Drummuckavall Ambush

Drummuckavall Ambush
Part of The Troubles
Date 22 November 1975 Location Drummuckavall, County Armagh 54°3′6.71″N 6°34′11.48″W / 54.0518639°N 6.5698556°W / 54.0518639; -6.5698556Coordinates: 54°3′6.71″N 6°34′11.48″W / 54.0518639°N 6.5698556°W / 54.0518639; -6.5698556 Result IRA success SAS deployed to Northern Ireland
Belligerents
Provisional IRA	United Kingdom British Army
Commanders and leaders
Unknown	Lance Corporal Paul Johnson
Strength
Up to 12 IRA members	1 infantry section
Casualties and losses
None	3 killed 1 wounded
Location within Northern Ireland

 United Kingdom

The Drummuckavall Ambush was an attack by the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on a British Army observation post southeast of Crossmaglen, County Armagh, along the border with the Republic of Ireland. It occurred on 22 November 1975 and resulted in the deaths of three British soldiers.

During the mid-1970s, the most violent decade of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the monitoring of the border between south County Armagh and the Republic of Ireland by the British Army was carried out from several static observation posts (OPs). The main goal of these OPs was to prevent attacks launched from beyond the border. These part-time manned positions were highly vulnerable to attack, as proved by a 1974 bomb attack which claimed the lives of two Royal Marines at the outpost of Drummuckavall.

It was not until 1986, when the first surveillance watchtowers were erected in operations Condor and Magistrate that the British Army tried to regain the initiative in the region from the IRA.

The intelligence and control over the area relied until then, and for a lapse of ten years, mostly on mobile posts comprising small uncovered infantry sections.