Warrenpoint ambush

On 27 August 1979, the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA) ambushed a British Army convoy with two large roadside bombs at Narrow Water Castle outside Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland. The first bomb was aimed at the convoy itself, and the second targeted the incoming reinforcements and the command point set up to deal with the incident. Provisional IRA volunteers hidden in nearby woodland also allegedly fired on the troops, who returned fire. The Narrow Water Castle is on the banks of the Newry River, which marks the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Eighteen British soldiers were killed and over twenty were seriously injured, making it the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles. A British civilian was also killed and an Irish civilian wounded, both by British soldiers firing across the border after the first blast. The attack happened on the same day that the Provisional IRA assassinated Lord Louis Mountbatten, a retired British statesman and close relative of the British royal family.