Frank Sheeran
The (real) Irish Man , life & death
Francis Joseph Sheeran (October 25, 1920 – December 14, 2003), known as Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran, was an American labor union official who was accused of having links to the Bufalino crime family in his capacity as a high-ranking official in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the president of Local 326.
Sheeran was a leading figure in the corruption of unions by organized crime. In 1980, he was convicted of labor racketeering and sentenced to 32 years in prison, of which he served 13 years. Shortly before his death, he claimed to have killed Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa in 1975. Author Charles Brandt detailed what Sheeran told him about Hoffa in the narrative nonfiction work I Heard You Paint Houses (2004).
The truthfulness of the book has been disputed by some, including Sheeran’s confessions to killing Hoffa and Joe Gallo. The book is the basis for the 2019 film The Irishman directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran and Al Pacino as Hoffa.
The Irishman Explained | The Reel Story
My thoughts:
Well I watched The Irish Man yesterday evening, all three and a half of it and to be completely honest I thought it was a load of rubbish and a waste of three and a half hours of my life i’ll never get back. Its not a patch on Goodfellas or The God Father and the constant flash backs to when the main players were younger was to say the least completely off putting and unbelievable in the extreme. They looked and moved like the elder actors they are and it was painful watching these icons of gangsters movies having to shame themselves in this manner. Plus, the story line and the dialogue were abysmal and so far removed from the true events that reality had to be suspended and I had to force myself to sit through the whole sorry mess until the bitter , disappointing end.
Early life
Sheeran was born and raised in Darby, Pennsylvania, a small working-class borough on the outskirts of Philadelphia. He was the son of Thomas Francis Sheeran Jr. and Mary Agnes Hanson. His father was of Irish descent, while his mother was of Swedish descent.
World War II
Sheeran enlisted in the Army in August 1941, did his basic training near Biloxi, Mississippi, and was assigned to the military police. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for training in the Army Airborne at Fort Benning, Georgia, but he dislocated his shoulder and was transferred to the 45th Infantry Division, known as “The Thunderbirds” and “The Killer Division”. On July 14, 1943, he set sail for North Africa.
Sheeran served 411 days of combat duty—a significant length of time, as the average was around 100 days. His first experience of combat was during the Italian Campaign, including the invasion of Sicily, the Salerno landings, and the Anzio Campaign. He then served in the landings in southern France[11] and the invasion of Germany.
Sheeran said:
All in all, I had fifty days lost under AWOL—absent without official leave—mostly spent drinking red wine and chasing Italian, French, and German women. However, I was never AWOL when my outfit was going back to the front lines. If you were AWOL when your unit was going back into combat you might as well keep going because one of your own officers would blow you away and they didn’t even have to say it was the Germans. That’s desertion in the face of the enemy.
War crimes
Sheeran recalled his war service as the time when he developed a callousness to taking human life. He claimed to have participated in numerous massacres and summary executions of German POWs, acts which violated the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the 1929 Geneva Convention on POWs. In interviews with Charles Brandt, he divided such massacres into four categories:
- Revenge killings in the heat of battle. Sheeran told Brandt that a German soldier had just killed his close friends and then tried to surrender, but he chose to “send him to hell, too”. He described often witnessing similar behavior by fellow GIs.
- Orders from unit commanders during a mission. Sheeran described his first murder for organized crime: “It was just like when an officer would tell you to take a couple of German prisoners back behind the line and for you to ‘hurry back’. You did what you had to do.”
- The Dachau reprisals and other reprisal killings of concentration camp guards and trustee inmates.
- Calculated attempts to dehumanize and degrade German POWs. Sheeran’s unit was climbing the Harz Mountains when they came upon a Wehrmacht mule train carrying food and drink up the mountainside. The female cooks were allowed to leave unmolested, then Sheeran and his fellow GI’s “ate what we wanted and soiled the rest with our waste”. Then the Wehrmacht mule drivers were given shovels and ordered to “dig their own shallow graves”. Sheeran joked that they did so without complaint, likely hoping that he and his buddies would change their minds. But the mule drivers were shot and buried in the holes they had dug. Sheeran explained that by then, he “had no hesitation in doing what I had to do.”
Discharge and post-war
Sheeran was discharged from the army on October 24, 1945. He later recalled that it was “a day before my twenty-fifth birthday, but only according to the calendar.” Upon returning from his army service, Sheeran married Mary Leddy, an Irish immigrant. The couple had three daughters, MaryAnne, Dolores, and Peggy, but divorced in 1968. Sheeran then married Irene Gray, with whom he had one daughter, Connie.
Organized crime and the Teamsters Union
When he left the service, Sheeran became a meat driver for Food Fair, and he met Russell Bufalino in 1955 when Bufalino offered to help him fix his truck, and later worked jobs driving him around and making deliveries. Sheeran also operated out of a bar located in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania which was run by Bill Distanisloa, a soldier for Angelo Bruno.
Sheeran’s first murder was killing Whispers DiTullio, a gangster who had hired him to destroy the Cadillac Linen Service in Delaware for $10,000. Sheeran did not know, however, that Angelo Bruno had a large stake in the linen service. Sheeran was spotted outside the business in Delaware and was brought in for questioning. Bufalino had convinced Bruno to spare Sheeran, but he ordered Sheeran to kill DiTullio as retribution.
Sheeran was also suspected of the murder of Joe Gallo at Umberto’s Clam House on April 7, 1972.
Bufalino introduced Sheeran to Teamsters International President Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa became a close friend and used Sheeran for muscle, including the assassination of recalcitrant union members and members of rival unions threatening the Teamsters’ turf. According to Sheeran, the first conversation that he had with Hoffa was over the phone, where Hoffa started by saying, “I heard you paint houses”—a mob code meaning “I heard that you kill people”, the “paint” being spattered blood.
Sheeran later became acting president of Local 326 of the Teamsters Union in Wilmington, Delaware.
Sheeran was charged in 1972 with the 1967 murder of Robert DeGeorge, who was killed in a shootout in front of Local 107 headquarters. The case was dismissed, however, on the grounds that Sheeran had been denied a speedy trial. He was also alleged to have conspired to murder Francis J. Marino in 1976, a Philadelphia labor organizer, and Frederick John Gawronski, killed the same year in a tavern in New Castle, Delaware.
Prison and death
Sheeran was indicted along with six others in July 1980, on charges involving his links to the labor leasing businesses controlled by Eugene Boffa Sr. of Hackensack, New Jersey. On October 31, 1980, Sheeran was found guilty of 11 charges of labor racketeering. He was sentenced to a 32-year prison term and served 13 years.
Sheeran died of cancer on December 14, 2003, aged 83, in a nursing home in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.
Hoffa death
The Sinister Disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa
Charles Brandt claims in I Heard You Paint Houses (2004) that Sheeran confessed to killing Hoffa. According to Brandt’s account, Chuckie O’Brien drove Sheeran, Hoffa, and fellow mobster Sal Briguglio to a house in Metro Detroit. O’Brien and Briguglio drove off and Sheeran and Hoffa went into the house, where Sheeran claims that he shot Hoffa twice in the back of the head. Sheeran says that he was told that Hoffa was cremated after the murder. Sheeran also confessed to reporters that he murdered Hoffa.
Bill Tonelli disputes the book’s truthfulness in his Slate article “The Lies of the Irishman”, as does Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith in “Jimmy Hoffa and ‘The Irishman’: A True Crime Story?” which appeared in The New York Review of Books.
Blood stains were found in the Detroit house where Sheeran claimed that the murder happened, but they were determined not to match Hoffa’s DNA. The FBI continues its attempts to connect Sheeran to the murder, retesting the blood and floorboards with latest advancements in forensics.
Biographical film
The book is the basis for the 2019 film The Irishman directed by Martin Scorsese. Scorsese was long interested in directing a film about Sheeran’s life and his alleged involvement in the slaying of Hoffa. Steven Zaillian is the screenwriter and co-producer Robert De Niro portrays Sheeran, with Al Pacino as Hoffa, and Joe Pesci as Bufalino.[The film had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on September 27, 2019, and was released on November 1, 2019, with digital streaming that started on November 27, 2019, via Netflix.
Main Source : Wikipedia Frank Sheeran
“The Irishman” Official Documentary
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- 6 People lost their lives on the 6th January between 1980 – 2001 . read their stories here :
6 People lost their lives on the 6th January between 1980 – 2001
6th January – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles - Merry Christmas to all my friends out there X
Hi folks,
Just a shortish blog post to wish you all a wonderful evening and a fantastic Xmas day.
Some of you guys have followed me and my story for years now and during recent tragic soul destroying lows to a few joy filled epic highs you have been there to support , comfort and celebrate with me whatever a pernicious fate throws in my path and I am truly grateful.
