page_title: 1992 Coalisland riots
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: 1992 Coalisland riots / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Coalisland Heading south-east into the town
context_page_description: The 1992 Coalisland riots were a series of clashes on 12 and 17 May 1992 between local Irish nationalist civilians and British Army soldiers in the town of Coalisland, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The Third Battalion 1992 tour's codename was "Operation Gypsy".
context_section_description: About 500 people attended a protest rally in Coalisland on 19 May, and the wisdom of deploying the troops to patrol the town was questioned by members of the Dáil in Dublin. The  Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Ireland, David Andrews, asked the British Government to withdraw the regiment. As a result, the paratroopers were redeployed outside the urban areas. The RUC claimed that the stolen machine gun was found 11 days later at a farmhouse near Cappagh, along with another light machine gun and an AK-47 rifle. Author Steven Taylor claims that the stolen GPMG and other weaponry was recovered following an aborted IRA attack against a Wessex helicopter. Republicans questioned whether the weapon had really been stolen, suggesting this was merely an excuse for the soldiers' rampage in Coalisland. Bernardette McAliskey went even further, suggesting that the recovery of the machine gun near Cappagh, where the initial IRA attack had taken place, was actually staged by the security forces as a publicity stunt. British officials accused Sinn Féin of being the instigators of the riots, while Michael Mates, then Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office, stated that the incidents were due to "a gang of thugs motivated by the IRA". Eventually the battalion's 1992 tour in Northern Ireland was scaled down, with the patrols suspended before the official end of the deployment. The Third Brigade's commander, Brigadier Tom Longland, was replaced by Brigadier Jim Dutton. This was the first occasion that a high-ranking officer was disciplined in such a way during the Troubles.
  The last patrol took place on 27 June, when two paratroopers drowned while crossing the River Blackwater. The same day, there were further clashes with local residents, this time in the town of Cookstown.
  Six soldiers faced criminal charges for their roles in the May riots, but were acquitted one year later. Five were bound over. Maurice McHugh, the presiding magistrate, averred that the soldiers were "not entirely innocent", while Sinn Féin sources dubbed the ruling "a farce". Dungannon priest Father Denis Faul was of the opinion that the soldiers should have been charged with conspiracy. The Ulster Television documentary Counterpoint of June 1993 claimed that Northern Ireland's Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Alisdair Fraser returned the case file to the RUC recommending no prosecution. The programme also interviewed Alistair Hodgson, the soldier maimed at Cappagh, who said that "had another member of my unit been injured in the way that I was, I would have been with the rest of the lads attacking the locals". Authors Andrew Sanders and Ian S. Wood suggested that the deployment of the battalion in Coalisland and elsewhere hindered the British policy of police primacy in Northern Ireland.
caption: One of the roads to Coalisland centre, which was blocked by British paratroopers on 12 May 1992
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