British soldiers have pulled out of South Armagh leaving their Bessbrook Mill base for the last time.
Twenty members of the Second Battalion Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment vacated the sprawling military complex at 9am in one of the final withdrawals of the British military.
On July 31st the army ends its official support role for the police, and troop levels are to fall to 5,000 from 27,000 at the height of the conflict in the 1970s.
British soldiers outside the South Armagh base this morning
Operation Banner has been the longest single campaign in British military history, stretching back to 1969.
Once the busiest heliport in Europe, Bessbrook saw the last soldier killed during the troubles. Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick was shot dead by a long-distance sniper while operating a security checkpoint in 1997. He was the last of 763 military personnel to die in Northern Ireland.
A predecessor Regiment of the Princess of Wales's, the Queen's, was first to deploy to Northern Ireland, to the Falls Road in August 1969.
At one point, there were 104 military bases in the North but there are now fewer than 20 and that too is set to fall further in the coming weeks.
Conor Murphy, Sinn Fein MP for Newry and Armagh, welcomed the departure from Bessbrook. The regional development minister in the new power-sharing Stormont government said: "This is obviously welcome news for the community of South Armagh, who have had to live under British military occupation for the past 30 years.
"Sinn Fein made the issue of demilitarising communities like South Armagh a central part of the political negotiations. We are happy we have now arrived at this point."