show to commemorate the one-year-anniversary of the beginning of the
Ulster Rebellion. Half an hour after the broadcast concludes, FUA insurgents attack an Irish naval outpost near St. John’s Point.

February 4th, 1967

The Canadian embassy in Dublin is attacked for the second time by FUA guerrillas.

February 6th, 1967

FUA forces occupy the village of Maghera.

February 8th, 1967

The Irish regular army launches a two-pronged assault aimed at recapturing Maghera from the FUA; the British military attaché in Dublin hastens to deny rumors that elements of the SAS are taking part in the operation.

February 9th, 1967

Three of the insurgents involved in the January 28th FUA raid on Castlederg are killed in a firefight with Irish regular troops.

February 12th, 1967

Running low on ammunition and many other critical supplies, FUA occupation forces begin pulling out of Maghera.

February 13th, 1967

Irish regular troops retake Maghera.

February 15th, 1967

Gerry Adams is wounded in an assassination attempt by unknown gunmen; suspecting the FUA may have had at least a partial role in the attack, Belfast police begin a citywide investigation of known and suspected FUA sympathizers in the Belfast area.

February 16th, 1967

Liam Delaney makes a secret visit to Albania to meet with Enver Hoxha in an effort to secure an increase in financial aid for the FUA from the Hoxha regime. The meeting does not go as well as the FUA secretary general would have liked, as Hoxha’s intelligence advisors have been giving him somewhat pessimistic reports about the group’s ability to keep prosecuting a guerrilla war against Irish government forces.

February 18th, 1967

FUA sympathizers occupy a number of key municipal buildings in the town of Ballybofey. Garda units are immediately dispatched to clear them out and restore control of the buildings to the town’s rightful government.

February 19th, 1967

Two Garda officers and four FUA insurgents are killed in the initial fighting between FUA and government forces at Ballybofey.

February 20th, 1967

The BBC reports that most of the buildings in Ballybofey are back in government hands as Irish regular forces continue engaging the FUA in that town.

February 22nd, 1967

FUA guerrillas hastily evacuate the few remaining buildings under their control in Ballybofey amid persistent rumors that the Irish Air Corps is preparing to mount bombing raids as a last resort to clear the insurgents out. Not until two decades later will it be known that the planned bombing raid was in fact a hoax devised by the G-2 intelligence branch of the Irish army.

February 23rd, 1967

The Catholic and Protestant Archbishops of Armagh are both shot and seriously wounded in the beginning of an FUA assassination campaign targeting clergy of all denominations throughout Ulster. The shootings are universally condemned by Ireland’s religious and political leaders; the Attorney-General of Ireland’s office posts a 100,000-punt reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the would-be assassins.

February 25th, 1967

Garda agents arrest two suspects in connection with the attempt on Gerry Adams’ life ten days earlier. Subsequent interrogation of these suspects reveals the Adams shooting may have been linked in some way with the February 23rd assassination attempts against the Catholic and Protestant Archbishops of Armagh.

February 26th, 1967

An Irish Navy frigate is hit and seriously damaged in an FUA rocket attack just after midnight Dublin time. Authorities in Dublin suspect the attackers may have had assistance from a member of the ship’s own crew in hunting her down-- a suspicion heightened when one of the FUA guerrillas involved in the attack is captured by police and found to have coded messages in his pocket written on official Irish Navy stationery.

February 28th, 1967

Two more arrests are made in connection with the assassination attempt on Gerry Adams.

March 1st, 1967

The chief of staff of the Irish army narrowly escapes death when a bomb planted on his personal vehicle prematurely detonates; his driver survives the blast with minor injuries and second-degree burns. The failed bomber is subsequently captured after an eight- hour pursuit by Garda and army reserve personnel.

March 2nd, 1967

FUA guerrillas attack Irish regular forces just outside the town of Coalisland.