Armagh: 'This Is I.R. A. Territory'

County Armagh in Northern Ireland is a 512-sq. mi. patchwork of rocky grazing pastures whose southern tip juts 15 miles deep into the Irish Republic. This salient is populated by some 20,000 predominantly Roman Catholic farmers and dairymen, many of whom still resent the untidy mapwork that placed them in the British-ruled North rather than the independent South at the time of the 1921 partition. Armagh is a staging area for gunmen of the Provisional Wing of the Irish Republican Army (Provos), who frequently enter the country from sanctuaries in the Irish Republic to strike at British military targets, then retreat across the border. Since January 1975, 13 British and Ulster soldiers have died as the result of l.R.A. attacks in Armagh, which Britain's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees, recently described as "bandit country." TIME Correspondent Christopher Byron visited the embattled area and sent this report:

When you drive across the Irish border into County Armagh along the main road to Newry, the first hint that all is not well is the bombed-out rubble of an Ulster customs station. This ruined building and others like it on cross-border roadways have been blasted so many times that the British have abandoned both the shelters and any systematic policing of cross-border traffic. Five miles from the border, along a northbound country road, graffiti in large letters on a stone wall declare what is already apparent: THIS IS I.R.A. TERRITORY. BRITISH GET OUT.

In Armagh's sparsely inhabited countryside, British law begins somewhere above treetop level. There, the army's rule is uncontested, thanks to the whirring Wessex and Scout helicopters that swing back and forth across the terrain, deploying soldiers to hidden observation posts. On the ground it is another matter. Road travel by the 550 British troops in the area is so risky that it has been abandoned: the army either moves about by chopper or does not move at all. Disgruntled British officers claim that their troops are outgunned by I.R.A. forces, which are equipped with Browning heavy machine guns that command a range of 3,000 meters, v. the 1,000 meters covered by the British standard-issue general-purpose machine gun.

Vicious Traps. A favorite I.R.A. tactic is to put gelignite into a milk churn, then stand it by the roadside among dozens of other containers that farmers put out at night to be collected by the dairies. When an army patrol passes by, the terrorists detonate the churn by remote control. Other I.R.A. traps are just as viciously clever. A month ago, two Ulster policemen were lured by a false report into an isolated area, where they were ambushed and killed.

Last week Provos from the South Armagh Battalion hijacked and blew up a freight train from Dublin to Belfast just after it crossed the border into Ulster. No one was killed, but the explosion caused $400,000 worth of damage. A major catastrophe was barely averted when a southbound passenger train screeched to a halt just before colliding with the destroyed freight cars. Moreover, in what may mean even more intense sectarian violence in the future, County Armagh is emerging as the center of breakaway I.R.A. factions. These extremist groups reject the willingness of some Provo leaders to discuss with Britain a political solution for Ulster. In the past year the breakaway groups have begun operations on their own in "bandit country." Says one I.R.A. activist in Dublin with close ties to the country:

"All this talk about power-sharing and political compromise has never meant anything in South Armagh."

Little Hope. Such attitudes have led the I.R.A. to call South Armagh an "independent republic." Its capital is the dingy farm hamlet of Crossmaglen (pop.

1,200), located near the center of the salient. Crossmaglen's most distinguishing feature is a fire-gutted remnant of the town hall, destroyed by the British after an I.R.A. ambush. Half a block off the main square, whose principal commercial life revolves around ten seedy-looking pubs, is a British army post housing some 110 Royal Fusiliers. The compound is known locally as the Alamo, and for good reason: it is ringed by two-story-high corrugated steel walls, topped by concertina wire and strung over with camouflage netting.

All deliveries to and from the fort --from guns to garbage--are made by chopper. Army patrols outside the front gate are bizarre affairs in which squads of soldiers dart down the street, scurrying from one doorway to the next in a breathless circuit around the square, then scramble back inside the fort.

Meanwhile, all townspeople on the street quickly melt away, to be replaced by I.R.A. gunmen, who fire at the soldiers from behind parked cars before vanishing again themselves. These attacks have become so ritualized that Crossmagleners have posted signs warning incoming motorists whenever an army patrol ventures out. More often than not, the I.R.A.'s illegal tricolor flag hangs above the gutted town hall.

British officials privately admit they see little hope of ever bringing South Armagh under control, and they doubt that Catholics who support "the boys" will be impressed even by such a major British gesture as London's recent decision to abandon its hated internment policy in Northern Ireland. "Militarily, it's a no-win situation," admits one official.

"Our army is in County Armagh for one reason only--there is no way it can leave without creating a storm in the House of Commons." Just as the U.S. Army learned in Viet Nam, the military's very presence in the area has helped to alienate local residents and broaden support for "the enemy." Says Paddy Short, a ruddy-faced bartender in one of Crossmaglen's pubs: "They're an army of occupation and we're an occupied country. We're not pro I.R.A., we're just anti-British. We hate them, and nothing is going to change until they leave."

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