Qualla: Attack on UDR Clogher Barracks

Attack on UDR Clogher Barracks: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Bukvoed assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. Eva Martin was twenty-eight years old. Her husband Richard was a few rooms away, working as a clerk inside the same Georgian building, when the rocket struck the tree outside her window. He would witness her death. The training night at the Deanery barracks in Clogher, County Tyrone had been winding down toward eleven o'clock on 2 May 1974 when roughly forty IRA volunteers opened up from two hillsides with rifles, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades. By the time the firefight ended twenty-five minutes later, Martin had become the first greenfinch - and the first female soldier - killed in action during the Troubles.

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Bukvoed assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY 2.5

Attack on UDR Clogher Barracks: The Georgian Outpost

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. The barracks itself was an unlikely target: a handsome eighteenth-century building called the Deanery, requisitioned by the British Army and manned by the 6th Battalion of the Ulster Defence Regiment. Clogher sits on rolling country in County Tyrone, less than ten miles from the ...

Image: Nzeemin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Attack on UDR Clogher Barracks: Twenty-Five Minutes of Fire

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Bukvoed assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. The attack began at 11:10 pm. Hostile fire poured in from a hill 800 yards to the north, with a secondary position to the south and forward observers carrying radios to coordinate the assault. The IRA team fired two or three rockets and fifteen mortar rounds. Most missed cleanly ...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Bukvoed assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY 2.5

Attack on UDR Clogher Barracks: Across the Border

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Bukvoed assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. By the time UDR patrols from neighbouring battalions arrived to mount ambushes and seal the roads, the IRA unit was already moving south toward the frontier. They covered their retreat by hijacking nine vehicles and blocking the lanes behind them. The Garda Síochána was alerted o...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Bukvoed assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY 2.5

Attack on UDR Clogher Barracks: A Name in the Hedgerow

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Bukvoed assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5. Eva Martin had joined the Women's UDR - the 'greenfinches', so called for the green tunic of their uniform - in a regiment that did not expect women to die. Her death changed that assumption, and it changed how the Troubles would be remembered. She is commemorated on rolls of hon...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Bukvoed assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY 2.5