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1989 Jonesborough ambush

1989 in Northern Ireland20th century in County ArmaghAmbushes in Northern IrelandDeaths by firearm in Northern IrelandEngvarB from October 2013
March 1989 events in the United KingdomMilitary actions and engagements during the Troubles (Northern Ireland)Provisional Irish Republican Army actionsRoyal Ulster ConstabularyThe Troubles in County Armagh

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".

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1989 Jonesborough ambush
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N 54.073661111111 ° E -6.3739944444444 °
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Edenappa Road
BT35 8HR
Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
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Ravensdale, County Louth
Ravensdale, County Louth

Ravensdale (Irish: Gleann na bhFiach) is a village, townland and electoral division located at the foothills of the Cooley Mountains on the Cooley Peninsula in the north of County Louth in Ireland. Bordering with the townland of Doolargy (Irish: An Dúleargaidh), Ravensdale is approximately 8 km to the north of Dundalk. The dual carriageway between Dublin and Belfast runs nearby, and the R174 connects it with Jenkinstown. A number of public buildings in Ravensdale village, including a now-disused courthouse, former school and Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Church, were originally built in the mid-19th century.Ravensdale is part of the ecclesiastical parish of Ballymacscanlon and Lordship; however, the northern part of Ravensdale is part of the parish area of Jonesborough and Dromintee.Ravensdale, which is situated beside Bellurgan, contains a number of wooded areas. The Ravensdale Forest nature trail is located in the wooded demesne of the former seat of the Barons Clermont, which straddles the border between County Armagh in Northern Ireland and County Louth in the Republic of Ireland. Ravensdale Park, also known as Ravensdale Castle, the 19th-century country house itself, was one of a number of such country houses destroyed during the Irish revolutionary period. Burned in 1921, the stonework of the house was later dismantled and reused during the construction of Church of St. Brigid, Glassdrummond in 1927. The Flurry River, which flows through the area before entering Dundalk Bay at Bellurgan, was in past times a trout and salmon fishery.