Shootings, bombings, ambushes, IED attacks, bank robberies and riots had become a daily theme of life in Northern Ireland,[5] and from August 1971 gun battles between Irish Republican paramilitaries, the British Army and Loyalist paramilitaries were a regular occurrence in Belfast, especially in its North and West districts, with their concentrations of rival populations, nicknamed the "Wild West" by RUC officers.

[6] After "Bloody Sunday", when the British Army shot dead fourteen unarmed civil rights marchers, Irish Republican paramilitarism gained substantial support, and recruits flooded in to join the IRA both the Provisional (PIRA) & Official (OIRA) wings.

The truce lasted two weeks, with hardline IRA members eager to resume revolutionary violence believing they had the upper hand against the British Government in the deteriorating law and order situation in Northern Ireland, and that victory was in sight.

[7] Two days after secret talks between the British Government and IRA leadership in London broke down, the IRA in the West Belfast became involved in a sectarian confrontation in the Lenadoon Estate where there was an attempt by a large group of Catholics to move families into 16 empty council houses in Lenadoon Avenue that had been abandoned by Protestants, who had fled their homes due to the recent sectarian rioting, the Catholic families had themselves been forced to flee from other parts of the city.

Elsewhere in Belfast two Protestant civilians Brian McMillan (21) and Alan Meehan (18) along with an off-duty Catholic member of the British Army Joseph Flemming (30) were found shot dead in a semi burnt out car in Little Distillery Street just off the Grosvenor Road; it's believed Republican paramilitaries were responsible for these killings, possibly in retaliation to the events at Springhill, but no one acknowledged responsibility for the murders.

[9][10] The IRA attempted to blow up a British Army observation post in Lenadoon Avenue, using a mechanical digger loaded with a massive bomb in its bucket.