This year I’ve invited all the family to my place for Xmas dinner and tbh it’s been a logistical (expensive) nightmare trying to accommodate and please everyone. Mother-in-law is a pure traditionalist and in what I suspected was a threatening tone kept informing me she is really looking forward to her turkey dinner with all the trimmings.
Simone, the kids and myself aren’t particularly fond of turkey and have been debating among ourselves whether we should just buy a giant chicken and hope mother-in-law wouldn’t notice. Obviously, there’s a tout among us and my monies on Simone or Autumn telling mother-in-law of the conspiracy to fool her with a giant chicken.
So, turkey is back on the menu !
We discussed what everyone else preferred for mains and of course that wasn’t plain sailing either. Autumn wanted gammon, I wanted lamb , Simone wasn’t fussed and Jude demanded chicken because he hates turkey and it would ruin his day if he didn’t have a turkey substitute on his Xmas plate. I helpfully suggested we held a democratic vote to decide which meats to go for and to my shock and surprise they all decided I wasn’t part of their democratic voting circle and I was out of the equation. Brutal. By this stage I’d had enough, and I threw the towel in and ended up buying everything, including a small chicken.
For starters we’re having tiger prawns , pate & rustic rolls and salmon with pomegranate glaze , something we al agreed to to keep everyone happy – phew.
Anyways Jude and autumn are helping with Xmas dinner and despite all the stress I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with them all and after dinner we’ll play some games and watch a little telly.
Perfect!
Ill finish by wishing you and all those you love and cherish a safe and wonderful time this Xmas and may Santa bring you all you hope for.
God bless you all as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ
Merry Xmas everyone X
Laters X
- A singed copy of my book for Xmas ?
Last chance to order before Xmas delivery cut-off period nxt Wednesday .
A personally signed copy of my No.1 Best Selling book : A Belfast Child , which may be worth a few quid if my story is made into a movie – watch this space !
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- I need some help folks 😜
And Im happy to bribe you with a free giveaway 🎁
Read on for more detail…
Ive doing a soft launch of my online shop : https://deadongifts.co.uk/ which I set up with my sister Mags and I need to drive some traffic to the store and start creating an online presence.
The shop will be mainly selling and promoting Northern Ireland themed gifts and souvenirs but as lifelong Jam fan and mod I cant help but add some designs and products based on my love of all things mod , the music, style and the culture I love it all .
We are currently still loading products and tweaking the website and this will be an ongoing process over the coming days and weeks. But feel free to have a nosey and buy anything that takes your fancy.
Now to the point of this exercise…
Ill be giving away 2 x £15 gift tokens to spend in the shop and/or two signed copy of my No.1 Best selling book: A Belfast Child in a a random draw of everyone who visits the shop and signed up for & subscribes to our emails alaerts . Dont panic we wont be sending you loads of promo sh*t just the occasional newsletter and updates on the shop and my crazy life .
Just visit the shop and sign up here : Dead On Gifts
Check out some of our current stock below .
Clock the image to visit page.
Male T -Shirts
Female T -Shirts
Belfast Slang Socks
Mugs & Cold Cups
Keyrings
Hats
Candles
That’s all for now folks , don’t forget to visit the store and sign up for our email alerts to be in with a chance of winning in our raffle , Ill announce the winners next weekend .
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Thank you X
- Ireland’s Bloody History – Rathlin Island Massacre July 1575
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Rathlin Island Massacre July 1575
Bruce’s cave, one of Rathlin Island’s caves, etching by Mrs. Catherine Gage (1851) The Rathlin Island massacre took place on Rathlin Island, off the coast of Ireland on 26 July 1575, when more than 600 Scots and Irish were killed.
Sanctuary attacked
Rathlin Island was used as a sanctuary because of its natural defences and rocky shores; when the wind blew from the west, in earlier times it was almost impossible to land.
It was also respected as a hiding place, as it was the one-time abode of St. Columba.Installing themselves in Rathlin Castle, the MacDonnells of Antrim had made Rathlin their base for expanding their control over the north-eastern coast of Ireland in direct conflict with the local Irish and English resulting in several campaigns to expel them from Ireland.
Their military leader, Sorley Boy MacDonnell (Scottish Gaelic: Somhairle Buidhe Mac Domhnaill) and other Scots had thought it prudent to send their wives, children, elderly, and sick to Rathlin Island for safety.
Sir Francis Drake. Lauded to this day as one of the greatest heroes of Elizabethan England, he was one of the senior English officers at Rathin Island who ordered the slaughter of 600 unarmed civilians, much to Elizabeth’s approval.(National Portrait Gallery) Acting on the instructions of Henry Sidney and the Earl of Essex, Francis Drake and John Norreys took the castle by storm. Drake used two cannons to batter the castle and when the walls gave in, Norreys ordered a direct attack on 25 July, and the Garrison surrendered. Norreys set the terms of surrender, whereupon the constable, his family, and one of the hostages were given safe passage and all other defending soldiers were killed, and on 26 July 1575, Norreys’ forces hunted the old, sick, very young and women who were hiding in the caves.
Despite the surrender, they killed all the 200 defenders and more than 400 civilian men, women and children. Drake was also charged with the task of preventing any Scottish reinforcement vessels reaching the Island.
The entire family of Sorley Boy MacDonnell perished in the massacre Essex, who ordered the killings, boasted in a letter to Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s secretary and spymaster, that Sorley Boy MacDonnell watched the massacre from the mainland helplessly and was:
“like to run mad from sorrow”.
The Haunted Irish Island – Rathlin Island
Aftermath
Norreys stayed on the island and tried to rebuild the walls of the castle so that the English might use the structure as a fortress. As Drake was not paid to defend the island, he departed with his ships. Norreys realised that it was not possible to defend the island without intercepting Scottish galleys and he returned to Carrickfergus in September 1575.
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Secrets Of Great British Castles – Carrickfergus Castle
- Ireland’s Bloody History – Portadown massacre November 1641
Portadown Massacre November 1641
The Portadown massacre took place in November 1641 at Portadown, County Armagh, during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Irish Catholic rebels, likely under the command of Toole McCann, killed about 100 Protestant settlers by forcing them off the bridge into the River Bann and shooting those who tried to swim to safety.
The settlers were being marched east from a prison camp at Loughgall. This was the biggest massacre of Protestants during the rebellion, and one of the bloodiest during the Irish Confederate Wars. The Portadown massacre, and others like it, terrified Protestants in Ireland and Great Britain, and were used to justify the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and later to lobby against Catholic rights.
Engraving of the Portadown Massacre (1641) by Wenceslaus Hollar, first published in James Cranford’s Teares of Ireland (London, 1642) Background
The Irish rebellion had broken out in Ulster on 23 October 1641. It began as an attempted coup d’état by Catholic gentry and military officers, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland. They wanted to force King Charles I to negotiate an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, and greater Irish self-governance, and to partially or fully reverse the plantations of Ireland. Many of those involved in the rebellion had lost their ancestral lands over the past thirty years in the plantation of Ulster.
Most of the land at Portadown had belonged to the McCanns (Mac Cana), a Gaelic clan. As part of the plantation, this land was confiscated by the English Crown and colonized by English and Scottish Protestant settlers.
Rebels, including the McCanns, captured Portadown on the first day of the rebellion along with nearby settlements such as Tandragee and Charlemont.
Some of the rebels began attacking and robbing Protestant settlers, although rebel leaders tried to stop this. Irish historian Nicholas Canny suggests that the violence escalated after a failed rebel assault on Lisnagarvey in November 1641, after which the settlers killed several hundred captured rebels. Canny writes,
“the bloody mindedness of the settlers in taking revenge when they gained the upper hand in battle seems to have made such a deep impression on the insurgents that, as one deponent put it, ‘the slaughter of the English’ could be dated from this encounter”.
Massacre
Portadown Massacre
Twenty-eight people made statements about the incident, but only one of them witnessed it. The others related what they had heard about it, including possibly from some of the rebels themselves.
William Clarke, the only survivor, stated that he had been held in a prison camp at Loughgall, where many of the prisoners were mistreated and some subjected to half-hangings. The rebels in the Loughgall area were commanded by Manus O’Cane. Clarke states that he and about 100 other prisoners were marched six miles to the bridge over the River Bann at Portadown. The wooden bridge had been broken in the middle. Threatened with swords and pikes, Clarke states the prisoners were stripped, and then forced off the bridge and into the cold river below. Those who tried to swim to safety were shot with muskets. Clarke claimed he was able to escape by bribing the rebels.
The massacre seems to have happened in mid-November. It is likely that the prisoners were being brought to the coast to be deported to Britain, and rebel leader Felim O’Neill had already sent other such convoys safely to Carrickfergus and Newry.
Sir Felim O’Neill of Kinard. Toole McCann was the rebel captain in charge of the Portadown area at the time, and several people made statements that he was responsible for the massacre. Hilary Simms writes:
“The convoy entered his area of control and it would seem likely that even if he did not order it, he and his men could not have avoided being involved in it”.
