Warrenpoint Ambush - Aftermath

Aftermath

Two men arrested after the bombing, Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan, were later released on bail due to lack of evidence.

The Warrenpoint ambush happened on the same day that Lord Louis Mountbatten, the cousin (strictly, second cousin once-removed) of Queen Elizabeth II and uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was killed by an IRA unit near Sligo along with three others.

Immediately after the Mountbatten and Warrenpoint attacks, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) retaliated by shooting dead a Catholic man, John Patrick Hardy (43), at his home in Belfast's New Lodge estate. Hardy was targeted by the UVF Belfast Brigade in the mistaken belief that he was a member of the Provisional IRA.

According to Toby Harnden, the attack "drove a wedge" between the Army and the RUC. Lieutenant-General Sir Timothy Creasey, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, suggested to Margaret Thatcher that internment should be brought back and that liaison with the Gardaí should be left in the hands of the military. Sir Kenneth Newman, the RUC Chief Constable, claimed instead that the Army practice, already in place since 1975, of supplying their garrisons in South Armagh by helicopter, gave too much freedom of movement to the IRA. One tangible security outcome was the appointment of Sir Maurice Oldfield to a new position of co-ordinator of security intelligence in Northern Ireland. His role was to co-ordinate intelligence across the security forces and the RUC. The other was the expansion of the RUC by 1,000 members. Tim Pat Coogan asserts that ultimately, the death of these 18 soldiers hastened the move to Ulsterisation.

Lieutenant-Colonel Blair is remembered on a memorial at Radley School.

IRA member Brendan Burns was killed in 1988 when a bomb he was transporting exploded prematurely. IRA member Joe Brennan was jailed in 1982 for carrying out an armed bank raid to raise funds for the organisation. He left the IRA in 1986 and went on to become a successful property developer and novelist.