Qualla: Kesh Ambush https://qualla.com/kesh-ambush en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/w/kesh-ambush-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Kesh Ambush https://qualla.com/kesh-ambush Kesh Ambush: Introduction https://qualla.com/kesh-ambush/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Kieran Fleming could not swim. That detail, almost incidental on a normal morning, became the thing that killed him. On Sunday, 2 December 1984, the river beside the Drumrush Lodge Restaurant in County Fermanagh ran high and cold with winter rain. When the Special Air Service opened fire on his four-man IRA active service unit, Fleming bolted for the water. The Bannagh took him. His body would not surface for nineteen days. Two other men died that morning - one of his comrades and a young SAS soldier from Leicestershire - and the ambush near Kesh became one of the most contested incidents of the Troubles.

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/w/kesh-ambush-wp/gcdw-kesh-ambush-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Kesh Ambush: A Trap Inside a Trap https://qualla.com/kesh-ambush/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. The plan, as the IRA understood it, was simple. The unit would lure a Royal Ulster Constabulary patrol to a fixed point by detonating a small bomb near Drumrush Lodge, then ambush the responders. Earlier that morning, Fleming and Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde had stolen a Toyota va...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/w/kesh-ambush-wp/gcdw-kesh-ambush-a-trap-inside-a-trap.mp3 0:06 2 full Kesh Ambush: Disputed Ground https://qualla.com/kesh-ambush/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. What happened next has never been fully agreed upon. Republican accounts hold that Mac Giolla Bhrighde, who was unarmed, was challenged, told the soldiers he had no gun, was shot in the side, handcuffed, and then shot dead. The Conflict Archive on the Internet records a gun battl...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/w/kesh-ambush-wp/gcdw-kesh-ambush-disputed-ground.mp3 0:06 3 full Kesh Ambush: The Swollen Bannagh https://qualla.com/kesh-ambush/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. What is certain is that the remaining IRA volunteers were trapped between the SAS positions and the river. Bramley and Clarke crossed somehow into the Republic, only to be arrested days later by Gardaí after trying to hijack a car near Pettigo. Fleming, who had been one of thirty...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/w/kesh-ambush-wp/gcdw-kesh-ambush-the-swollen-bannagh.mp3 0:06 4 full Kesh Ambush: Edge of Lough Erne https://qualla.com/kesh-ambush/ Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. The site itself is unremarkable: a stretch of forested country at the edge of Lower Lough Erne, the kind of place where caravan parks, boat hire, and quiet roads make a perfectly ordinary corner of Fermanagh. The Bannagh River still feeds into the lough. Drumrush Lodge still oper...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/d/w/kesh-ambush-wp/gcdw-kesh-ambush-edge-of-lough-erne.mp3 0:06 5 full