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Ambush

The ambush at Drumnakilly was a military confrontation that took place at Drumnakilly in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland on 30 August 1988 during The Troubles, when a detachment of the Provisional IRA (IRA) was ambushed by the British Army.

The ambush occurred ten days after the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade carried out an attack with the Ballygawley bus bombing in Tyrone, which inflicted 36 casualties upon the British Army, including 8 dead.

During the late afternoon of 30 August 1988 a three man active service unit from the Provisional IRA's East Tyrone Brigade consisting of brothers Gerard (29 years old) and Martin Harte (23), and their brother in law Brian Mullan (26), attempted to kill an off duty member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, which IRA intelligence had previously identified for targeting from the regular route, timetable and vehicle of his civilian occupation as the driver of a delivery lorry. The IRA team drove in a hijacked car to the scene of the planned attack along the Omagh to Carrickmore road near Drumnakilly, looking for the delivery lorry with its distinctive commercial livery travelling along its usual route at that time, wearing boiler suits, balaclavas and armed with two AK 47 rifles and an old MK British Webley revolver. Local residents reported hearing several bursts of sustained gun fire during the incident, followed by single shots. Sixteen bullets were subsequently found to have been fired from the IRA weapons in the engagement, with 220 fired from the British Army's weapons.

Two commemorative songs were written about the incident, one recorded by the Irish Republican folk music group "The Irish Brigade", and another by Gerry Cunningham to commemorate the deaths of the three IRA men involved (which has been adopted by Ógra Shinn Féin at their annual commemoration).