The day the IRA tried and failed to kidnap billionaire retail giant Galen Weston at his Wicklow home 

At 8am as the sun began to warm the shrubbery surrounding the house, an assault line of five men began their cautious approach to the elegant front door. They were dressed in boiler suits, their faces covered in balaclavas and they were heavily armed with Armalite rifles.

Convinced that everything was going to plan, they broke cover and began cautiously approaching their target. Suddenly, a voice rang out: “Garda, drop your guns” and almost simultaneously a garda fired a shot. He was part of a Special Task Force armed with Uzi sub-machine guns that had been formed under the command of Detective Superintendent Dan McCallion and were lurking in the grounds, waiting for just such a moment.

Their mission was to counter the growing threat of terrorism from the IRA and its splinter groups and gather intelligence about a terrorist cell known as ‘The Action Men’ whose speciality was kidnapping and extortion.  Now they were in full combat mode, primed and prepared that Monday morning. They were acting on gold-plated intelligence and had been lurking in the grounds for the previous two weeks, aware that they were coming up against a ruthless terrorist cell intent on snatching one of the world’s richest and best-known businessmen and his wife.

After the first shot rang out, both sides opened fire and for the next 10 minutes, the gun battle raged across the neatly manicured lawns of the house.

“I heard about six shots and then I heard someone screaming, it sounded like a wolf howling,” said Dubliner William Pitt who was camping nearby.

“When I heard repeated bursts of machine-gun fire I knew something serious was going on,” said a local man Liam Timmons.

Planned by the top echelons of the IRA, this was another “fundraising” venture to purchase arms from Libya. Ben Dunne, the son of the founder of Dunnes Stores, had been kidnapped in 1981 and since then IRA intelligence in Dublin had drawn up a list of wealthy targets. By August 1983,  they didn’t come much wealthier than Mr Weston. Born into one of Canada’s wealthiest families, the son of Anglo/Canadian retailer Garfield Weston, he had come to Dublin in 1961 at the age of 21 to escape his domineering father and armed with $100,000 given to him by his maternal grandmother, Eliza Whalley, from Coleraine, Co  Derry.

He opened a small chain of six Power Supermarkets (later sold to Tesco), but more importantly teamed up with reclusive retailer Arthur Ryan. After purchasing Todd Byrne’s, the two set about reinventing retail with Penneys,  known as Primark outside Ireland.

He had also spotted an 18-year-old model, Hilary Frayne, on an advertising billboard, wooed her and in 1961 they wed. Now both of them were in the sights of the IRA. But the terrorist hit squad was not only leaking like a sieve, it was also working on outdated intelligence.

By the time they struck that August Monday, the family had moved their principle residences to their large home in Toronto or Fort Belvedere, a grand mansion on the outskirts of London where King Edward V11 had signed his abdication papers many years earlier. Roundwood Park was mainly used for family holidays and Christmas.

Later that day, Mr Weston played polo for the Maple Leafs against Prince Charles at Windsor. He wasn’t going to let what happened earlier in the day affect his life.

When the gunfire came to an end shortly before 8.30am that morning, four members of the IRA gang were seriously injured, and another, Nicky Kehoe, later a senior figure in the terrorists’ political wing, Sinn Féin, had been captured. Two of the gang managed to escape, with one dumped injured at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast later in the day. Kehoe, then 27, was convicted of possession of a firearm with intent to cause harm and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Among those also arrested and charged were Gerard Lynch (33), originally from Derry, Gerald FitzGerald (31), John Stewart (26) and John Hunter (39), all with addresses in Ballybough Road, Dublin.

Roundwood Park was later sold and in 2005 was bought for £17m by Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett’s Treasury Holding. After they failed to get planning permission for a hotel complex, it was resold for considerably less.