Two months earlier, in October 1984, the IRA carried out a bomb attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, which was being used as the base for the Conservative Party's annual conference.

[4] On Sunday morning, 2 December 1984, two IRA volunteers, Kieran Fleming and Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde, stole a Toyota van in Pettigo, County Donegal.

[6] According to Republican sources, when he approached the car, two Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers got out and commanded him to halt and drop his gun.

[7] However, according to Conflict Archive on the Internet, there was a gun battle at the scene of the attempted bombing, between a number of IRA men and British troops in which Mac Giolla Bhrighde was killed.

A British Army soldier, Lance Corporal Alistair Slater, from Leicestershire, was also killed in the exchange of fire, further contradicting the Republican sources.

His autobiography, Freefall, under the pseudonym Tom Read, recounted in detail an exchange of fire and the respective deaths of both Slater and Mac Giolla Bhrighde.