Battle of Lenadoon

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Coordinates: 54°34′30.72″N 6°0′45.70″W / 54.5752000°N 6.0126944°W / 54.5752000; -6.0126944
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Lenadoon Avenue Battle
Part of The Troubles
Date9–14 July 1972[citation needed]
Location
Various locations around Belfast. Heaviest fighting in Lenadoon Avenue, Ardoyne, The Falls Road & the Markets area.
54°34′30.72″N 6°0′45.70″W / 54.5752000°N 6.0126944°W / 54.5752000; -6.0126944
Result

Indecisive

  • End between Provisional IRA & British Army ceasefire
  • Both sides take heavy losses.
  • Heavy civilian casualties.
  • Springhill Massacre
  • 28 people killed in total including civilian, army & paramilitary
Belligerents
United Kingdom British Army
Official IRA
 Ulster Volunteer Force
Ulster Defence Association
Commanders and leaders
Lieutenant Colonel John Charteris
Lieutenant
Robert Williams-Wynn		 Brendan Hughes
Seamus Twomey		 Sammy Murphy
Units involved

British Army

Provisional Belfast Brigade

  • First Battalion
  • Second Battalion
  • Third Battalion


Official Belfast Brigade

  • Various sized units
 UDA South Belfast Brigade
Various UVF gunmen
Strength
600+ soldiers

100+ volunteers

  • 100
    less than 50
 unknown
Casualties and losses
unknown killed
30 wounded		 2 killed
12 injured
3 (2 from Youth Wing) killed		 At least 1 killed
unknown injured
14 civilians killed
Battle of Lenadoon is located in Northern Ireland
Battle of Lenadoon
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Where the battle started

The Battle of Lenadoon was a series of gun battles fought over a six day period from 9–14 July 1972

Provisional IRA and the British Army. It started on Thursday, 9 July 1972 in and around the Lenadoon Avenue area and spread to other places in Belfast. Loyalist paramilitaries and the Official Irish Republican Army were involved in some of the incidents. 28 people in total were killed in Belfast according to the CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths. The violence ended a two-week truce between the forces of the British Government and the IRA.[2]

Background

In 1972

sectarian violence had appeared that had not been seen in the island of Ireland since the 1920s during the Irish Civil War. Shootings, bombings, ambushes, IED attacks, bank robberies and riots had become a daily theme of life in Northern Ireland,[5] and from August 1971 gun battles between Irish Republican paramilitaries, the British Army and Loyalist paramilitaries were a regular occurrence in Belfast, especially in its North and West districts, with their concentrations of rival populations, nicknamed the "Wild West" by RUC officers.[6]

After "

Official (OIRA) wings. By the spring of 1972 the IRA believed they were winning and were using the slogan "Victory 72".[7] In June 1972 the IRA's Army Council called a ceasefire to accommodate talks between an IRA delegation and the British Government. The truce lasted two weeks, with hardline IRA members eager resume revolutionary violence believing they had the upper hand against the British Government in the deteriorating law and order situation in Northern Ireland, and victory was in their sight.[7]

Battle

9 July

Two days after secret talks between the British Government and IRA leadership in London broke down, the IRA in the West Belfast became involved in a sectarian confrontation in the Lenadoon Estate where there was an attempt by a large group of Catholics to move families into 16 empty council houses in Lenadoon Avenue that had been abandoned by Protestants, who had fled their homes due to the recent sectarian rioting, the Catholic families had themselves been forced to flee from other parts of the city. In an attempt to prevent a riot between the Catholics and the Protestant population that resided in the South of the Lenadoon Estate which had support from the UDA, a British Army detachment blocked the road with its armoured vehicles to halt the crowds advance, which then deteriorated into a riot when the Army rammed a moving truck to prevent it crossing the barricade. That evening the IRA in Belfast announced an end to its ceasefire, saying that the act was in response to events at Lenadoon Estate, and IRA Army Council member Seamus Twomey, who had been negotiating with the British Army in the district up until that point, ordered Brendan Hughes who was in command of an IRA unit in the vicinity to open fire on the British Army, and gun battles broke out.[8]

Riots and other violence occurred in other areas in Belfast that night. In what became known as the "

Grosvenor Road; it's believed Republican paramilitaries were responsible for these killings, possibly in retaliation to the events at Springhill, but no one acknowledged responsibility for the murders. A third Protestant civilian was found shot dead near the waterworks of Cavehill Road, also killed by Irish Republican paramilitary elements. In Belfast a 60-year-old Catholic civilian was shot dead by the British Army while driving his car near the Falls Road, and the IRA shot dead an Ulster Defence Association member (Gerald Turkington, aged 32) in the Markets Area
of Belfast. In total eleven people were killed on 9 July in Belfast.

