Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde

Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde ( 29 August 1957 – 2 December 1984), English Tony or Anthony MacBride (also misspelled McBride), was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer from Desertmartin, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. He was shot dead by the British Army in 1984 whilst engaged in an attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Background Mac Giolla Bhrighde was the eldest son of Frank and Nora MacBride.

Irish Army Immediately after the shooting the family moved to Newtownards, County Down, and in the mid-1970s Mac Giolla Bhrighde left Northern Ireland to join the Irish Army in the Republic of Ireland. The MacBride family then moved again, this time returning to their native County Londonderry. Mac Giolla Bhrighde served in the Irish Army for less than a year before being court-martialled for desertion and was dishonourably discharged.

Norwegian link After his release from prison Mac Giolla Bhrighde, who had made a number of friends and contacts in Norway, became involved in providing information for the Irish republican cause throughout Scandinavia.

Kesh ambush and death After returning from a trip to Norway, in the early hours of Sunday morning on 2 December 1984 Mac Giolla Bhrighde and Ciaran Fleming stole a Toyota van in Pettigo, County Donegal, in the Republic of Ireland. The van was then loaded with 9 beer kegs, each containing 100 lbs of low explosives, which they drove across the border into Northern Ireland to Kesh, a village in the north of County Fermanagh. At the Drumrush Lodge Restaurant, just outside Kesh, they planted a landmine in a lane leading to the restaurant and wired up a device which was connected to an observation point. Having set this ambush, a hoax call was made to the Royal Ulster Constabulary to lure the British Army to the restaurant on the pretence that there was a firebomb planted within it. After a while Mac Giolla Bhrighde saw a Royal Ulster Constabulary police vehicle approaching the restaurant, and gave the detonation code word "one", however, on switching the electric trigger the mine failed to detonate. There was another car parked in the car park which Mac Giolla Bhrighde believed contained civilians, and he left the stolen van from which he was observing to warn them to leave the area.

Conflicting accounts of his death According to the republican sources, when he approached the car two Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers got out and ordered him to halt and drop his gun. Mac Giolla Bhrighde, who was unarmed, informed the SAS of this and then one of the SAS men stepped forward and shot him on his left side. After which he was then handcuffed and shot dead. However, according to CAIN, there was a gun battle at the scene of the attempted bombing between a number of IRA men and British troops, in which Mac Giolla Bhrighde was killed in the exchange of fire. A British Army soldier, Sergeant Al Slater, of the Special Air Service was killed in the fire-fight. Charles "Nish" Bruce served with Al Slater on this operation. His autobiography, Freefall, under the pseudonym Tom Read, accounts in detail the exchange of fire and the respective deaths of both Slater and Mac Giolla Bhrighde. Mac Giolla Bhrighde's companion Ciarán Fleming drowned in the swollen Bannagh River as he fled the scene attempting to escape Crown forces pursuit.

The British Army officially listed Slater as a member of the Parachute Regiment, however, an obituary appeared in the SAS magazine, Mars & Minerva, stating that Slater was a member of 7 Troop (Free Fall) 'B' Squadron of the SAS.

Memorial In 2002 a controversy occurred when a memorial to Mac Giolla Bhrighde, Fleming and Joe MacManus was sited close to the place where Protestant workmen William Hassard and Frederick Love were killed by the IRA in 1988. A Sinn Féin spokesman stated that "The families of Ciaran Fleming, Joseph McManus and Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde, the three IRA men commemorated by the monument, had given the go-ahead for the structure to be moved".

Legacy The Republican Sinn Féin party branch in Glenade, County Leitrim is known as the Kieran Fleming/Tony McBride Cumann after Ciaran Fleming and Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde.