Word: armagh
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...County Armagh in Northern Ireland is a 512-sq. mi. patchwork of rocky grazing pastures whose southern tip juts 15 miles deep into the Irish Republic. This salient is populated by some 20,000 predominantly Roman Catholic farmers and dairymen, many of whom still resent the untidy mapwork that placed them in the British-ruled North rather than the independent South at the time of the 1921 partition. Armagh is a staging area for gunmen of the Provisional Wing of the Irish Republican Army (Provos), who frequently enter the country from sanctuaries in the Irish Republic to strike at British...
When you drive across the Irish border into County Armagh along the main road to Newry, the first hint that all is not well is the bombed-out rubble of an Ulster customs station. This ruined building and others like it on cross-border roadways have been blasted so many times that the British have abandoned both the shelters and any systematic policing of cross-border traffic. Five miles from the border, along a northbound country road, graffiti in large letters on a stone wall declare what is already apparent: THIS IS I.R.A. TERRITORY. BRITISH...
...Armagh's sparsely inhabited countryside, British law begins somewhere above treetop level. There, the army's rule is uncontested, thanks to the whirring Wessex and Scout helicopters that swing back and forth across the terrain, deploying soldiers to hidden observation posts. On the ground it is another matter. Road travel by the 550 British troops in the area is so risky that it has been abandoned: the army either moves about by chopper or does not move at all. Disgruntled British officers claim that their troops are outgunned by I.R.A. forces, which are equipped with Browning heavy machine...
Last week Provos from the South Armagh Battalion hijacked and blew up a freight train from Dublin to Belfast just after it crossed the border into Ulster. No one was killed, but the explosion caused $400,000 worth of damage. A major catastrophe was barely averted when a southbound passenger train screeched to a halt just before colliding with the destroyed freight cars. Moreover, in what may mean even more intense sectarian violence in the future, County Armagh is emerging as the center of breakaway I.R.A. factions. These extremist groups reject the willingness of some Provo leaders to discuss with...
...this talk about power-sharing and political compromise has never meant anything in South Armagh...