Seamus Twomey confronts British Soldiers in Lenadoon Avenue before the battle began

10 July

More gun battles and rioting took place the following day although nobody else was killed. William Whitelaw admitted secret talks had taken place between the IRA and British government.[9][10]

11 July

The IRA attempted to blow up a British Army observation post in Lenadoon Avenue, using a mechanical digger loaded with a massive bomb in its bucket. A Volunteer drove the machine into the billet and his comrades surrounded the billet and fired hundreds of shots to cover him but the bomb failed to explode properly.[11][12] Between 2:30 pm – 3:00 pm a 16-year-old Volunteer from the OIRA's Youth Wing Gerard Gibson was shot dead by the British Army in Carrigart Avenue,

Suffolk, Belfast near Lenadoon.[13]
A Catholic civilian Charles Watson (21), was found shot dead off Carlisle Circus, it is believed the UDA was behind the killing.

A British Soldier takes cover during a gun battle

14 July

Six hundred additional British troops were sent into Lenadoon Avenue to confront the IRA as the IRA had taken over most of the estate at this stage in the battle, this resulted in an exchange of fire which resulted in the deaths of a further six people. A PIRA sniper shot dead a British soldier in command of an armoured car unit, Robert Williams-Wynn (24) in Lenadoon Avenue, the armoured unit was trying to isolate IRA volunteers in the area, a 64-year-old Protestant civilian was shot dead during a PIRA sniper attack on a British Army base in

Highfield, Belfast, and Louis Scullion (27) a PIRA gunman was shot dead by the British Army at the Unity Flats in Belfast. William Whitelaw speaking in the House of Commons said that the IRA had used a rocket launcher in one of the exchanges of fire and that they had six of them in their inventory to date.[14][15][failed verification
]

British Soldiers on patrol in Lenadoon Avenue

Another exchange of gunfire took place in the Ardoyne district during the battle, with an Official IRA Belfast Brigade gunman, Edward Brady (30),[16] being shot dead by the British Army, and two British soldiers were shot dead by gunmen from the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade.[17] Although the British Army claimed Edward Brady was an IRA member, and the Official IRA at the time claimed him as one of their members, his family in later years denied he was involved with any paramilitary group.[18][19]

Aftermath

The IRA continued to intensify their campaign of bombing,

car bombs
in Belfast City in the space of 75 minutes, killing 9 people which included civilians, members of the security forces and a UDA member while also seriously injuring approximately 130 others.

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ "Northern Ireland troubles | The Battle of Lenadoon | Lenadoon Estate | 1972". YouTube. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  2. ^ Alan F. Parkinson - 1972 and the Ulster Troubles pp. 183–185, pp. 189–191
  3. ^ "CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1969". Cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  4. ^ "CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1969". Cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  5. ^ "CAIN: Events: Internment: main menu". Cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  6. ^ Cobain, Ian (3 November 2020). "Life during wartime: how west Belfast became the frontline of the Troubles". Theguardian.com. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
  7. ^ a b Peter Taylor - Behind The Mask: The IRA & Sinn Fein p. 160,161
  8. ^ 'The Battle of Lenadoon Estate', 20 July 1972, Thames Television broadcast. Published on Youtube 27 March 2019
  9. ^ Results of the morning meeting
  10. ^ Melaugh, Dr Martin. "CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1972". Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  11. ^ "Northern Ireland Army Ulster". AP Archive. 14 July 1972. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  12. ^ "AN PHOBLACHT/REPUBLICAN NEWS".
  13. ^ "Gerard Gibson. Murdered by the British army, 11th July 1972" (PDF). Relatives for Justice. August 2018. Retrieved 30 January 2023.
  14. ^ "U.K.: FIVE DEAD AFTER BELFAST'S BIGGEST GUN BATTLE OF THE YEAR". Archived from the original on 19 July 2011.
  15. ^ "10 Killed in Ulster; I. R. A. Fires Rockets (July 15, 1972)". Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  16. ^ "The Troubles 15 by Joe Baker". Issuu. 9 August 2011. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  17. ^ "CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths". Cain.ulster.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  18. ^ "Edward Brady". Storiesfromsilence.com. Archived from the original on 24 March 2019. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  19. ^ Connla Young (11 January 2017). "Family of Belfast man shot dead in 1972 say police reports clear his name". The Irish News. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
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