Provisional IRA attack on RUC officers during the Troubles
The Jonesborough ambush took place on 20 March 1989 near the Irish border outside the village of Jonesborough, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Two senior Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers, Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan, were shot dead in an ambush by the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade. Breen and Buchanan were returning from an informal cross-border security conference in Dundalk with senior Garda officers when Buchanan's car, a red Vauxhall Cavalier, was flagged down and fired upon by six IRA gunmen, who the policemen had taken for British soldiers. Buchanan was killed outright whilst Breen, suffering gunshot wounds, was forced to lie on the ground and shot in the back of the head after he had left the car waving a white handkerchief. They were the highest-ranking RUC officers to be killed during the Troubles.
Nobody has been charged with killing the two officers. There have been allegations that the attack was the result of collusion between the Gardaí and the Provisional IRA. As a result, Canadian judge Peter Cory investigated the killings in 2003; his findings were published in a report. This led to the Irish government setting up the Smithwick Tribunal, a judicial inquiry into the killings which opened in Dublin in June 2011 and published its final report in December 2013. In the Judge Peter Smithwick report he was unable to find direct evidence of collusion but said 'on balance of probability', somebody inside the Dundalk Garda station had passed on information to the IRA regarding the presence of Breen and Buchanan. He added that he was "satisfied there was collusion in the murders".
Prelude.
On the afternoon of Monday 20 March 1989, Chief Superintendent Harry Breen (51) and Superintendent Bob Buchanan (55), both high-ranking officers in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), were returning from an informal security conference with senior officers of equivalent ranks of the Garda Síochána in Dundalk, County Louth, Republic of Ireland. The unscheduled meeting had been arranged that morning by Buchanan over the telephone. The meeting began at about 2.10 pm inside the office of Garda Chief Superintendent John Nolan, where they had drawn up plans for "Operation Amazing", the codename for a co-ordinated effort between the RUC and Gardaí against suspected cross-border Provisional IRA smuggling operations allegedly directed by Thomas 'Slab' Murphy . Breen was also due to meet with Customs and Excise officials the following morning.
The two RUC officers were travelling without escort in Buchanan's personal unmarked car: a red Vauxhall Cavalier with the registration number KIB 1204 which was not armoured-plated and did not have bullet-proof glass. Buchanan had used this same car on all of his previous visits to Dundalk and other locations in the Republic of Ireland. Both officers were unarmed, as it was illegal to transport weapons into the Republic of Ireland, and they were in plain clothes. Buchanan drove away from the Dundalk Garda station after the meeting had ended at about 3.15 p.m. and turned off the main Dublin-Belfast road onto the Edenappa Road which is a minor rural road that passes through the village of Jonesborough. Buchanan was known by the British Army to regularly take this route when going to or from Dundalk Garda station.
Ambush.
At around 3.40 p.m., they crossed the Northern Ireland border at Border Check Point 10 on the Edenappa Road. It was a dark, overcast wintry day. Yards up ahead, at the top of a hill on a tree-lined section of the road just south of Jonesborough, armed members of the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade waited to carry out the ambush. The site the IRA chose was in "dead ground", meaning that they could not be seen by the nearby British Army observation post. The secluded back road was considered to be one of the most dangerous in south Armagh and as such, a "no-go area" for the security forces as it was regularly patrolled by the local IRA. According to the Cory Collusion Inquiry Report, as Buchanan reached the hilltop he was flagged down by an armed IRA man standing in the middle of the road wearing Army battle fatigues and camouflage paint on his face. Another armed man, dressed likewise, stood in a ditch by the roadside by four cars he ordered to stop and their drivers to position so only one car could pass the road at a time and slowly at that. Buchanan, because of the location and dress of the two armed men would have had difficulty in ascertaining if it was an IRA or a British Army checkpoint, slowed down and stopped. At that moment, a stolen cream-coloured Litace van, which had been following behind his car, overtook and pulled into the laneway of an empty house opposite. Four more armed IRA men wearing battle fatigues and balaclavas leapt out of the van. They approached the Cavalier and immediately began shooting, mainly at the driver's side, hitting the two officers. Buchanan made two frantic attempts to reverse and escape but his car stalled on each attempt and he was likely already dead before his car came to a rest. Examination of the car the following day found it still to be in reverse gear with Buchanan's foot fully pressed against the accelerator. Breen, despite his gunshot wounds, managed to stumble out of the car, waving a white handkerchief at the gunmen in an apparent gesture of surrender. According to eyewitnesses, one of the gunmen walked over to him, told him to lie on the ground and fired a shot into the back of his head, killing him instantly. Another gunman then approached Buchanan's already dead body in the car and shot him again in the side of the head at point-blank range.
After removing security documents relevant to the meeting with Garda from the Cavalier and personal belongings of the two officers including notes for a history of his church Buchanan had been writing, and a diary containing the contact details of informers and an RUC assistant Chief Constable (whose house was later bombed) from Breen, the IRA gunmen drove away from the scene of the killings. They were heard by witnesses to have cheered and shouted "Hurrah" as the van sped northwards.
Aftermath.