Native Irish tenants had already been massacred at Castlereagh, but Pádraig Lenihan writes there is no direct evidence the Portadown massacre was retaliation for this.
Aftermath
As word of the massacre spread, “elements of what happened were exaggerated, tweaked and fabricated”. People who heard about the massacre gave a range of death tolls, from 68 to 196. As Clarke was a witness of the massacre his figure of 100 is taken as being the most credible. Nevertheless, the Portadown massacre was one of the bloodiest in Ireland during the Irish Confederate Wars. About 4,000 Protestant settlers were killed in Ulster in the early months of the rebellion.
Irish Confederate Wars
In County Armagh, recent research has shown that about 1,250 Protestants were killed, about a quarter of the settler population there. In County Tyrone, modern research has identified three blackspots for the killing of settlers, with the worst being near Kinard, “where most of the British families planted … were ultimately murdered”.
There were also massacres of local Catholics, such as at Islandmagee in County Antrim, and on Rathlin Island by Scottish Covenanter soldiers. Though a supporter of British rule in Ireland, 19th-century historian William Lecky wrote:
“it is far from clear on which side the balance of cruelty rests”.
The massacre terrified Protestant settlers and was used to support the view that the rebellion was a Catholic conspiracy to massacre all Protestants in Ireland, though in truth such massacres were mostly confined to Ulster.
John Temple’s The Irish Rebellion (1646) In 1642, a commission of inquiry was held into the killings of settlers. Protestant bishop Henry Jones led the inquiry and read out some of the evidence to the English parliament in March 1642, although most of his speech was based on hearsay. The massacre featured prominently in English Parliamentarian atrocity propaganda in the 1640s, most famously in John Temple’s The Irish Rebellion (1646). Temple used the massacres at Portadown and elsewhere to lobby for the military re-conquest of Ireland and the segregation of Irish Catholics from Protestant settlers in Ireland.
Accounts of the massacre strengthened the resolve of many Parliamentarians to re-conquer Ireland, which they did in 1649–52. Massacres were committed by Oliver Cromwell’s army during this conquest, and it resulted in the confiscation of most Catholic-owned land and mass deportations. Temple’s work was published at least ten times between 1646 and 1812. The graphic massacres depicted therein were used to lobby against granting more rights to Catholics.
After the massacre, stories spread of ghosts appearing in the river at Portadown, screeching and crying out for revenge. These stories were said to have struck fear into the locals. One woman stated that Irish Confederate commander Owen Roe O’Neill went to the site of the massacre when he returned to Ireland in 1642. She stated that a female ghost appeared, crying for revenge. O’Neill sent for a priest to speak to the ghost, but it would only speak to a Protestant cleric from an English regiment
Toole McCann was later captured by English forces. He was questioned and made a statement in May 1653, saying he had not authorised nor seen the massacre, but had only heard of it. He was executed shortly after.
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Battle of Clontarf, 1014 – End of the Viking Age in Ireland
Main source: Wiki
- Here’s a complete chapter of my book…
For those who haven’t as yet read my No.1 Best Selling book here’s a free chapter
Intro
‘Historically, Unionist politicians fed their electorate the myth that they were first class citizens . . . and without question people believed them. Historically, Republican/Nationalist politicians fed their electorate the myth that they were second class citizens . . . and without question the people believed them. In reality, the truth of the matter was that we all, Protestant and Catholic, were third class citizens, and none of us realised it!’
Hugh Smyth, OBE (1941¬–-2014). Unionist politician.
Although I was raised in what is probably one of the most Loyalist council estates in Belfast, I was never what you might term a conventional ‘Prod’. Don’t get me wrong – coming from Glencairn, situated just above the famous Shankill Road and populated by Protestants (and their descendants) who fled intimidation, violence and death in other parts of Belfast at the beginning of the Troubles, I was (and remain) a Loyalist through and through. I was unashamedly proud of my Northern Irish Protestant ancestry (still am) and couldn’t wait for all the fun and games to be had on ‘The Twelfth’, or ‘Orangeman’s Day’ (still can’t). Even after thirty plus years of living away from the place my dreams are populated by bags of Tayto Cheese & Onion crisps, pastie suppers from Beattie’s on the Shankill and pints of Harp lager. I cheer on the Northern Ireland Football team (though I’m not a massive football fan, I watch all the big games) and I bitch frequently about the doings of Sinn Fein.
I’m a working-class Belfast Loyalist through and through and very proud of my culture and traditions. Yet from an early age I sensed that I was somehow different. As a child I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and when I discovered the truth in my early teens, I was embarrassed, mortified and ashamed – but maybe not particularly shocked. I always knew there was something not ‘quite right’ about me. The secret was that I wasn’t as ‘Super Prod’ as I thought; there was another strand of Northern Irish tradition in my background, one that was equally working-class Belfast, but as diametrically opposed to Protestantism as you’re likely to get. There’s a comedy song that probably still does the rounds in clubs across Ireland, North and South, called ‘The Orange and The Green’, the chorus of which goes something like ‘It is the biggest mix-up that you have ever seen/My father he was Orange and my mother she was Green.’ In other words, a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. This song could have been written about our family directly, so closely did it match our dynamic.
Now, if you’re reading this from the comfort of any other country than Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland or Scotland, you’ll be (just about) forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. Catholics marrying Protestants? So what? No big deal, surely. No one cares. But in a country like Northern Ireland, where tribalism still reigns supreme and the local people can sniff out a person’s religion just by looking at them, the prospect of the ‘mixed marriage’ is still cause for a good gossip, at the very least. During the Troubles period it was an excuse for deep embarrassment, banishment, a paramilitary beating, or worse. Those Protestants and Catholics who married and stuck it out either slunk away into some quiet corner of Northern Ireland, trying to ignore the ongoing conflict while hoping the neighbours wouldn’t ask too many questions, or left the place altogether, never to return.
The marriage of my own parents, John Chambers (Protestant) and Sally McBride (Catholic), fell apart in the late 1960s as Belfast burned in the early days of the Troubles. The ferocity of hatred between the city’s two warring communities scorched many people desperately trying to find sanctuary in a country heading towards all- out civil war. As we’ll see, my parents’ marriage was among these early casualties. Their lives, and the lives of their four children, would change for ever and were shaped by the sectarian madness that tore Belfast and all of Northern Ireland apart and brought us all to the brink of an abyss that threatened and ruined our daily lives.
This isn’t a book about the day-to-day events of the Troubles. There are plenty of excellent histories available detailing the period in all its gory glory, and from all viewpoints. If you need deep context, I’d recommend reading one of these, or even visiting Belfast. It’s safe now and as a tourist you won’t find a warmer welcome anywhere on this earth. As we say, Northern Irish people are the friendliest in the world – just not towards each other.
Although I love history, I’m not a historian and I don’t intend this book to be a dry run through of the events of 1969 onwards. As a child I learned the stories and legends of the Battle of Boyne and the Siege of Derry at my grandfather’s and father’s knees, becoming immersed in the Loyalist culture that would shape and dominate my whole existence.
I just happened to be there at the time – an ordinary kid in an extraordinary situation made even more complicated by the secret of my dual heritage. This is simply the story of a boy trying to grow up, survive, thrive, have fun and discover himself against a backdrop of events that might best be described as ‘explosive’, captivating and shocking the world for thirty long years. I’ve written this book because even I find my own story hard to believe sometimes, and only when I see it on the shelves will I truly know that it happened. In addition, it’s a story I would like my own children and grandchildren to read. I want them to live in peace, harmony and understanding in a multicultural world where everyone tolerates and respects each other. I suppose I’ve always been a dreamer… . . . .
When they read my book, which I hope they will, they might understand what it is to grow up in conflict, hatred and intolerance, and work towards a better future for themselves and others. When I was twenty, twenty-one, I knew that if I didn’t leave Northern Ireland soon, I would end up either in prison or dead, or on the dole for the rest of my life. This was the brutal reality I was faced with. My own personal journey through life and the Troubles had led me to a crossroads in my life and I made the monumental choice to leave Belfast and all those I loved behind and start a new life in London.
I would hate to think my son, daughter or nephews and nieces back in Belfast would ever have to make the same drastic judgement about their own situation.
My Loyalist heart and soul respects and loves all mankind, and providing the God you worship or the political system you follow is peaceful and respectful to all others then I don’t have a problem with you and wish you a happy future. Just because I am proud of my Loyalist culture and traditions doesn’t make me a hater or a bigot; it just means I am happy with the status quo in Northern Ireland and wish to maintain and celebrate the union with the UK and honour our Queen and current King .
