One of those involved later revealed that the INLA unit had carried out reconnaissance missions to the Droppin Well to see if there were enough soldiers to justify the likelihood of civilian casualties.

[3] The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) believed that the bomb, estimated to be 5 to 10 pounds (2.3 to 4.5 kg) of commercial (Frangex) explosives, was small enough to fit into a handbag.

Of the eleven soldiers who died, eight were from the 1st Battalion Cheshire Regiment, two from the Army Catering Corps[5] and one from the Light Infantry.

By 8 December, the British Army was blaming the INLA on grounds that the IRA, in a mixed village, would have made greater efforts not to risk killing civilians.

[3] In an interview after the bombing, INLA leader Dominic McGlinchey said that the Droppin Well's owner had been warned six times to stop offering entertainment to British soldiers.

McGlinchey added that the owner, and those who socialised with the soldiers, "knew full well that the warnings had been given and that the place was going to be bombed at some stage".

[8] During an Easter Rising commemoration in Derry in April 1982 the INLA read a statement at the grave of hunger striker Patsy O'Hara warning that public houses serving British security forces would be bombed.

[9] Six days after the bombing, RUC officers shot and killed two known INLA members, Seamus Grew and Rodney Carroll, close to a vehicle checkpoint in Armagh.