The Troubles in Claudy

During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, 13 people were killed in or near the village of Claudy in County Londonderry. Nine of these people, including one nine-year-old child, were killed in the Claudy bombing of 31 July 1972, in which three suspected Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) car bombs exploded almost simultaneously in Main Street. Inadequate warning was given, and no paramilitary group has ever admitted responsibility for the bombing.^[1] Of the other four people to be killed in Claudy, three were Protestant members of the security forces (two Ulster Defence Regiment and one Royal Ulster Constabulary), and all were killed by the IRA in separate incidents. The other person to be killed was a Catholic civilian killed by the Ulster Freedom Fighters. All 13 victims died during a relatively brief period, from 1972 to 1976.

Because of Claudy's small population, it has one of Northern Ireland's higher Troubles-related fatality rates. The 13 people killed there in the Troubles are equivalent to one percent of the village's 2001 population; in comparison, the death rate in Belfast was equivalent to just over half a percent of the city's 2001 population, and that in Derry a quarter of a percent.^[2]

References

• NI Conflict Archive on the Internet