As a child growing up in Loyalist Belfast during the worst years of the Troubles, I hated Catholics with a passion and I could never forgive them for what I saw as their passive support of the IRA and other Republican terrorist groups. I didn’t or couldn’t differentiate between IRA and ordinary Catholics; such lines were blurred in my small Loyalist world. However, unlike many of my peers around me, I was never comfortable with the killing of non-combatants, regardless of political or religious background, and I mourned the death of innocent Catholics as much as innocent Protestants. In my childhood, I looked up to the Loyalist warlords and those who served them and when they killed an IRA member I celebrated with those around me. As I grew older and wiser my views changed. I no longer based my opinions and hatred on religion, but on politics and the humanity shown to others .
I’m a peace-loving Loyalist and therefore want everlasting peace in Northern Ireland. We do exist, despite perceptions from some quarters, but our voices are rarely heard, drowned out by the actions of the few, and certainly nowhere near as frequently as our Republican neighbours who are very much ‘on message’ with their own take on events. I hope this book goes some way to redressing that balance, and that whatever ‘side’ you might be on (or on no side at all) you will enjoy it, and that it will make you stop and think.
Finally, the story you are about to read is my own personal journey through the Troubles and my perception of growing up in Loyalist Belfast. In no way am I speaking for the wider Loyalist community or Protestant people and the views expressed here are my own. For reasons of security, some names have been changed.
John Chambers
England, April 2020.
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- Norn Iron Olympic Winners 2024 👏👏👏
The 2024 Olympics in Paris were the most successful in history for athletes from Northern Ireland
Who are the Olympic medallists from Northern Ireland?
Daniel Wiffen
Gold: Men’s 800m freestyle Bronze: Men’s 1500m freestyle
Hails From: Armagh via Leeds
Daniel Wiffen (born 14 July 2001) is an Irish swimmer who competes at the Olympic Games, world championships and European championships for Ireland and at the Commonwealth Games for Northern Ireland. He is the Olympic and world champion at 800 metres.
Wiffen won gold at the men’s 800 metre freestyle final at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, setting an Olympic record time of 7:38.19
] He won the 800 and 1500 metres freestyle at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha, the first time a male Irish swimmer had become world champion. He won the 400, 800 and 1500 metre freestyle at the 2023 European Swimming Championships (25m) in Otopeni, and the inaugural European Under-23 title in 2023 in Dublin.
Wiffen holds the 800 metres freestyle short-course world record with a time of 7:20.46.
Personal life
Wiffen was born in Leeds, England, and moved to Magheralin at the age of two. He has three siblings, twin brother Nathan, sister Elizabeth and another brother, Ben.. The family home is close to the border of County Down but is in County Armagh.
Daniel’s twin brother Nathan is also a swimmer who finished fourth in the 1500m at the 2024 European Championship and narrowly missed out on the qualifying time for that event for the 2024 Olympics.
Dan in Game of Thrones Daniel and his twin brother have a YouTube Channel. They both had minor roles in The Frankenstein Chronicles (season 1, episode 2) and Games of Thrones (season 3, episode 9); in the latter, their sister Elizabeth also appeared as Neyela Frey.
What’s my name? Daniel Wiffen, Olympic champion! | RTÉ Olympics Podcast Wiffen attends Loughborough University.
Main source : Wiki Daniel Wiffen
Jack McMillan
Gold: Men’s 4x200m freestyle relay
Hails From: Belfast
Jack McMillan (born 14 January 2000) is a swimmer from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who competed for Ireland in the men’s 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay at the 2020 Summer Olympics and for Great Britain at the 2024 Summer Olympics. He swam in the heats of the 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay and was awarded a gold medal when the British team won the final.
Personal life
“I was about four years old when I started swimming,” he said.
“My dad worked at the local leisure centre, so that’s how I got into swimming lessons.
“I started competing around eight years old and definitely had a natural feel for it compared to the other kids.
“It was that natural love at the start and knowing that I was quite a bit better than the other kids which spurred me on as well.
“I was always the best from an early age, and I wanted to continue that.”
Main Source : Wiki Jack McMillan
Main Source: Belfast Telegraph
Belfast Telegraph: Belfast swimmer Jack McMillan pays tribute to late mother as he shares first photograph of Olympic gold medal
Hannah Scott
Gold: Women’s quadruple sculls
Hails From: Coleraine
Hannah Scott (born 18 June 1999) is a rower from Coleraine, Northern Ireland. She has won Olympic and world championship gold medals representing Great Britain
At the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, she won the World Championship gold medal in the Quadruple sculls with Lauren Henry, Georgina Brayshaw and Lola Anderson. The team went on to win the gold medal in the quadruple sculls at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics
Personal life
Who is Hannah Scott?
Team GB rower from Coleraine wins gold in Women’s Quadruple Sculls
Originally from Coleraine, Hannah’s Olympic journey began in the River Bann.
She started rowing at 13 at the Bann Rowing Club in Coleraine, one of the oldest and most successful rowing clubs in Ireland.
The historic club boat house has stood since 1864 in those years it has been the beginning of the road for many Olympic medals over the years.
Brothers Peter and Richard Chambers, who won silver together in the lightweight four at London 2012, and bronze-medal winning sculler Alan Campbell all started off at the Bann Rowing Club.
Having the opportunity to attend this club and be mentored by its accomplished coaches set Hannah up for success, and it was not long before she started to excel in the sport.
She went on to win five national titles and eight silver medals over several years of competition at the Irish Rowing Championships.
One of the biggest milestones in her rowing career was attending Princeton University in America, where she was able to take part in the university’s rowing programme.
While at the Ivy League university she went on to become a two-time Ivy League Champion in the Varsity Eight and she led the Princeton Women’s Crew as captain.
She also snagged two silver medals at the U23 World Championships.
The road to Paris
Her final years at university were disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, which opened up an opportunity for Hannah to return to the UK and earn a spot on the British Rowing Team at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The 25-year-old made her Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 while still studying for her sociology degree at Princeton. Paris will be her second Olympics and she will be heading in as a reigning world and European champion in the women’s quadruple sculls.
Main Source: The Irish News
Main Source : Wiki Hannah Scott
Rhys McClenaghan
Gold: Men’s pommel horseHails From: Newtownards
Rhys Joshua McClenaghan BEM OLY (born 21 July 1999) is an artistic gymnast from Northern Ireland who competes internationally both for Ireland and Northern Ireland. He is recognised as one of the best pommel horse workers of his generation. He is the 2024 Olympic champion, the first gymnast ever to win an Olympic medal for Ireland. McClenaghan is also a double world champion on the pommel horse, having won gold in 2022 and 2023, the first Irish artistic gymnast ever to win world championship gold. In 2019, he became the first Irish gymnast to qualify to a world championships final and to also win a medal, taking bronze on pommel horse.
He is a three-time European champion and a Commonwealth Games champion on the same apparatus. McClenaghan is the first Irish gymnast to compete in a European final and also the first to win a European medal.
He also competed for Northern Ireland at the 2018 Commonwealth Games,[8] winning the gold medal on the pommel horse. He followed this by winning the 2018 European Championships, pipping the reigning Olympic and two-time world champion, Max Whitlock on both occasions. In 2023, McClenaghan won a second European title and retained the world title. His third European crown came in Rimini in 2024.
He is the first gymnast to become Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth champion on one apparatus.
He was named RTÉ’s Sportsperson of the Year for 2023.
Personal life
McClenaghan was born in Newtownards, County Down, to Tracy and Danny McClenaghan. Aged six, and already displaying a precocious aptitude for gymnastics, he started training at Rathgael Gymnastics Club in Bangor. McClenaghan later attended Regent House School in Newtownards. He has been coached by close friend Luke Carson for many years.
The family of Co Down gymnast Rhys McClenaghan have told of how they “knew this day would come” after he won gold at the Paris Olympics.
The Newtownards athlete completed on Saturday what is considered a gymnastics’ Grand Slam – World, European, Commonwealth and Olympic golds.
Speaking after her son stood on the winner’s podium to collect his gold medal, his mother Tracy said it was “the only one that was missing from his medal collection”.
The 25-year-old gymnast clinched gold for Team Ireland with his outstanding routine in the pommel horse final at the Bercy Arena. It came three years after he fell from the apparatus, when he was favoured to win gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
He said he had slept with the medal on his bedside table.
“It’s so heavy and so sharp I was scared I was going to wake up with injuries,” he said on Sunday.
“I started gymnastics at six years old, that gap between there, that is all my parents, that is them driving me to and from the gym, paying my gymnastics fees, everything they supported and wanted me to pursue that dream that I had.
“This medal is just as much theirs as it is mine.”
Main Source : Irish Time Rhys McClenaghan
Main Source : Wiki Rhys McClenaghan
Rebecca Shorten
Silver medal: Women’s four
Hails From: Belfast
Rebecca Shorten (born 25 November 1993) is a Northern Irish rower from Belfast. She is a world and European gold medallist and Olympic silver medallist for Great Britain.
