The so-called Orange volunteers have carried out two grenade attacks on the nationalist community in County Down and County Antrim in the past week. Patrick Trainor was injured in an attack on his scrapyard outside Castlewellan on Tuesday whilst the Derryhirk Inn in Aghagallon was attacked on Wednesday night.

The fragmentation grenades, which were of Russian origin, were originally brought in to Ireland by Ulster Resistance, a shadowy group made up of leading Unionist politicians, businessmen and loyalist paramilitaries. In 1997 the Derryhirk Inn was attacked by an RUC terror gang, masked and fully armed.