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Call To Arms:

The Ulster Rebellion, 1966-72

By Chris Oakley

Part 9

Continued from Part 8

March 4th, 1967--The village of Brookeborough, scene of the January 1966 riots which led to the imposition of martial law by the Lynch government on County Fermanagh just before the Ulster Rebellion got started, comes under rocket attack by FUA insurgents. 31 civilians are killed and 148 injured in the attack; casualties among regular army units defending the village total 11 dead and 47 injured.

March 5th, 1967--Irish regular troops capture two critical FUA defensive positions near Coalisland.

March 7th, 1967--The former defendants in the notorious April-May 1965 “Derry Two” assault trial, now both FUA guerrillas, are shot and seriously wounded during a rear-guard firefight with regular army reserve units northwest of Armagh.

March 8th, 1967--The FUA withdraws the last of its guerrilla forces from Coalisland.

March 10th, 1967--The main gunman in the February 23rd assassination attempt on the life of Armagh’s Protestant Archbishop is arrested in Dungarvan after nearly a month on the run from police. His chief co-conspirator will be captured within a week.

March 12th, 1967--FUA insurgents attack Strabane.

March 13th, 1967--Irish regular troops launch a two-pronged counter- offensive against the FUA positions at Strabane.

March 15th, 1967--After three days’ fighting, Irish government forces retake Strabane.

March 17th, 1967--The chief of staff of the Irish air force is severely injured when his personal plane crashes en route to Dublin after being hit by what is later identified as machine gun fire from an FUA base west of Dundalk.

March 18th, 1967--The two principal gunmen in the February 23rd assassination attempt on the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh are indicted on twelve counts including conspiracy to commit murder.

March 20th, 1967--The FUA machine gun position which shot down the Irish air force chief of staff’s personal plane three days earlier is destroyed in an artillery barrage by Irish regular army forces. March 23rd, 1967--A Bank of Ireland armored car is robbed in broad daylight near Cork; the tactics used by the perpetrators lead Irish authorities to suspect the FUA itself, or at least FUA supporters, were behind the robbery.

March 26th, 1967--A group of Protestant vigilantes attacks the homes of suspected FUA sympathizers in one of the working class districts of Belfast. Two of the group’s leaders are arrested by Garda agents for inciting a riot; the rest of the vigilantes flee the scene in a bid to avoid prosecution.

March 30th, 1967--An Irish navy patrol boat is hijacked by FUA guerrillas and smuggled to an FUA base on the eastern coast of Ulster. In the next two weeks this boat will be used to stage a series of attacks on other patrol vessels.

April 1st, 1967--The U.S. consulate in Shannon is heavily damaged in an FUA-orchestrated bombing attack; twelve people are killed and forty-three injured in the blast.

April 2nd, 1967--Two known American FUA sympathizers are placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List after evidence turns up linking them to the previous day’s attack on the American consulate in Shannon.

April 4th, 1967--FUA insurgents ambush an Irish army supply convoy near the town of Craigavon, killing 18 and wounding 47.

April 7th, 1967--The security attaché at the Israeli embassy in Dublin is advised by Garda officials that the embassy complex may be a potential FUA attack target because of Tel Aviv’s pro-Lynch policies on Ireland.

April 9th, 1967--A Mossad security team arrives in Dublin with orders from Tel Aviv to tighten the Israeli embassy’s perimeter defenses.

April 10th, 1967--The FUA regional commander for the Armagh area is killed in a firefight with Irish regular troops west of Armagh.

April 12th, 1967--The patrol boat hijacked by the FUA on March 30th is sunk by the Irish navy in a running battle with two other patrol boats.

April 14th, 1967--FUA insurgents seize an Irish regular army supply cache near the town of Whiteabbey.

April 17th, 1967--Two Shannon residents are arrested by Garda agents on suspicion of being tied to the FUA conspiracy to attack Israel’s embassy in Dublin.

April 20th, 1967--FUA guerrilla forces attack the village of Letterkenny.

April 21st, 1967--Air strikes north and west of Letterkenny force FUA insurgents to temporarily pull out of the village; the British embassy in Dublin declines to comment on rumors the RAF may have provided assistance to the Irish Air Corps in targeting the FUA’s positions at Letterkenny. The Lynch government’s only comment on the matter is a terse two-paragraph press release insisting the strikes were conducted entirely by IAC personnel.

