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===Arms smuggling=== |
===Arms smuggling=== |
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In [[1979]], while on leave from the Irish Army and secretly holding dual members of the the [[PIRA]] and the [[Irish Army]], Mac Giolla Bhrighde was captured by [[RUC]] officers while attempting to smuggle weapons into Northern Ireland. He was detained at [[Strabane]] RUC barracks and was later imprisoned for three years for this operation.<ref>A Secret History of the IRA'', [[Ed Moloney]], 2002. 9PB) ISBN 0-393-32502-4 (HB) ISBN 0-71-399665-X</ref> |
In [[1979]], while on leave from the Irish Army and secretly holding dual members of the the [[PIRA]] and the [[Irish Army]], Mac Giolla Bhrighde was captured by [[Royal Ulster Constabulary|RUC]] officers while attempting to smuggle weapons into Northern Ireland. He was detained at [[Strabane]] RUC barracks and was later imprisoned for three years for this operation.<ref>A Secret History of the IRA'', [[Ed Moloney]], 2002. 9PB) ISBN 0-393-32502-4 (HB) ISBN 0-71-399665-X</ref> |
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===Hard line republicanism=== |
===Hard line republicanism=== |
Revision as of 11:55, 15 February 2007
Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde (English Tony or Anthony MacBride (also mispelt McBride)), born August 29 1957 – December 2 1984), was a Provisional Irish Republican Army member (volunteer) from Desertmartin, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. He was shot and killed in an armed confrontation with British troops in 1984.[1][2][3]
Background
Mac Giolla Bhrighde was the oldest son of Frank and Nora MacBride. The MacBride family moved from their County Londonderry home to the Knock Road, Belfast in 1964. It was then that Mac Giolla Bhrighde was introduced to physical force republicanism by his maternal grandmother, also called Nora, who was involved in the Irish War of Independence in the 1920s.
The MacBride family later moved to Killowen Street, which is located in a predominantly Loyalist area of East Belfast. The family home was subjected to a number of attacks from loyalists. The attacks came in the form of window breaking and an attempted bombing but culminated in 1972 with the shooting of Mac Giolla Bhrighde and his father Frank. His father, who was hit by 12 bullets, never recovered from the attacked and died some 17 months later.[4][5][6]
Military career
Immediately after the shooting the family moved to Newtownards, County Down and in the mid's 1970s Mac Giolla Bhrighde left Northern Ireland to join the Irish Army in the Republic of Ireland. The McBride family then moved again, this time returning to their native County Londonderry. Mac Giolla Bhrighde was said to have excelled in the Irish Army and received a commendation for bravery whilst serving there.[7]
Paramilitary career
Whilst serving in the Irish Army, Mac Giolla Bhrighde also became a volunteer in the South Derry Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He was involved in a number of of operations as part of an Active Service Unit which operated throughout the rural County Londonderry area.
Arms smuggling
In 1979, while on leave from the Irish Army and secretly holding dual members of the the PIRA and the Irish Army, Mac Giolla Bhrighde was captured by RUC officers while attempting to smuggle weapons into Northern Ireland. He was detained at Strabane RUC barracks and was later imprisoned for three years for this operation.[8]
Hard line republicanism
Mac Giolla Bhrighde, according to PIRA sources quoted by journalist Ed Moloney was noted for his hard line militarist republicanism. He is reputed to have backed a plan to form full time guerrilla units or "flying columns" based in the Republic, which would carry out four or five large scale attacks in the north a year.
This approach was espoused by the militant Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade led by Padraig McKearney and Jim Lynagh, who wanted an escalation of the conflict to what they termed "total war". They were opposed by Kevin McKenna, the PIRA Chief of Staff and by the republican leadership based around Gerry Adams, on the grounds that actions on that scale were too big a risk and unsustainable. The PIRA leadership wanted a smaller scale campaign of attrition, supplemented by politcal campaigning by Sinn Fein.[9]
Norwegian link
Upon his release Mac Giolla Bhrighde, who had made a number of friends and contacts in Norway, became involved in providing information for the Irish republican cause throughout Scandinavia. After returning from Norway in November 1984, Mac Giolla Bhrighde along with fellow volunteer, Kieran Fleming, undertook their final operation.[10][11]
Kesh ambush and death
In the early hours of Sunday morning on 2 December, 1984, in cold sleety conditions, Mac Giolla Bhrighde and Fleming stole a Toyota van in Pettigo, County Donegal. The van was then loaded with 9 beer kegs, each containing 100lbs of low explosives. They then crossed the border and travelled to Kesh, County Fermanagh. At the Drumrush Lodge Restaurant just outside of Kesh they then planted a landmine in a lane leading to the resturant and wired up a device which was connected to an observation point. From there a hoax call was was made in order to lure the British Army to the resturant on the pretence that there was a firebomb planted within the resturant.
