South Armagh Brigade

South Armagh Brigade
The SNIPER AT WORK sign in South Armagh became a republican icon of the Troubles
Active	December 1969–July 1997
Allegiance	Provisional Irish Republican Army
Area of operations	South County Armagh
Engagements	1970 RUC booby-trap bombing Drummuckavall Ambush Jonesborough Gazelle shooting Bessbrook bombing Warrenpoint ambush Glasdrumman ambush Newry mortar attack Jonesborough ambush Operation Conservation Cloghogue checkpoint attack Occupation of Cullaville Battle of Newry Road Crossmaglen Lynx shootdown South Armagh sniper campaign
Commanders
Notable commanders	Thomas Murphy

The South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) operated during the Troubles in south County Armagh. It was organised into two battalions, one around Jonesborough and another around Crossmaglen. By the 1990s, the South Armagh Brigade was thought to consist of about 40 members, roughly half of them living south of the border. It has allegedly been commanded since the 1970s by Thomas 'Slab' Murphy who is also alleged to be a member of the IRA's Army Council. Compared to other brigades, the South Armagh IRA was seen as an 'independent republic' within the republican movement, retaining a battalion organizational structure and not adopting the cell structure the rest of the IRA was forced to adopt after repeated intelligence failures.

As well as paramilitary activity, the South Armagh Brigade has also been widely accused of smuggling across the Irish border. Between 1970 and 1997 the brigade was responsible for the deaths of 165 members of British security forces (123 British soldiers and 42 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers). A further 75 civilians were killed in the area during the conflict, as well as ten South Armagh Brigade members. The RUC recorded 1,255 bombings and 1,158 shootings around a radius of ten miles from the geographic centre of South Armagh in the same period.

South Armagh has a long Irish republican tradition. Many men in the area served in the Fourth Northern Division of the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and, unlike most of the rest of the Northern Ireland IRA, on the republican side in the Irish Civil War (1922–23). Men from the area also took part in IRA campaigns in the 1940 and 1950s.