The PIRA , specifically the Third Battalion of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade , was for a long time active in the republican districts on the lower Antrim Road . One of the group 's earliest attacks in the local area occurred on 29 October 1971 when a Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) officer was killed by a bomb at the police base on the Antrim Road . On 21 July 1972 , two Catholic women ( Brigid Murray and Margaret O'Hare ) and a Protestant teenager ( Stephen Parker ) were killed when a bomb detonated on Cavehill Road as part of the Bloody Friday bombings when the Provisional IRA exploded 22 bombs across Belfast in the space of eighty minutes . Shootings between the PIRA and the security forces were regular events in the New Lodge area during the early 1970s and on 4 February 1973 one of these resulted in the deaths of an IRA volunteer and three civilians , were shot dead by British Army snipers . PIRA sniper attacks resulted in the deaths of an RUC officer on 16 October 1973 and a British soldier on 21 March 1974 . Both had been on patrol on the Antrim Road when they were hit . The Provisionals also shot and killed a man in September 1974 on Newington Street . A piece of cardboard was found nearby that had written on it : " this is the penalty for a sexual assault on a child of seven years old at the Waterworks " . After the shooting a caller rang the '' Irish News '' and said it had been a " punishment shooting " carried out by the IRA . On 24 September 1976 they killed two more men , a UDA member and a Protestant civilian , at Cavehill Inn on Cavehill Road , Belfast
Bloody Friday
Bloody Friday (1972)
Antrim Road