" The Officials arrested a man called Alec Crowe from the Ballymurphyarea and they brought him to the drinking club in Leeson Street . He was brought to the Cracked Cup and I was in a house directly facing , in Eileen Hickey ’s house , and saw Alec being taken out of a car and trailed in . I left the house , went round to Charlie ’s house , my cousin , told him what I ’d seen . Charlie ordered me then to mobilise the rest of the Volunteers , open up the dump and be on standby in his house . I got them together , got the weapons out , a couple of .303 s , two m1 carbines , three revolvers , and a few hand grenades . Charlie went up to Kane Street , up to Frank Card ’s house , MacAirt as we called him , and I sat awaiting instructions . . . an hour , hour and a half later , Charlie came back and we were mobilised into one group . A squad was sent down from Andersons - town . They moved into a house in Balkan Street and we were under orders to burn down the two clubs . By this stage , Alec Crowe had been released by the Sticks Cracked Cup to burn that as well . A group of us went up Cyprus Street , through Varna Gap , heading down into Leeson Street . Another group came along McDonnell Street in a pincer movement As soon as we got to McDonnell Street we were opened up on . Two men were shot : Frank Gillen and Dipper Dempsey . A gun battle ensued and went on for twenty , twenty-five minutes , us firing at the Cracked Cup . We never got burning the Cracked Cup , but I remember lying at the corner of McDonnell Street firing up at the Cracked Cup and . . . the British Army driving past the bottom of Leeson Street . They never came into the area ; they let us just shoot it out . Eventually we were ordered to pull back . " The Official IRA who were already being criticised for the killing of Charlie Hughes seen their support drop even more after the 1972 Aldershot Bombing which killed seven civilians , they also seen their support fade in Derry as well after they shot dead a popular local off duty Catholic British soldier William Best ( 19 ) who was home on leave in Williams Street in May 1972 . Shortly after the death of Best the group called a ceasefire . And on Monday the 19 June 1972 an associate of the OIRA ( Desmond Mackin , aged 37 ) was shot dead by the PIRA during a dispute in the Cracked Cup Social Club , the site the PIRA tried to burn a year earlier . Mackin had gotten into a fight with a PIRA volunteer over the Official/Provo feud . About a month after the Mackin killing the PIRA killed Joseph Rosato ( 59 ) a Catholic civilian , Rosato was the father of the intended victim & a OIRA Volunteer . This killing happened on the same day as the IRA operation which became known as Bloody Friday A feud broke out again between the two Republican groups which began on Wednesday 29 October 1975 in a bid by the Provisional IRA to wipe the Official IRA out . Eleven people were to die in this feud which was to last until November . Both sides suffered heavy casualties but the PIRA came out of the feud in better shape , the OIRA was severely weakened from the feud thanks as well to a feud with the Irish National Liberation Army earlier during the year . Former Official IRA Belfast Brigade Commander Billy McMillen was killed in the feud and Sean Garland was badly injured by the INLA
IRA operation which became known as Bloody Friday
Bloody Friday (1972)
Burning of the Burning Embers pub