On January 5, 1976, the South Armagh Republican Action Force, a republican paramilitary group, stopped a minibus carrying Protestant workers at Kingsmill, County Armagh, and shot dead 10 of them. The Kingsmill massacre was one of the most sectarian attacks of the Troubles, and it was a reprisal for a loyalist attack on Catholics the previous day. The massacre deepened the sectarian divisions of the conflict.

The Kingsmill massacre is a subject of mourning in Irish poetry, with writers lamenting the loss of life and condemning the sectarian violence. The attack is often contrasted with the ideals of a shared society, creating a sense of tragedy. The poetry of the period reflects the grief and anger of the community, a theme that would persist in the literature of the Troubles.