Following a spate of killings which claimed the lives of five Catholics in January, the unprecedented occurred. On 3 February 1973, two Loyalists were arrested and interned, the first Loyalist internees for fifty years. There was a ferocious Loyalist reaction: prolonged gunfights with the army, the assassination of at least seven Catholics and a one-day protest strike called by combined forces of the UDA, LAW and Vanguard.
