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Battle of Moyry Pass

1600 in Ireland16th century in County ArmaghBattles of the Nine Years' War (Ireland)Conflicts in 1600History of County Louth
Military history of County ArmaghO'Donnell dynastyO'Neill dynastyUse Hiberno-English from September 2017

The Battle of Moyry Pass was fought during September and October 1600 in counties Armagh and Louth, in the north of Ireland, during the Nine Years' War. It was the first significant engagement of forces following the cessation of arms agreed in the previous year between the Irish leader Hugh O'Neill and the English Crown commander, the Earl of Essex. The battle was fought by the armies of O'Neill and Lord Mountjoy, a follower of the late Earl of Essex. Mountjoy was determined to pierce O'Neill's heartland in central and western Ulster by the Moyry Pass. In the course of a two-week assault the English troops established a garrison near Armagh, taking heavy casualties, and Mountjoy retired with difficulty to Dundalk.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Battle of Moyry Pass (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

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N 54.064 ° E -6.385 °
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BT35 8JD
Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
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1989 Jonesborough ambush

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".