The RUC at Forkhill received an emergency call at 3.45 pm reporting that there were two dead men on the Edenappa Road. Police arrived on the scene at 3.54 pm, where they found Breen lying dead on the roadside; alongside the body was his pen, his glasses and the white handkerchief that he had been carrying. His wallet, warrant card and pager were missing. Buchanan's body was behind the wheel of his car, with his seatbelt still fastened. Although the crime scene was cordoned off, the police were unable to remove the bodies or inspect the area due to a sudden snowstorm, therefore the bodies were not taken away until the following morning after they had been checked for booby-trap bombs. When the security forces inspected the scene, they found Kleenex tissue and a Lucozade bottle, but later forensic tests on the items did not find any fingerprints or saliva. Ballistic testing showed that the weapons used in the attack were two .223 Armalite rifles, one Ruger Mini-14 and a 7.62 Short rifle. A total of 25 rounds had been fired in the attack, 11 of the bullets had struck the car's front windscreen. One of the Armalites had last been used in a helicopter attack at Silverbridge on 23 June 1988 and the other Armalite had been used in the killing of alleged Garda informer Eamonn Maguire on 1 September 1987 at Cullaville. The other two guns were "clean" weapons.
It was learned during the RUC Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigation that, on the afternoon of the shootings, the IRA had set up four checkpoints on each of the four roads leading out of Dundalk: Dundalk-Omeath, Dundalk-Carrickmacross, Dundalk-Newry, and Dundalk-Jonesborough, where the ambush occurred.
The cream-coloured van was spotted on 22 March by a helicopter patrol, but before the area could be secured for the police to investigate it, the van was destroyed by fire. It was found that it had been stolen from a church car park on 18 March. Although the Provisional IRA claimed responsibility for carrying out the attack, nobody has ever been charged with the killings.
Breen and Buchanan were the highest-ranking RUC officers to be killed during the Troubles.
Reactions.
In a House of Commons parliamentary debate held the day after the killings, unionist politicians, many of whom had been personally acquainted with Breen and Buchanan, criticised the decision to send the unarmed officers to a meeting in Dundalk, a town renowned at the time for its close IRA affiliations.
Judge Cory described the killing of the two officers as: "...brutal, cowardly, and demonstrate a callous insensitivity to both the suffering of individuals and to life itself."
In 2005, in his statement before the Dail, then Dublin Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell, described the killings as "an appalling act of savagery".
The victims.
Chief Superintendent Harry Breen.
A native of Banbridge, County Down, and educated at the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Henry Alexander "Harry" Breen (1938 – 20 March 1989) had joined the RUC on 5 May 1957. He served as a sergeant in Lurgan and then as an inspector in Newry and Banbridge. In 1978, he was targeted by the IRA in an ambush at Sturgan Brae, near Camlough, County Armagh, in which Constable William Turbitt was killed. Breen was promoted to superintendent in 1980. As a superintendent, he held posts in the Complaints and Discipline and Inspectorate Branch. He appeared on television in May 1987 holding a press conference following the Loughgall Ambush in which the Special Air Service shot dead eight IRA members. On 8 February 1988 he was promoted to the rank of Chief Superintendent and became Divisional Commander of the RUC's "H" Division, which was based in the town of Armagh and encompassed the areas of South Armagh and South Down which contained some of the most staunchly Irish republican areas of Northern Ireland. He was well respected within the force and had been commended twice and highly recommended another two times. He was a recipient of the RUC Service Medal and the Police Long-Service and Good Conduct Medal. He was married to June and the father of two children, Gillian and David.
Journalist Joe Tiernan described the six-foot-tall, solidly built Breen as a "hard man" with a cold, remote personality. Breen's former colleagues maintained that he had been a "gentleman of the old school, who always carried a dress handkerchief in his suit pocket". Judge Cory remarked that he was dedicated to the protection of the public and was concerned for the welfare of the RUC officers who served under his command which was an attribute greatly appreciated by them.
Harry Breen was 51. His funeral was held with full police honours at the Church of Ireland Holy Trinity Church in Banbridge on 23 March and was presided over by Archbishop Robin Eames.
An autopsy report found that he had been hit on both the left and right sides of his body. He had been wounded in the head, abdomen, upper-right shoulder and arm.
Superintendent Bob Buchanan.
Robert James "Bob" Buchanan (18 March 1934 – 20 March 1989) was from Bready, County Tyrone. He joined the RUC on 13 August 1956 and was commended on six separate occasions. He had served as a sergeant in Derrygonnelly, County Fermanagh, and Antrim where he was promoted to inspector. In 1975, he was promoted to chief inspector and was stationed in Lisburn and held posts in the Complaints and Discipline Department. On promotion to superintendent, he became sub-divisional commander in Omagh and then staff officer to RUC senior command at force headquarters in Belfast. It was in this post in 1985 that he was asked to take on the difficult and dangerous post of Border Superintendent for "H" Division and be responsible for all cross-border matters and liaison between the RUC and the Garda Siochána in the South Armagh/North Louth area. The posts of Border Superintendent had been created by the Anglo-Irish Agreement in an attempt to improve security co-operation between the two Irish police forces. He was scheduled to be transferred to Newtownards the month following his death and his Garda