The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force shoots dead six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The next day, gunmen would shoot dead ten Protestant civilians nearby in retaliation.

The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.

The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group based in Northern Ireland. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former Royal Ulster Rifles soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles. It declared a ceasefire in 1994 and officially ended its campaign in 2007, although some of its members have continued to engage in violence and criminal activities. The group is a proscribed organisation and is on the terrorist organisation list of the United Kingdom.

The Reavey and O'Dowd killings were two coordinated gun attacks on 4 January 1976 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Six Catholic civilians died after members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, broke into their homes and shot them. Three members of the Reavey family were shot at their home in Whitecross and four members of the O'Dowd family were shot at their home in Ballydougan. Two of the Reaveys and three of the O'Dowds were killed outright, with the third Reavey victim dying of brain haemorrhage almost a month later.

County Armagh is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It is located in the province of Ulster and adjoins the southern shore of Lough Neagh. It borders the Northern Irish counties of Tyrone to the west and Down to the east. The county borders Louth and Monaghan to the south and southwest, which are in the Republic of Ireland. It is named after its county town, Armagh, which derives from the Irish Ard Mhacha, meaning "Macha's height". Macha was a sovereignty goddess in Irish mythology and is said to have been buried on a wooded hill around which the town of Armagh grew. County Armagh is colloquially known as the "Orchard County" because of its many apple orchards.