Qualla: Attacks on Shipping in Lough Foyle (1981-82)

Attacks on Shipping in Lough Foyle (1981-82): Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mean as custard, CC BY-SA 3.0. The pilot boat had been tied up at Moville on the Donegal shore. The men who hijacked it on the evening of 6 February 1981 were Provisional IRA volunteers - twelve of them, including five who stayed ashore to watch and seven who climbed aboard with two high-explosive charges. They forced the skipper to motor them out across the lough. Three hundred yards off the Republic's shore the British coal ship Nellie M lay at anchor, waiting for the tide to take her up the Foyle to the Derry quays. The IRA team boarded her, gave the captain time to gather his crew into the lifeboat, planted the bombs in the engine room, and towed the lifeboat to safety on the eastern shore before detonating. Huge flames could be seen for miles. The whole operation, by any reasonable definition of military objectives, was a complete success - and yet no one died.

Image: Mean as custard | CC BY-SA 3.0

Attacks on Shipping in Lough Foyle (1981-82): The Lough Between Two Countries

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mean as custard, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lough Foyle is a strange piece of water. It separates County Londonderry, in Northern Ireland, from County Donegal, in the Republic of Ireland. Sovereignty over parts of the lough has been disputed by both states for the better part of a century. The shipping channel runs deep en...

Image: Mean as custard | CC BY-SA 3.0

Attacks on Shipping in Lough Foyle (1981-82): The Nellie M

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mean as custard, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Nellie M was a 782-tonne coaster, launched in Yorkshire in 1972 and owned by S. William Coe & Co. of Liverpool. She had sailed from Liverpool with a cargo valued at £1 million. Once the IRA team boarded her, four members supervised the crew's evacuation while three planted th...

Image: Mean as custard | CC BY-SA 3.0

Attacks on Shipping in Lough Foyle (1981-82): The St. Bedan

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mean as custard, CC BY-SA 3.0. One year later, almost to the day, they did it again. On 23 February 1982 the St. Bedan, a 1,250-tonne coal ship built on the Clyde and owned by J&A Gardner & Co. of Glasgow, was at anchor five nautical miles northeast of Derry, waiting for the tide. Another twelve-man IRA team l...

Image: Mean as custard | CC BY-SA 3.0

Attacks on Shipping in Lough Foyle (1981-82): Other Waters

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mean as custard, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Lough Foyle operations were not the IRA's first or last attacks on maritime targets. In April 1971 a Royal Navy survey launch attached to HMS Hecate was bombed at Baltimore in County Cork. Between February and October 1972 the IRA bombed sand barges on Lough Neagh - and lost ...

Image: Mean as custard | CC BY-SA 3.0