Glasdrumman ambush

Date	17 July 1981
Location	near Crossmaglen, County Armagh 54°3′26.76″N 6°31′37.84″W / 54.0574333°N 6.5271778°W / 54.0574333; -6.5271778Coordinates: 54°3′26.76″N 6°31′37.84″W / 54.0574333°N 6.5271778°W / 54.0574333; -6.5271778
Result	British Army operation thwarted IRA retained ability to set up roadblocks

Belligerents

Commanders and leaders

Unknown

Lance Corporal Gavin Dean †

Strength

Up to 7 IRA members

18 soldiers

Casualties and losses

None

1 killed
1 wounded

Location within Northern Ireland

The Glasdrumman ambush was an attack by the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) against a British Army observation post. It took place on 17 July 1981 at a scrapyard in Glasdrumman, County Armagh, southwest of Crossmaglen.

The crisis triggered by the 1981 Irish hunger strike of Provisional IRA and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners led to an increase in militant Irish republican activity in Northern Ireland. British intelligence reports unveiled IRA intentions of mounting illegal checkpoints and hijacking vehicles on the IRA-controlled roads in South County Armagh, near the Irish border. To counter it, the British Army deployed the so-called COPs (close observation platoons), small infantry sections acting as undercover units, a tactic introduced by Major General Richard Trant in 1977.