[2] A lot of members of the Official IRA (OIRA) were not happy with a ceasefire the group called in 1972 and in December 1974 the dissenters in the OIRA set up the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and a political wing called the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP).

[4] On 15 December 1975 the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) killed Ronald Trainor a 17-year-old member of the IRSP after a bomb attack on his house in Ballyoran Park in Portadown.

[5][6] Henry MacDonald and Jack Holland said that it seemed the attack was in revenge for the killing of IRSP member Ronald Trainor two weeks earlier by the UVF.

On 31 December (New Year's Eve) 1975 an INLA unit planted a time bomb in a duffel bag in the Central Bar pub in the mainly Protestant town of Gilford near Portadown.

The explosion killed three Protestant civilians, Richard Beattie (44), William Scott (28) and Sylvia McCullough (31) who died of her injuries the day after.