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Operation Motorman was a large operation carried out by the
British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...
( HQ Northern Ireland) in Northern Ireland during
the Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
. The operation took place in the early hours of 31 July 1972 with the aim of retaking the " no-go areas" (areas controlled by residents, including
Irish republican Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate. The develop ...
paramilitaries) that had been established in
Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingd ...
and other urban centres. In
Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. Th ...
, Operation Carcan (or Car Can), initially proposed as a separate operation, was executed as part of Motorman.


Background

The Northern Ireland riots of August 1969 marked the beginning of the conflict known as
the Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
. As a result of the riots, Northern Ireland's two main cities, Belfast and Derry, had become more segregated than before. Many neighbourhoods became entirely
Irish nationalist Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of ...
or entirely unionist. In some places, residents and paramilitaries built barricades to seal off and protect their neighbourhoods from incursions by "the other side", the security forces or both. These became known as " no-go areas". By the end of 1971, 29 barricades were in place to block access to what was known as Free Derry, 16 of them impassable even to the British Army's one-ton armoured vehicles. Many of the nationalist no-go areas were controlled by one of the two factions of the Irish Republican Army, the
Provisional IRA The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunif ...
and
Official IRA The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA (OIRA; ) was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a "socialist state, workers' republic" en ...
. On 29 May 1972, the Official IRA called a
ceasefire A ceasefire (also known as a truce or armistice), also spelled cease fire (the antonym of 'open fire'), is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be between state ac ...
CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict – 1972
/ref> and vowed that it would not launch attacks except in self-defence. On 21 July 1972, in the space of 75 minutes, the Provisional IRA detonated 22 bombs in Belfast. Nine people (including two soldiers and a loyalist volunteer) were killed and 130 were injured. The attack prompted the
British Government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_est ...
to implement Operation Motorman, just ten days later.


Preparations

Operation Motorman was the biggest British military operation since the
Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
of 1956 and the biggest in Ireland since the
Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence () or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and United Kingdom of Gre ...
. In the days before 31 July, about 4,000 extra troops were brought into Northern Ireland. Almost 22,000 soldiers were involved, including 27 infantry and two armoured battalions, aided by 5,300 soldiers from the local Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). Several Centurion AVRE demolition vehicles, derived from the
Centurion tank The Centurion was the primary British Army main battle tank of the post-World War II period. Introduced in 1945, it is widely considered to be one of the most successful post-war tank designs, remaining in production into the 1960s, and seeing ...
and fitted with bulldozer blades, were used. They were the only heavy armoured vehicles to be deployed operationally by the British Army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The tanks had been transported to Northern Ireland on board the amphibious landing ship HMS ''Fearless'', and were operated with their turrets traversed to the rear and main guns covered by tarpaulins.Osprey Publishing: Centurion Universal Tank 1943–2003 This quick military buildup alerted the Provisional IRA and Official IRA that a major operation was being planned.Museum of Free Derry: Operation Motorman
/ref> According to local MP
Ivan Cooper Ivan Averill Cooper (5 January 1944 – 26 June 2019) was an Irish politician from Northern Ireland. He was a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and a founding member of the SDLP. He is best known for leading the anti-internment march o ...
and others, the IRA left Derry's no-go areas the day before the operation.


Operation

The operation began at about 4:00 a.m. on 31 July and lasted for a few hours. In "no-go areas" such as Free Derry, sirens were sounded by residents to alert others of the incursion. The British Army used bulldozers and Centurion AVREs to break through the barricades before flooding the no-go areas with troops in smaller, lighter armoured vehicles. History – Operation Motorman
, Museum of Free Derry. Retrieved 2 September 2007.
Neither the Provisional IRA or Official IRA attempted to hold their ground. Small scale operations were carried out in other places like
Lurgan Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh. Lurgan is about south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. It had a populatio ...
,
Armagh Armagh ( ; ga, Ard Mhacha, , " Macha's height") is the county town of County Armagh and a city in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the ...
,
Coalisland Coalisland () is a small town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, with a population of 5,682 in the 2011 Census. Four miles from Lough Neagh, it was formerly a centre for coal mining. History Origins In the late 17th century coal deposits ...
and
Newry Newry (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland, divided by the Clanrye river in counties Armagh and Down, from Belfast and from Dublin. It had a population of 26,967 in 2011. Newry was founded in 1144 alongside a Cistercian monastery, although ...
. By the end of the day, Derry and Belfast had been cleared of no-go areas, but the Army remained cautious when operating in staunchly republican districts. Casement Park in Andersonstown, the main stadium of the
Ulster GAA The Ulster Council ( ga, Comhairle Uladh) is a provincial council of the Gaelic Athletic Association sports of hurling, Gaelic football, camogie, and handball in the province of Ulster. The headquarters of the Ulster GAA is based in the city ...
, was occupied by 19th Regiment Royal Artillery; it was returned in 1973/4.


Casualties

During the operation, the British Army shot four people in Derry, killing a civilian and an unarmed IRA member. * Daniel Hegarty, a 15-year-old Catholic civilian,CAIN – Sutton Index of Deaths – 31 July 1972
/ref> was shot along with his two cousins as they walked along Creggan Heights in Derry.
The boys had gone out to see the tanks and watch the operation unfold. The shots were fired from close range by soldiers, who had hidden themselves behind a garden fence. Hegarty was shot twice in the head and was killed outright. One of his cousins, Christopher Hegarty, survived being struck in the head by a bullet. While the British government initially maintained that no crime had been committed by the soldiers involved, following the
Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in Nor ...
, the case was re-opened, and in 2011 a jurors' inquest unanimously concluded that neither Hegarty boy had posed a threat when they were fired upon. Despite these findings, action was slow and in 2016 it was announced that the soldier involved, known publicly only as "Soldier B" in order to protect his identity, would not face charges related to Daniel's killing. In 2018, the High Court reversed this decision however and in 2019, 47 years later, Soldier B, the individual who personally fired the fatal shots into Daniel Hegarty, was charged with murder. In the summer of 2021, all charges against Soldier B related to the shooting of the Hegartys were dropped, after judges suppressed key evidence on which the prosecution's case was to rely. * Seamus Bradley, a 19-year-old Provisional IRA member, was shot dead by a British soldier. The army claimed that he was armed with a machine gun and had climbed a tree in Bishop's Field, Derry before being shot. An investigation concluded in August 2019 that Bradley's death was unjustified as he was unarmed and running across a ground while he was shot. The investigating coroner judge also ruled that Bradley could have survived had he been administered first aid or transported quickly to a hospital. The
Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...
appealed against the verdict but withdrew it in October 2021. In Belfast, some arrests were made but no armed resistance was met.


Aftermath

A few hours after the conclusion of Operation Motorman, the IRA bombed Claudy. Nine civilians were killed when three car bombs exploded on the Main Street of Claudy village,
County Londonderry County Londonderry (Ulster-Scots: ''Coontie Lunnonderrie''), also known as County Derry ( ga, Contae Dhoire), is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty two counties of Ireland and one of the nine counties of Ulste ...
. Five of the victims were
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
and four were
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
.


References


External links


The Pat Finucane center


from Britain small wars

{{The Troubles, state=collapsed 1972 in Northern Ireland British Army in Operation Banner Conflicts in 1972 Deaths by firearm in Northern Ireland History of Belfast July 1972 events in Europe Motorman The Troubles in Belfast The Troubles in Derry (city) Urban warfare