She attended Methodist College Belfast and Roehampton University.
Personal life
‘I always knew Rebecca had right chemistry to be top rower at Olympics. Science teacher who coached Team GB silver medal star recalls conversation that set Belfast woman on course for glory
It was a conversation that changed Rebecca Shorten’s life and set her on the path to sporting stardom that culminated in a silver medal at the Paris Olympics.
The Belfast rower was part of the Team GB four that finished second in the final.
The team, also comprising Helen Glover, Esme Booth and Sam Redgrave, lost out on the line to the Netherlands by just an 18th of a second.
While their gold dream was dashed, there was a silver lining, boosting Northern Ireland’s medal tally on a day when Banbridge rower Philip Doyle and his partner Daire Lynch claimed double sculls bronze for Team Ireland.
Shorten’s story is remarkable, with her former mentor pinpointing a conversation 16 years ago that set her on a new course.
Enda Marron, her teacher and rowing coach when she was at Methodist College in Belfast, said her journey to the podium in Paris began after a science lesson in 2008.
“I was her chemistry teacher and she wasn’t the best chemist,” he told the Belfast Telegraph.
“She had handed in some chemistry work that wasn’t the best.
“It was okay, it just wasn’t the best, and she was a bit embarrassed by it and a bit shy about it.”
Mr Marron said he knew Rebecca wasn’t going to excel in a science career, but saw her potential as a rower.
He said: “I remember saying to her: ‘Who cares about chemistry? Let’s get you into a boat and down to the river’.
“After that she just went from strength to strength and the rest is history.”
At the time Shorten was only 14.
Sixteen years later, and she is the proud owner of an Olympic silver.
Mian Source : Jessica Rice Belfast Telegraph
Philip Doyle
Bronze medal: Men’s double sculls
Hails From: Banbridge
Philip Doyle (born 17 September 1992) is an Irish representative rower. He is an Olympian and won a medal at the 2019 World Rowing Championships. He raced in the men’s double sculls with Ronan Byrne at Tokyo 2020. He won a bronze medal in the men’s double sculls at the 2024 Summer Olympics with Daire Lynch.
Doyle went to St. Mary’s Primary School in Banbridge from 1996 to 2004. He then attended Banbridge Academy 2004-2011 where he played hockey winning the Bannister Bowl 2006, Richardson Cup 2007 & 2008, the McCullough Cup 2010 and Burney Cup 2010 & 2011. He played in a side which won the All Ireland Schools Cup 2011 and made the semi-finals of the European Schools Cup in 2011.
Doyle played for Ulster U16 at centre back when they were runners-up in an inter-provincial tournament. He represented Ireland U16 in the European championships coming 6th in Holland. Philip also played for Banbridge club up to first XI standard playing centre forward for the 2010/11 season.
Personal life
Doyle went on to study Medicine at Queen’s University in 2012. Philip did an intercalated degree in Medical Sciences in 2015/16 also graduating with a first class honours BSc. Philip got his senior debut for Ireland rowing in Lucerne, Switzerland in the men’s singles coming 15th. He and his partner Ronan Byrne went on to come 9th in Plovdiv, Bulgaria in the men’s double September 2018 delaying stating his Job as a doctor in Belfast city Hospital after Graduating from Queen’s University in July 2018.
Philip worked as a foundation 1 doctor in Belfast City Hospital December 2018 – April 2019 before returning to Rowing full time and competing at the European Championships in Lucerne, Switzerland with partner Ronan Byrne coming 9th
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph last month Philip said: “So I train 18 times a week, anything from four to seven hours a day depending on the session structure and what competitions are coming up – and depending on my work.
“My training is always a mix of sessions in the boat, on the rowing machine or in the gym. The Elite Athlete Programme at Queen’s has certainly been a great support to me.
“At the beginning of the year I sit down with my coach and set out my goals and we then figure out how they can be achieved.
“My coach Mick Desmond worked tirelessly with me and with Queen’s Sport to facilitate my achievements and helped me work towards my senior international debut, in Lucerne last month, where I came 15th out of 27.”
In March, Philip was recognised for his heroic bravery following an incident on the Lagan last year. Alongside QUBBC teammates Chris Beck and Tiernan Oliver, Philip helped save the life of Terry Bell who had fallen into the river while they were taking part in a Lagan Scullers Club river race, on the morning of Saturday 25 November.
Philip was awarded the Students’ Union President’s Award for Student Achievement which recognises a student or group of students who have demonstrated excellence in leadership or have made a positive impact on society.
Main source : wiki Philip Doyle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Doyle_(rower)
Main source : Queen University Belfast
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- Should I Stay or Should I Go – Back to Belfast ?
Should I Stay or Should I Go ?
I’m torn between going or staying .
Throughout my time living and working in London and recent years in and around the North West of England it was always my long term intention that when I reached a ripe old age and my kids had settled into happy secure independent adult lives I would relocate to Belfast and spend the remainder of my time in the company of friends and loved ones and the Shankill community that has always been my spiritual home and where my heart and soul were forged within the heartlands and hallowed streets of loyalist Belfast .
You can take the boy out of the Shankill but you can’t take the Shankill out of the boy , Oh so true .
But as usual my path through life has seldom been straight forward and the Norms in their infinite wisdom and cruel nature weaved me a crooked path fluctuating between epic highs and soul destroying lows.
To be honest these past five years have been the most trying and stressful I’ve faced in decades of relative happiness and personal satisfaction and to say they have taken a toll on my mental and emotional wellbeing would be something of an understatement.
Looking back it all started to fall apart when I lost my much missed and loved mum to cancer, a heartbreaking period that I am still trying to come to terms with. If you are familiar with my history, you’ll know I spent many years not knowing if mum was alive or dead and the turmoil this caused throughout my early and teenage years is laid bare in my best-selling book A Belfast Child .
Come on – I had to get a plug in somewhere 😜
In fact back in the early 2000’s I was seriously considering leaving London altogether (I’d had enough of the rat race and a coke habit that was threatening to get out of hand ) and the possibility of moving back to Belfast and sorting myself out was one of two tempting options opened to me and my growing family. Mum was the second and she made it crystal clear she would love for me to live closer to her and help me get back on my feet . So I delayed my return home and we relocated to a little town on the outskirts of Preston, where we have lived since.
It was great to be so close to mum and we were able to spend quality time together getting to know each other and mending the damage of our tragic family history. The gravitational weight of my traumatic childhood has been a constant presence throughout my life and parts of my soul will always be held hostage to the past.
Nevertheless, this was one of the happiest and most productive periods of my life and at times it seemed I had an almost perfect life and wanted for nothing.
But as the years ticked by the pull of Belfast was becoming stronger and I missed and longed to be in the company of those I love and cherished above all others. Mostly I missed my three siblings and best mate “ Billy “ , we are supernaturally close and I grew to resent the years I had spent away from them.
And a little voice inside my head constantly reminded me that we were only given a brief spell on this mortal coil and time was running out.
Time keeps on slipping into the future
My biggest fear , a fear shared by all of us was that one of us might die prematurely and the landscape and future of our close family unit would be reshaped and destroyed forevermore.
After mums’ death the only thing keeping me in England was the fact my two children had been born and raised here and all their memories and historical roots were firmly planted in English soil . So once again I kicked the idea of the move home into the long grass and settled into the humdrum existence of daily life.
There were some high points during this period and after years of toying with the idea of seeing my story in print I finally managed to get a book deal and realised one of my long-held dreams. Subconsciously I think I was a little uncomfortable with publishing the book whilst mum was alive , although I had completed most of it back in the late 90s and she had read and approved of the early drafts.
As you may suspect this was not a straightforward process and there were many soul destroying bumps and rejections along the way but I persevered and much to my delight the book has went onto be a bestseller. Despite the popular misconception being a bestselling author has not made me rich , far from it and like many I struggle sometimes financially to make ends meet. Having said that I know the book will be my legacy and fingers crossed I’m working on a film script that I hope to sell in the coming years.
Stay tuned.
I will be covering the whole journey from concept to publication of the book in a future post and Princess Diana features in this story.
Life went on and my fragile soul struggled to deal with mums passing but always in the background I had my two sister’s supporting and comforting me from Belfast. Both desperately wanting me to return, and Jean was forever begging me to come home and to be honest I wanted nothing more. I began to feel trapped in England due to the dilemma of my children and the deep roots they had planted here, and I could see no way forward.
But the fates love to toy with the destinies of mortal men and the unpredictability of life weaved by the wicked Norns was about to shake my world to its very foundations and nothing would ever be the same. In the space of twenty four short months I lost three members of my close family, my uncle William, much loved brother in law Richard and the hardest loss of all my beloved big sister Jean. My grief and sorrow were biblical and the pain of losing Jean took me to dark places that hunt me still.