Mac Giolla Bhrighde observed a RUC patrol car approaching the restaurant and gave the detonation code word "one", however, the mine failed to explode. There was another car parked in the car park which Mac Giolla Bhrighde believed to contain civilians, he got out of the van from which he was observing the scene to warn the civilian car to leave the area.[12]
Conflicting accounts of his death
According to the republican sources, when he approached the car, two Special Air Service soldiers got out and commanded him to halt and drop his gun. Mac Giolla Bhrighde, who was unarmed, informed the SAS of this and then one of the SAS men stepped forward and shot him on his left side. He was then cuffed and shot dead.[13][14]
However, according to the Andy McNab a former SAS solider, there was a gun battle at the scene of the attempted bombing, between the a number of PIRA men and British troops in which Mac Giolla Bhrighde was killed. British soldier Alistair Slater was also killed in the exchange of fire and Mac Giolla Bhrighde's companion Kieran Fleming was drowned in the swolen Bannagh River as he tried to get away.[15][16]
Monument issue
In 2002, a row erupted when a monument to Mac Giolla Bhrighde, Fleming and Sligo volunteer Joe MacManus was sited close to the place where Protestant workmen William Hassard and Frederick Love were killed by the PIRA in 1988.[17][18][19]
A Sinn Fein spokesman stated that "The families of Ciaran Fleming, Joseph McManus and Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde, the three IRA men commemorated by the monument, had given the go-ahead for the structure to be moved".[20]
Trivia
The Republican Sinn Fein party branch in Glenade, County Leitrim is named Kieran Fleming/Tony McBride Cumann after Kieran Fleming and Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde.[21]
On January 29, 2007, Luighaidan Mac Giolla Bhrighde, the younger brother of Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde is a current member of Sinn Fein and voted against giving the leadership the power to participate in the province's policing and justice structures at the extraordinary conference, or Ard Fheis, in Dublin.[22]
References
- ^ CAIN Index of Deaths
- ^ Antoine MacGiolla Bhrighde
- ^ She said too much
- ^ Four Derry Volunteers killed in action
- ^ The Impartial Reporter
- ^ I nDíl Chuimhne
- ^ Tírghrá, National Commemoration Centre, 2002. PB) ISBN 0-9542946-0-2 p.265
- ^ A Secret History of the IRA, Ed Moloney, 2002. 9PB) ISBN 0-393-32502-4 (HB) ISBN 0-71-399665-X
- ^ Ed Moloney, The Secret History of the IRA, p313-314
- ^ The I.R.A., Tim Pat Coogan, 1995. PB) ISBN 0-00-638401-3 p.530
- ^ Tírghrá, National Commemoration Centre, 2002. PB) ISBN 0-9542946-0-2 p.265
- ^ ["Immediate Action", Andy McNab PB) ISBN 0-55214-276-X]
- ^ Tírghrá, National Commemoration Centre, 2002. PB) ISBN 0-9542946-0-2 p.265
- ^ Baptism of Fire: The Astonishing True Story of a Man of God, Frank Collins PB) ISBN 0-5521458-2-3, 0-385409-168
- ^ "Immediate Action", Andy McNab PB) ISBN 0-55214-276-X
- ^ http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1984.html
- ^ Northern News
- ^ The Impartial Reporter
- ^ Republicans make conciliatory move over IRA memorial
- ^ Family’s relief at plans to remove IRA monument
- ^ Letitia Branley
- ^ Historic vote ends Sinn Féin's long battle with the police service in Northern Ireland
See also