Hughes described his normal day during that period as " you would have had a call house a safe meeting place and you might have robbed a bank in the morning , done a float gone out in a car looking for a British soldier in the afternoon , stuck a bomb and a booby trap out after that , and then maybe had a gun battle or two later that night . " After the IRA - British truce of 1972 broke down in July , Hughes was an IRA commander during the infamous Battle of Lenadoon which quickly spread to other parts of Belfast in which a number civilians , British soldiers , and both Republican & Loyalist volunteers were killed & injured in . As Officer Commanding ( OC ) of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade , he was the main organiser of Bloody Friday , the biggest bombing attack ever carried out by the organisation in Belfast . On 21 July 1972 , the IRA exploded 22 bombs all over the city leaving nine people dead , including two British soldiers , an Ulster Defence Association ( UDA ) member , two teenage boys , and a mother of seven ; 130 people were injured . Hughes regarded the operation as a disaster as he explained in the following interview set up by Boston College I was the operational commander of the " Bloody Friday " operation . I remember when the bombs started to go off , I was in Leeson Street , and I thought , " There 's too much here " . I sort of knew there were going to be casualties , either because the Brits could not handle so many bombs or they would allow some to go off because it suited them to have casualties . I feel a bit guilty about it because , as I say , there was no intention to kill anyone that day . I have a fair deal of regret that ' Bloody Friday ' took place ... a great deal of regret ... If I could do it over again I would n't do it . On 19 July 1973 Hughes was arrested on the Falls Road along with Gerry Adams ( later President of Sinn Féin between 1983 and 2018 ) and Tom Cahill . They were interrogated for more than 12 hours at the Springfield Road Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) barracks and later at Castlereagh before being transported to Long Kesh
Bloody Friday
Bloody Friday (1972)
Brendan Hughes