Relic of Na Trioblóidí: Leaflet Warning To The Republican Population About SAS "Death Squads"

Image of leaflet via Press Association.

This is a leaflet issued in the mid-1970s by a group calling itself Citizens United For Border Security warning the Republican population of the presence of the British Army's special Forces regiment, the SAS (Special Air Service), along the border between British ruled Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

The SAS was deployed to Northern Ireland from 1968 to 2007, primarily, it is claimed, in a plainclothes, intelligence-gathering role, focusing on countering the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA).

The leaflet began to be distributed at the beginning of 1976.

In February 1976, John Biggs-Davison, a Conservative Party MP described it as a "preposterous document".

But British Prime Minister Harold Wilson acknowledged the presence of 'D' Squadron of the SAS in south County Armagh after 3 British soldiers were killed in November 1975 and 10 Protestant workers were massacred at Kingsmill in January 1976. These events were part of a backdrop of increasing sectarian violence in rural areas

The SAS kidnapped an IRA man named Sean McKenna in March 1976 in the Republic of Ireland border area, and the following month it killed an IRA Staff Captain named Peter Cleary. Then when an Irish forester named Seamus Ludlow was kidnapped and murdered at the beginning of May, the Irish the Garda (police) and the Irish Army set up a checkpoint on Flagstaff Road.

This would lead to the "Flagstaff Incident" of May 5/6,1976.

Two undercover SAS soldiers were apprehended at the checkpoint while on their way to relieve two other colleagues on border duty. This was followed by the arrest of a further four who had gone in search of the first two who were suspected of been victims of an IRA ambush.

The subsequent arrests of eight British soldiers led to a diplomatic incident.

In March 1977, the eight SAS men were tried and found guilty of possession of arms and ammunition without firearms licensing. The firearms were returned to the British government after forensic evidence determined that they had not been used in the commission of any crimes being investigated in the Republic.

There would be 54 further incursions into Irish territory by British forces in 1976 as they struggled to contain the activities of Republican guerrillas much of which was centred in South Armagh.

It came to be known as “Bandit Country”, a place rife with sniper activity, ambushes, kidnappings and assassinations carried out by both insurgents and security forces. Arraigned against the likes of McKenna and Cleary were formidable SAS men such as (the) Captain Julian “Tony” Ball who was among the first of several SAS contingents deployed to Northern Ireland in 1976 where he was stationed at Bessbrook base (BBK) in South Armagh.

No stranger to Northern Ireland where he was previously deployed with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, Ball often liaised with Captain Robert Nairac, a Grenadier Guards officer who worked in intelligence and performed many undercover tasks. Nairac was abducted outside a pub at Dromintee in south Armagh in May 1977 and spirited across the border by republican sympathiser where he was tortured and killed.

Some Republicans remained convince that Nairac, like his friend Ball, was a member of the SAS, but this seems unlikely because the secretive SAS always “claim” their members in death, and Nairac's name is not written among the relevant rolls of fallen SAS soldiers.

© 2025 (Adeyinka Makinde).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.