April 24th, 1967--Irish regular army soldiers on patrol south of Belfast discover what appear to be a series of mass graves behind a deserted farmhouse.

April 25th, 1967--Garda forensics teams arrive in Belfast to assist the Irish army in its investigation of the mass graves discovered by its patrols the previous day.

April 28th, 1967--The Irish justice ministry issues an announcement that the mass graves found near Belfast four days earlier have been identified as FUA burial sites for the disposal of people the group has executed on suspicion of being traitors to their cause.

May 1st, 1967--The Communist Party of Ireland uses its annual May Day Parade in Dublin to call for the arrest and execution of those responsible for the mass graves near Belfast.

May 2nd, 1967--FUA insurgents attack an Irish Air Corps base in the southern section of County Armagh; 48 IAC personnel are killed or wounded in the attack, with the insurgent forces suffering 24 dead and wounded.

May 4th, 1967--FBI agents in San Francisco arrest two Fisherman’s Wharf dockworkers suspected of aiding the FUA in its attempts to obtain weapons from the United States for use in its guerrilla war against the Dublin government.

May 6th, 1967--The chief of staff of the Irish navy is shot and wounded in an assassination attempt during an inspection tour of naval bases on Ireland’s southeastern coast. The would-be assassin, ironically one of the chief of staff’s own aides, is subsequently court-martialed for treason and executed by firing squad.

May 9th, 1967--A municipal school bus in Wales crashes and burns as the result of a hijacking attempt gone badly wrong; the driver and most of the passengers are killed in the crash. Scotland Yard investigators subsequently identify the would-be hijacker through dental records as a known FUA sympathizer who was wanted by both British and Irish authorities on suspicion of having connections to a weapons-smuggling ring that provided grenades to the FUA.

May 12th, 1967--Three Cardiff residents are arrested on charges of aiding and abetting the would-be bus hijacker. Under questioning, one of those residents is discovered to be an FUA covert agent who has been living in Wales under a false identity for the past seven months; she is extradited to Ireland while her two co-conspirators are picked up by Scotland yard for further questioning.

May 13th, 1967--The weapons-smuggling ring thought to have had a hand in the Wales school bus hijacking attempt four days earlier is broken up in a series of coordinated police raids in southern Ireland, England, and Wales.

May 15th, 1967--The Canadian government rejects a request by the FUA to open a “people’s embassy” in Toronto.

May 17th, 1967--The Canadian ambassador to Ireland is wounded in an assassination attempt by FUA snipers near Dublin.

May 18th, 1967--The FUA issues a terse statement warning that all Canadian diplomatic personnel in Ireland will remain subject to attack for the foreseeable future unless and until the Canadian government agrees to permit the FUA to open a “people’s embassy” in Canada.

May 20th, 1967--A Canadian Defense Forces special operations detachment is sent to Ulster to assist Irish regular troops in fighting the FUA.

May 25th, 1967--In their first major combat operation in northern Ireland, CDF special forces join with Irish regular army infantry units to take out a suspected FUA arms manufacturing facility south of Antrim.

May 26th, 1967--Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers arrest two suspected FUA collaborators in Winnipeg after receiving a tip from undercover agents that these collaborators are attempting to raise cash to purchase weapons for the FUA on the black market.

May 29th, 1967--Three FUA sympathizers are arrested in Great Britain after attempting to bomb the Canadian consulate in Shannon.

May 30th, 1967--FUA guerrillas destroy a regular Irish army armored convoy west of Antrim.

June 1st, 1967--Radio Free Ulster broadcasts its notorious “Appeal To The American People”, a propaganda piece calling on the United States to use its influence to force the Lynch government out of power in Dublin and guarantee the fulfillment of the FUA’s aim of a separate socialist nation in Ulster. Not surprisingly the White House, as well as most of the American public, emphatically rejects these demands.

June 4th, 1967--FUA suicide squads attempt to storm the U.S. consul general’s office in Belfast in retaliation for the U.S. government’s refusal to support the FUA’s demands for an independent Ulster. The attack is repulsed by the consulate’s Marine guards, but at least a dozen Americans are killed before the assault is over.

 

 

To Be Continued

 

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