Timeline of Ulster Defence Regiment Operations - 1980

1980

• January - 48-hour saturation patrols by the operations platoon 3 UDR begin. By mid-summer, the local IRA units in south Down had been unable to mount any operations because of the continued UDR presence.
• February - A search team from 1 UDR, acting on a tip-off, discover a cache of loyalist weapons - two home-made sub-machine guns, a zip gun, a pistol safety fuse, detonators and ammunition in a house near Ballymena.
• March - 8 UDR finds two weapons at the old wartime airfield near Arboe.
• April - A joint 2 UDR, 8 UDR and RUC search over several days of Blackwatertown yields two handguns, two .303 rifles, an SLR and 4,000 rounds of ammunition. Four days later, a patrol from 8 UDR in Cookstown discovers a 900 lb landmine in a culvert near Cappagh. 5 UDR stops and arrests three loyalists who had killed a Protestant man in Larne.
• August - 7 UDR seals off the Short Strand area of Belfast and conducts house-to-house searches for two days, recovering bomb-making equipment, a sniper rifle and ammunition. An 18-year-old girl is arrested and subsequently charged with attempted murder.
• November - 5 UDR ski patrol deploys for the first time, dropped into the Sperrin Mountains by helicopter.