To make things even more difficult during this brutal period my “perfect” marriage of twenty-eight years was falling apart and suddenly I had to adjust to being a single parent and living alone in a life I had grown to detest.
To be completely honest these events are still too raw and painful for me to write about in-depth and I will leave them here for now. but I find the process of putting my thoughts on paper cathartic and will be covering these in a later post.
Oh , I almost forgot to mention in the midst of all this turmoil I was diagnosed with a potential life threatening brain aneurysm and I will cover this also in an upcoming post.
All these events have led me to a crossroad in my life and once again I am seriously considering moving back to Belfast permanently . Although I love England and its been good to me I have nothing left here but my children (and three legged cat) and they both understand and support my desire move back home. Autumn has now flown the nest and is settled with her new fella and yes I approve of him. Jude is a typical grumpy teenager and splits his time happily between his mum and me and as long as we feed him and give him money, he is happy with his lot and for me to move back to Belfast.
But it’s not that black and white for me.
He’s only seventeen and in my eyes still a child, although he thinks he’s a big man! I want to be there for him as he grows and matures and evolves as a young adult and be there to share and support him through the trials and tribulations life throws at him. I want to be there when he has he’s first pint in a pub , ( a regret I never had with my own dad) be there to pick him up when he falls down and be a constant presence in his life. Down the line when my children marry ( or not ) and have their own kids I want to be part of their lives and not a distant grandfather living over the Irish sea they see a few times a year. Also, since Jeans death Belfast has lost some of its magic for me as spending time with her was always a highlight of my trips home and in some ways I would feel guilty moving back when she’s not there.
So what am I going to do ?
Stay tuned and when I make up my mind Ill let you know x
That’s all for now folks, I’m pushing myself to write again as I’ve not put pen to paper in almost two years and I’m a little rusty and out of practice. . So be gentle with me please.
Upcoming posts :
The reasons I left Belfast.
Book writing process and publication
My movie script, where I’m at
Once upon a time in Northern Ireland, why thoughts and the process of taking part
My love of music and how its shaped my life
And much more…
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my site now includes a comprehensive searchable database of every major event and killings during the Troubles.
Donate- The least visited page on my Blog - (no title)
- Belfast Child The Movie ?
I’m in the process of trying to complete a script based on my number one bestselling book A Belfast Child and to be completely honest I’m seriously struggling and becoming disillusioned with the whole process. Recently I feel like just admitting defeat, throwing the towel in and consigning the idea to the long grass.
But I’m not going to give up – just yet!
Since the book was published (and well before) I’ve been working on a script l based on my story (Philomena meets Trainspotting/Quadrophenia kind of theme) and I completed the first draft a few years ago. I sent this to Northern Ireland screen and some agents and the feedback I received was positive, but they suggested I needed to do some rewrites and changes to make it sellable before submitting it again. At the time I was going through some personal issues including my mum’s soul-destroying long illness and the publication of my book also took precedence, so I put the script on hold for a few years to focus on more pressing issues such as the daily grind of life and surviving all those little obstacles fate loves to throw in my path.
Earlier this year I thought I would give the script another go and have been working on it on and off since. It may surprise some of you to learn that putting together a script is an entirely different beast to writing a book and to be completely honest I’ve been really struggling with tweaking and amending it and its doing my head in !
I’ve reached out to a few folk in the industry and for one reason or another they cant commit to helping me complete this project. I’ve had meetings with established scriptwriters and producers and although they love the idea and praised the story none of them seem to have the time or resources I need to see this through to completion.
Also the success of Belfast the movie has put some of from taking up my story as they feel the market for Trouble’s themed stories has been saturated over the years and another Belfast story would be hard to place in the market. Obviously, I disagree with this and although I thought Belfast was a great movie it sugar coated the brutal reality of what life was really like back then whereas I feel my story/script incorporates the raw horror and unceasing violence that dominated our daily lives in the ghettos of Belfast and beyond and the legacy of the Troubles that still hunt us to this day. There was also much teenage madness and laughter which offered us some brief moments of escape from the violence all around us.
I’m waffling now so let me get to the point !
I have come to the conclusion in order to move my idea forward I need to bring in some professional help and with that in mind Im in the process of finding and engaging the services of a well-established script consultant and further down the line a script editor. These guys are in high demand and don’t come cheap but if I’m to have the best chance of seeing my script through to completion with professional input and guidance I’m looking at a fee of between £5000 – £10000 and possibly more down the line.
Despite popular belief being a bestselling author has not made me a millionaire (yet) or indeed anywhere near it and like many I face the same financial struggles that are the curse of the cost of living crisis we are all experiencing. But I have a long-held dream to see my story on the big screen and I am focused on pursuing this until I have achieved that aim. It took me almost twenty years to finally see my book in print and through all the ups and downs and soul-destroying rejections I persevered until one day a publisher took me onboard and the rest is history as they say. It was a long and hard process and there were many false starts along the way, but I eventually got there. I never give up on that dream until it became a reality, and I am going to apply the same determination and dedication in my quest to complete my screen play and see it on the big ( or small) screen one day. Hopefully within the next few years as Im getting old and my time is running out…
So that’s my mission statement and Ill be keeping you all updated via my blog and Twitter ( I just can’t get use to calling it X ) as and when I have something to share . It’s going to be a pain raising the fee for the services I need but one way or another I know Ill get there eventually.
If you’d like to be part of my story and are feeling wildly generous and excited about seeing me succeed and my project developed you can contribute towards the costs by clicking the donation button below.
If and when the movie comes out Ill give you all a mention 😜
Click donation button below to be a part of this awesome journey .
- Life was hard in the mean streets of Loyalist Belfast during the Troubles. Still is for many .
Extracts from my book A Belfast Child.
As I’ve said, the spell in gaol was towards the end of a long period of joyriding, shoplifting and drug-taking, some of which I was lifted for, many others that I got away with. In the 1980s, stealing cars and joyriding was almost a full-time occupation for many of Northern Ireland’s teenage males
This was the scenario one such Saturday night, when we jacked a car just for the hell of it. The experts could be in there with the engine started in five seconds flat, and there was little chance of being caught red-handed. We belted up the Crumlin Road, not bothering ourselves with red lights or pedestrian crossings, and celebrated reaching our home turf with a screeching handbrake turn, perfect in every technical sense except that it ended with a side-on smash into a nice new Opel Ascona car parked on the other side of the road.
None of us were hurt, but as we stared at the damage we’d inflicted on the Ascona we realised we’d committed a crime that could see us all shivering in fear as, one-by-one, our kneecaps were removed by a bullet from a Browning pistol. The car we’d just hit belonged to a top UDA man, a guy known to all of us as a character who took no nonsense, especially from a gang of hoods. Sensibly, we bolted from the car and ran as fast as our legs could take us.
Unfortunately, Glencairn is a small place and word quickly reached the UDA as to the identity of the joyriders. The following day we all received the inevitable summons to the community centre, where the paramilitaries were waiting. To say we were shitting it is an understatement.
‘Don’t even fuckin’ think of denying it!’ screamed the enraged commander
,when we tried to do just that. ‘If youse think you’re gonna get away with this, youse are more stupid that ye look!’With that, he pulled a pistol from his waistband. A couple of our gang started to cry. I could feel my balls disappearing into my stomach as I thought about the prospect of hobbling around the estate for the rest of my life.
‘Now,’ he said, brandishing the pistol in our faces, ‘did ye smash my car up or didn’t ye?’
Miserably, we nodded in unison. Our fate was sealed. Whatever happened to us next, we’d just have to accept. It was simply part and parcel of life in Loyalist West Belfast back then.
The commander looked us up and down, this group of shuffling, shaking, sniffling boys. Perhaps something about our pathetic appearance softened his heart. Maybe he realised that we’d not meant to do what we did, that it was an accident that only affected him personally, not the Loyalist movement as a whole.
‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ he said, after watching us sweat for a minute or so. ‘I’m going to buy a new car, and every Saturday youse are gonna come up to my house and clean it inside and out. And if it’s still dirty, you’ll start all over again. You got that?’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He was letting us off! Well, not quite, but washing a car was a whole sight easier than walking with a missing kneecap. We glanced at each other in shock, barely suppressing our smiles of relief,
–until the commander banged his fist on a table.‘And if I ever catch youse joyriding again,’ he said in a menacingly low tone, ‘there’ll be no question of what will happen to you. Got that?
!’We trooped out like a gang of monkeys released from a cage. And two Saturdays later we were at the commander’s house armed with buckets, sponges and cleaning liquid. After we finished, his was the shiniest car on the estate.
You have been reading extracts from my No.1 Bestselling book. If you’d like a signed copy see below. Ive got a special offer on this weekend . Only £10.00 plus free postage –
- Belfast Mods – In the 80s we give Peace a chance !
