The Tullyvallen massacre took place on 1 September 1975, when
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 developm ...
gunmen attacked an
Orange Order
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots people, Ulster Sco ...
meeting hall at Tullyvallen, near
Newtownhamilton
Newtownhamilton is a small town and civil parish in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It lies predominantly within Tullyvallan townland. The civil parish is within the historic barony of Fews Upper. In the 2011 Census it had 2,836 inhabitants ...
in
County Armagh
County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of an ...
,
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...
. The Orange Order is an
Ulster Protestant and
unionist brotherhood. Five Orangemen were killed and seven wounded in the shooting. The "South Armagh Republican Action Force" claimed responsibility, saying it was retaliation for a string of attacks on
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
civilians by
Loyalists
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...
. It is believed members of 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 re ...
carried out the attack, despite the organisation being on ceasefire.
Background
On 10 February 1975, the Provisional IRA and British government entered into a truce and restarted negotiations. The IRA agreed to halt attacks on the British security forces, and the security forces mostly ended their raids and searches.
[Extracts from ''The Longest War: Northern Ireland and the IRA'' by Kevin J. Kelley]
Zed Books Ltd, 1988. Conflict Archive on the Internet
CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet) is a database containing information about Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland from 1968 to the present. The project began in 1996, with the website launching in 1997. The project is based within Ul ...
(CAIN). There was a rise in sectarian killings during the truce.
Loyalists
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...
, fearing they were about to be forsaken by the British government and forced into a
united Ireland
United Ireland, also referred to as Irish reunification, is the proposition that all of Ireland should be a single sovereign state. At present, the island is divided politically; the sovereign Republic of Ireland has jurisdiction over the maj ...
,
[Taylor, Peter (1999). ''Loyalists''. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p.142] increased their attacks on Irish Catholics/
nationalists
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
.
[Taylor, Peter. ''Brits: The War Against the IRA''. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001. p.182] They hoped to force the IRA to retaliate and thus end the truce.
[ Some IRA units concentrated on tackling the loyalists. The fall-off of regular operations had caused unruliness within the IRA and some members, with or without permission from higher up, engaged in tit-for-tat killings.][
On 22 August, loyalists killed three Catholic civilians in a gun and bomb attack on a pub in Armagh. Two days later, loyalists shot dead two Catholic civilians after stopping their car at a fake ]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 Gurk ...
checkpoint in the Tullyvallen area. Both of these attacks have been linked to the Glenanne gang. On 30 August, loyalists killed two more Catholic civilians in a gun and bomb attack on a pub 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 Kingdom ...
.
Orange Hall attack
On the night of 1 September, a group of Orangemen were holding a meeting in their isolated Orange hall in the rural area of Tullyvallen. At about 10pm, two masked gunmen burst into the hall armed with assault rifles and sprayed it with bullets while others stood outside and fired through the windows.[McKittrick, David. ''Lost Lives''. Mainstream Publishing, 1999. p.572] The Orangemen scrambled for cover. One of them was an off-duty Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer. He returned fire with a pistol and believed he hit one of the attackers.["Tullyvallen massacre, 40 years on: ‘The memories never really go away’"](_blank)
. ''The News Letter
The ''News Letter'' is one of Northern Ireland's main daily newspapers, published from Monday to Saturday. It is the world's oldest English-language general daily newspaper still in publication, having first been printed in 1737.
The newspape ...
''. 29 August 2015. Before leaving, the attackers also planted a 2-pound bomb outside the hall, but it failed to detonate.Ulster Special Constabulary
The Ulster Special Constabulary (USC; commonly called the "B-Specials" or "B Men") was a quasi-military reserve special constable police force in what would later become Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, shortly before the part ...
.
Aftermath
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...
claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the "South Armagh Republican Action Force" or "South Armagh Reaction Force",
saying it was retaliation for "the assassinations of fellow Catholics". The ''
'' reported on 10 September: "The Provisional IRA has told the British government that dissident members of its organisation were responsible" and "stressed that the shooting did not have the consent of the organisation's leadership".
In response to the attack, the Orange Order called for the creation of a legal
(or "Home Guard") to deal with republican paramilitaries.
The attack triggered a sudden expansion of loyalist paramilitaries' activities in Scotland, whose supporters were crucial in supplying weapons and funds to them.
Some of the rifles used in the attack were later used in the
in January 1976, when ten Protestant workmen were killed. Like the Tullyvallen massacre, it was claimed by the "South Armagh Reaction Force" (a cover name for IRA operatives in some operations at the time) as retaliation for the killing of Catholics elsewhere.
man John Anthony McCooey was convicted of driving the gunmen to and from the scene and of IRA membership. He was also convicted of involvement in the killings of UDR soldier Joseph McCullough—chaplain of Tullyvallen Orange lodge—in February 1976, and UDR soldier
in April 1976.