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==