Becoming a mod in the early 80s during some of the worst years of the Troubles was a life shaping moment for me and for the first time ever I began moving away from the paramilitary run clubs and discos of my youth and meeting and socialising with my catholic counterparts in the city centre and beyond .
To be honest this was a real eye opening epiphany for me.
Prior to this and throughout my early life and teens I had been nurtured and raised exclusively within the loving tightknit tribal communities and social structures of the Shankill and surrounding areas. My tiny loyalist world was dominated by the Troubles and the so-called Peace Walls that separated our two warring war weary tribes. Like those around me my whole life and being was built on my pride in my unionist culture and British identity . Back them paranoia between Catholics and Protestants was off the scale and as a kid growing up when and where I did I couldn’t differentiate between ordinary Catholics and republican killers. Such lines were blurred in my little loyalist world, and like my peers who also grew up in the ghettos of Belfast I knew no different. But as I grew older and wiser my myopic view of Catholics gradually changed and this was largely due to me becoming a mod and starting to spread my wings for the first time and explore the teenage pleasures other parts of my city might offer. Music truly is a universal language and for me it was a glorious unifying force that broke down the barriers that had held me back thus far and I was ready to embrace it all and party like never before.
What follows is one of the Mod chapters from my book A Belfast Child. See below on how to get your hands a personally signed copy.
Chapter 12
Me as a cool mod
Owning the scooter meant I no longer had to wait for buses or black taxis that never arrived, or risk walking through heavily Nationalist areas where my eyeliner and beads would attract very unwelcome attention. It was bad enough walking down the Shankill in all the clobber; skirting the Ardoyne or Unity flats as a Loyalist in a paisley-patterned shirt was sheer suicide.
The Merton Parkas ‘You Need Wheels’ TOTP (1979)
Of course, Mod as a movement wasn’t confined to us Prods. We knew that a sizeable number of Belfast Catholics were also into the clothes, the music and the drugs. I’m guessing that not many of them wore Union Jack T-shirts or had red, white and blue roundels painted on their parkas like we did, but aside from that they were just the same as us.
Jacqueline’s photographs show gangs of boys and girls congregating in several spots around Belfast and no one has ‘Catholic’ or ‘Protestant’ tattooed on their forehead. All we see is a gang of young kids smiling, laughing and having fun together – just as it should be when you’re that age.
Belfast Mods outside the city hall 1980s
Mod took no notice of religion. There was no place for hatred or division among the scooter boys and girls who gathered on a Saturday afternoon by the City Hall, or drank in the Abercorn bar in Castle Lane (which, ironically, was the scene of an infamous IRA bombing in 1972 that killed two young Catholic women and injured 130 other innocent people – a particularly disgraceful act in a terrifying year). Sectarian insults and deep-rooted suspicions were put aside when Mods from both sides of the fence danced at the Delta club in Donegall Street or drank strong tea and smoked fags in the Capri Cafe in Upper Garfield Street. When Mods gathered, there was no time for this kind of talk. Hanging out, being cool and looking sharp were the only things Mods were interested in. For those moments, all the violence and oppression and misery were put aside.
Me on the front of a book about Belfast mods
I say ‘put aside’ because putting aside such ingrained beliefs was about as much as anyone could do in those deeply divided days. You couldn’t forgive or forget, not when there was so much senseless killing happening on both sides. In my view, every outrage committed against our community had to be avenged and if I heard about IRA men killed by the Brits or the Loyalists I celebrated as happily as I’d always done.
And yet . . . .there was still the lurking knowledge that a part of my background was linked to the very community from which the IRA and its Republican offshoots came from. Allied to that, I was now one of those Mods who were mixing freely with Catholic boys and girls in the city centre, dancing the night away with them and sharing cigarettes, weed, pills, whatever, in various bars and cafes. My heart was as Protestant and Loyalist as it always had been but by now my head was telling me that under the skin, we poor sods who were stuck in the middle of a war zone were all the same. Being Belfast kids, we only needed a couple of seconds’ conversation to find out where someone was from and what religion they were but when the Mods came together this didn’t seem to matter. A person’s religion was becoming irrelevant to me , but I still hated the IRA all right.
At first I was nervous. I’d encountered Catholics before, of course, but only when I was younger. Now I was hanging around with Catholic kids who, like me, were already associating with paramilitary groups. Involvement in the UDA, UVF, IRA, INLA, etc was born of tradition. It was what you did if you came from Glencairn, Ardoyne, Shankill, Andersonstown. But when you pulled on your mohair suit – and, being newly minted I had a few of these hand-made, so I claim to be the best-dressed Mod in Belfast at the time – and fired up your Vespa, your political associations were put aside. We just didn’t talk about any of that stuff, and it was better that way.
Squire – It’s a Mod Mod World
In my childish loyalist world, I couldn’t tell the difference between ordinary peace craving Catholics and IRA killers, such lines were blurred in my childhood world. I was a product of the tribal community that I had grown up in and republicans were our sworn enemies. But the more I got to know Catholics, the less I hated them. I was no longer lumping them all into one big bunch of terrorists. The boys I was talking to as we sat astride our scooters by the City Hall, checking out each other’s suits, shirts, shoes and girlfriends, had had similar experiences to me. I knew that, and so did they. But on those precious Saturday afternoons, when we all felt young and vibrant and just happy to be alive, none of that mattered. We ignored the madness going on around us as best as we could and yet there was always the possibility of being caught up in a bomb or gun attack from Loyalist or Republican terrorists.
The Jam – A Bomb in Wardour Street
I became friendly with lots of Catholic Mods, including Bobby from the Antrim Road, who became a firm friend. I also hung out with Keith from the Westland and we spent a lot of time together. And in particular Zulu and Tom, two Mods from Ardoyne. One night they invited me up to a club they regularly frequented in their neighbourhood. Like many Loyalist and Republican clubs and bars it had a wire cage around the perimeter and doormen always on guard in case of an attack, which could happen at any time.
All my instincts told me not to go; it was in the heart of Ardoyne, the Catholic enclave bordered by Protestant West Belfast and one of the IRA’s most important heartlands. For a Prod, it couldn’t be any less dangerous. I imagined how ironic it would be if I was drinking in a Catholic area with Catholic friends and the UFF or UVF attacked the place and I was killed. My crazy side, however, ignored all that and, pilled-up and cockily confident, I fell in line behind Tom and Zulu and entered the club.
The three of us stood by the bar in our gear, chatting away ten to the dozen. After I while, I realised that a group of older men on the other side of the bar were staring at me. All the while I knew I should be winding my neck in, keeping my head down and saying very little. By now, though, I was aware I’d already said too much.
Zulu and Tom had already noticed. Tom nipped to the jakes for a pee and on the way back one of the men stopped him, looked over at me and whispered something in his ear. The smile on Tom’s face froze as he received the message.
‘See those wans over there,’ he said as he resumed his position at the bar. ‘They reckon they can tell you’re a Prod.’
‘Fuck, I knew it,’ I said. ‘They’ve been eyeballin’ me since we walked in.’
My stomach had turned to water. There was no knowing what these hard cases would do if they took a hold of me.
‘Here’s what’s gonna happen,’ said Tom. ‘You and me will slowly make your way to the back door. Zulu’ll keep these fellas talking, then go to the jakes. Then he’ll climb out the window. OK?’
I wasn’t in a position to argue. The plan went smoothly and within minutes we were out of the door and away as fast as we could. We soon realised that mixing in the city centre on a Saturday was one thing; doing the same in our neighbourhoods was asking for big trouble, and I doubt we’d have got away so easily in Glencairn or Ballysillan.
The Who – Get Out And Stay Out
But as usual I was up for anything and many times I ignored the risks involved, putting myself in real danger. Once I was at a party up the Antrim Rd and a gang of wee Provies came in, asking everyone what religion they were. I lied through my teeth and said I was a Catholic from Manor Street , which was half true as I had been living there at the time. Another night I met a very cute and sexy Mod girl who made a beeline for me and made it clear that if I were to come back to her flat we would have a very good time indeed. I didn’t need a second invitation and soon we were in a taxi, speeding through Belfast with a nice handful of pills in my coat pocket.
The Who – The Real Me
She wasn’t wrong, we had a lot of fun in her flat that night. By the time I’d dragged my head up from the pillow the following morning she’d gone off to work. I lurched into the kitchen, made myself a cup of good strong Nambarrie tea and helped myself to the rest of her loaf of bread. After an hour of mooching about I opened the curtains and looked out at the view. Immediately, a horrible realisation dawned. I was somewhere up in the Divis Tower, a grim but iconic high-rise building in the middle of the fiercely Republican Divis Flats. Many people had been killed, injured or kidnapped within the vicinity of this place, including Jean McConville, a Protestant woman who converted to Catholicism for the sake of her husband. She had ten kids, and her only crime was to help a wounded soldier. For that, she was taken away from her family and murdered by the IRA.
