Declan Arthurs (Irish republican)

Declan Arthurs was born in Galbally, County Tyrone on 28 October 1965. He was one of six children, and the fourth of Paddy and Amelia Arthurs. Declan worked on the family farm learning how to drive diggers. He worked as an agricultural contractor for the farm. He had one young daughter.[1]

Declan Arthurs joined the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional IRA in 1982 in the wake of Martin Hurson's death on the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike. Hurson was also from Galbally like Arthurs, and Arthurs and his friends looked up to Hurson. At the time he joined so did other young men from the same area, like Tony Gormley, Eugene Kelly, Seamus Donnelly and Martin McCaughey.

Over a year and a half year period in the mid-1980s the East Tyrone Brigade attacked and bombed RUC barracks and stations in Ballygawley, Tynan, The Birches, Coalisland, Dungannon, Carrickmore and Castlederg.[2] They bombed hotels and other businesses in Kildress, Ballyronan, Dungannon and Cookstown[3][4][5][6]

Arthurs took part in two of the IRA's biggest attacks of the 1980s. At the Attack on Ballygawley barracks in December 1985 and then the Attack on RUC Birches barracks in August 1986, Arthurs was a key member of the team who drove a digger past a security fence, stopped it outside the barracks, lit a fuse, ran to safety and wrecked the barracks with a 200lb bomb in the JCB Digger.

Arthurs was killed along with seven other IRA Volunteers who were ambushed by the SAS during the Loughgall Ambush.[7] Before the SAS fired he lit the 40 second fuse on the bomb and it destroyed most of the station, injuring a number of British decoys inside. The Loughgall ambush was supposed to be a carbon copy attack of the bombing of The Birches barracks, with the IRA expecting very little resistance. One of the photos of the aftermath of the ambush shows that Arthurs died with the Zippo lighter he used to light the fuse still in his hand.[8]

Amelia Arthurs, Declan's mother, said of the ambush in an interview to journalist Peter Taylor, "He was mowed down. He could have been taken prisoner. They knew that the "boys" were coming and they lay in wait. The SAS never gave them a chance. Declan died for his country and I'm very proud of him. He was caught up in a war and he died."[9]

Declan Arthurs is buried in St John's Cemetery, Galbally beside IRA Volunteer Seamus Donnelly who also died in the Loughgall ambush.[10]

• East Tyrone Brigade
• Patrick Joseph Kelly
• Jim Lynagh
• Tommy McKearney
• Pádraig McKearney