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Description of  The Kidnapping: A hostage, a desperate manhunt and a bloody rescue that shocked Ireland

'Garda Sheehan and Private Kelly were killed in front of me . . . I survived in some miraculous way' Don Tidey November 1983. The IRA has turned to kidnapping to fund its armed campaign in the north. The organisation has a supermarket boss in its sights - Quinnsworth chief executive, Don Tidey. As Tidey does the school run en route to his south Dublin office he pulls up at a garda checkpoint. Within moments he is dragged from his car, bundled into another car and driven away at speed. The 'garda ' are terrorists in fake uniforms. The IRA has its latest victim. It is the start of a massive manhunt and a 23-day ordeal for Tidey. At the instant he is found, in an isolated Leitrim wood, his captors kill a trainee garda and a young soldier. After a tense stand-off with soldiers and garda and an exchange of fire, they escape and are never caught. It is, and will remain, the deadliest ever confrontation between the Irish security forces and the IRA. Read more