Claudy bombing 50 years on: Attack may have been reaction to British Army’s Operation Motorman

Operation Motorman, a campaign to seize control of so-called no-go areas in Londonderry, Belfast and elsewhere, involved the use of large-scale bulldozers and other large vehicles to break through barricades, before the targeted areas were flooded with smaller, lighter armoured vehicles and troops.

The no-go areas had been established following rioting in 1969 and by early 1972, dozens of barricades had been put in place in the Free Derry area.

The areas were being patrolled by republican paramilitaries, and the barricades meant that even large armoured vehicles could not pass.

Just over a week before Operation Motorman was launched to take control of the areas, the IRA had launched a bombing campaign in both Belfast and Londonderry with over 20 explosions in the space of less than two hours.

The destruction wreaked by the bomb attacks meant the day has come to be known as ‘Bloody Friday’.

Nine people were killed as a result of the bombings.

The Bloody Friday bombings prompted a response from the military – Operation Motorman.

The CAIN archive maintained by Ulster University states that, prior to the military operation, an extra 4,000 troops were brought into Northern Ireland to take part in the dismantling of the barricades on the boundaries of no-go areas.

It involved around 12,000 troops, supported by tanks and bulldozers.

Motorman included smaller-scale operations across Northern Ireland, including areas such as Lurgan, Armagh, Coalisland, and Newry.

The IRA, faced with overwhelming force and having been alerted to the scale of the coming operation by the build up of military equipment, did not engage the soldiers.

Two people, 15-year-old Daniel Hegarty and 19-year-old Seamus Bradley, were shot dead.

Mr Bradley was an IRA member but was unarmed at the time.

Daniel Hegarty meanwhile was walking along Creggan Heights with two of his cousins when he was shot and killed.