See: Jean McConville
Quietly, I left the flat, gently shutting the door behind me. I made my way down a series of piss-stained stairways, avoiding the strange glances of a few women going in the opposite direction. The bleakness of this place was indescribable; the houses up on Glencairn were bad enough but this was truly a horrible, dangerous and dirty dump. With as much calm as I could muster I left the estate, not looking left, right or behind me, and walked the half-mile or so towards the city centre, where I had a much-needed Ulster Fry to celebrate yet another escape from Republican West Belfast.
Even so, my associations with Catholic boys and girls were becoming ever closer. A very young Catholic boy with a huge passion for music was DJing down the Abercorn and we all got to know and respect this kid who was barely out of school. His name was David Holmes and he went on to become one of the world’s foremost DJs, producers and re-mixers. It’s amazing to think that these early experiences in the Mod clubs and cafes inspired him to become the success story he is today.
Me and David Holmes
Meanwhile, I’d gone from chatting to Catholics to actually dating them. I met a girl called Kathy who lived a couple of minutes from the Royal Victoria Hospital along the Falls Road. She was small and very pretty and from the moment we met we had great banter together. She was also a trained hairdresser and would cut my hair for nothing, which was also quite appealing. She could have been the one for me to settle down with, but I was young and had ants in my pants and didn’t want to be tied down at the time. Pills and parties were my thing, not tea and nights in front of the telly. Kathy understood this and we were both in it for the craic.
The Jam – When You’re Young
I didn’t think about her being Catholic. Well, not much. The issue would only arise when we wanted to visit each other’s houses. From the off, Kathy was honest with her parents about the fact she was dating a Protestant and they seemed to be fine about it. We got on well and it was never spoken about, though no doubt that as parents they had their concerns. I liked them too, but I wasn’t entirely comfortable spending time in the Falls Road area. Although neither of us told anyone outside of the Mod scene that we were dating someone from the ‘other side’, these things could become common knowledge very quickly, as I’d previously discovered.
I was always fearful when Kathy wanted to come up to Glencairn. I made sure nobody was in the flat whenever she came and I told no one she was a Catholic. Kathy had a car (probably another attraction for me) and I remember one night the two of us driving up the Shankill towards Glencairn when we came to a sudden stop. We’d run out of petrol but luckily I knew there was a garage a few hundred yards up the road. Without thinking, I grabbed a battered metal petrol can from her boot and made my way up the road. I filled the can, paid up and strolled back to the car. I arrived to be greeted by a very white-faced Kathy, huddled in her seat so that she was almost under the driver’s wheel.
‘S’matter wi’ you?’ I said. ‘I’ve only been a couple of minutes.’
‘You fuckin’ eejit!’ she snapped back. ‘Didn’t ye think? Wee Catholic girl on her own up the Shankill ?
I hadn’t thought, but when I did I felt sick to the stomach. If, for some reason, her identity had been discovered, she’d have been in deep shit. Even young women were shown no mercy if they turned out to be Taigs in the wrong neighbourhood. When we finally returned to my flat, she was still shaking with fear.
The proximity of Catholic kids sometimes brought me back to the dark place – the unspoken secret that rattled around my mind and, at low points, threatened to overwhelm me completely. These crashes would usually happen when I was coming down off whatever I’d been throwing down my neck the previous evening – booze, pills, powders. I’d sit in my flat alone and think about my family – the father I’d adored and lost so early, the mother I’d never known who was out there somewhere, but who wouldn’t or couldn’t get in touch with us. My sisters, bringing up families without the help of proud grandparents. And to top it all, the endless cycle of violence and misery that was part of the fabric of everyday life in Northern Ireland. ‘Today, an RUC man was killed by a car bomb at his home in Portadown . . . Two masked men broke into a house in North Belfast and shot dead a Sinn Fein Councillor . . . ..A Protestant man on his way to work in Newry last night was the victim of a sectarian shooting . . . Two children were badly injured when a bomb went off in central Londonderry. No warning was given . . . ..’ On and on it went:, murders, bombing, riots, robberies, protests, kneecappings, torture, imprisonment the hedonism and escapism provided by the Mod movement in Belfast was grand while it lasted, but the relentless tide of horror and misery washed it away, day after day after day.
Belfast mods
Can you spot me ?
You have been reading extracts from my best-selling book A Belfast Child.
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- Is it Time to Panic ?
12 June 2023
Well, it’s a big day for me tomorrow and to be honest I’m getting a little nervous, and a teeny-weeny tad stressed about it all. But I suppose that is all perfectly normal. Right?
It’s not helping that there’s a thunderstorm brewing outside and I’m finding hidden meaning and dark portents as I listen to the thunder rumbling gently in the in the distance. Also reading through the notes on the procedure I’m going through (cerebral angiogram) I came across the list of the potential complications and this one totally freaked me out.
Procedures involving the blood vessels of the brain carry a small risk of stroke. This can range for a minor problem which gets better over time to a severe disability involving movement, balance, speech, and vision.
Fook me !
Time to have a word with m myself.
Stop it!
Photo by Andre Furtado on Pexels.com Having said all that I’ve been aware of this suspected aneurysm since November last year and I decided then I wasn’t going to let it get me down or dwell on it as that wouldn’t change a thing and I would end up driving myself up the wall with worry and I just couldn’t be arsed with that. So I buried my head in the sand and awaited the hospital appointments and here we are.
The doctors advised me to cut down on smoking and drinking and needless to say I’ve largely ignored both these self-serving guidelines. I know. But I’ve been smoking and drinking for forty odd years and these destructive lifelong habits are hard to break free from and Im a creature of habit and hate change.
To be fair I’ve not had a drink since Saturday night and I’ve cut down my smoking over the past few days and believe me that took some self-discipline. My kids were appalled at how much I was captured on film smoking during the Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland programme. Ive promised them Im going to try and commit to giving up but just just yet…
Anyway, I’m nil by mouth tonight and I have to be at the hospital by seven tomorrow morning so Im going to chill by the telly and have a calm relaxing evening and then early to be bed. If I get a positive outcome tomorrow I’l be dancing in the street and having a wee ice cold beer to celebrate.
Thanks to all my wonderful Twitter friends and the many who follow my blogs for all the love , support and comforting words. I am truly touched.
As the wonderful Doris Day once sang Que Sera, Sera
What is a cerebral angiogram?
A cerebral angiogram is a diagnostic test to examine the blood vessels in the brain and neck using X-rays and dye. The dye is injected through a plastic tube called a catheter, which is inserted into the arm.
Plan: Cerebral digital subtraction angiogram (DSA) to evaluate left ICA for suspected aneurysm/infundibulum.
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- Testing something
nothing to see here…
- Tipperary Tim – astounding 1928 Grand National winner at 100/1 & a proud resident of Glencairn !
Tipperary Tim
Astounding 1928 Grand National winner at 100/1 & a proud resident of Glencairn !
Tipperary Tim (foaled 1918) was an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse that won the 1928 Grand National. He was foaled in Ireland and was a descendant of the undefeated St. Simon.
Tipperary Tim was owned by Harold Kenyon and trained in Shropshire by Joseph Dodd. He was regarded as a fairly slow horse, but one who rarely fell. Tipperary Tim was a 100–1 outsider at the 42-runner 1928 Grand National, which was run in foggy conditions and very heavy going.
A pile-up occurred at the Canal Turn jump that reduced the field to just seven horses. Other falls and incidents left only Tipperary Tim and the 33-1 Billy Barton in the race. Billy Barton struck the last fence and fell, leaving Tipperary Tim to win – Billy Barton’s jockey remounted and finished a distant second (and last). The incident led to controversy in the press who complained that a Grand National should not be won merely by avoiding accident. It led to changes to the course with the ditch at Canal Turn being removed for the following year’s race. Tipperary Tim enjoyed no real success in other races.
Early life
Tipperary Tim was foaled in Ireland in 1918, his breeder was J.J. Ryan. Tipperary Tim’s sire was the British horse Cipango and his dam was the Irish horse Last Lot, his grandsire was the British horse St Frusquin (who had been sired by the undefeated St. Simon) and his damsire was British horse Noble Chieftain. He belonged to Thoroughbred family 19-b.
The stud fee paid for Cipango was just £3 5s (equivalent to £153 in 2020). Tipperary Tim was named after a local marathon runner, Tim Crowe. He was a brown-coloured gelding.[1] Tipperary Tim had been sold as a yearling for £50 (equivalent to £2,349 in 2020) and was said to have once been given as a present.
Tipperary Tim came into the ownership of Harold Kenyon. He was trained in Shropshire by Joseph Dodd who noted that “he never falls”. By other reports he was capable of only one pace, and that a relatively slow one. Tipperary Tim was tubed, that is he received a permanent tracheotomy, with a brass tube halfway down his neck to improve his breathing. He was stabled at Fernhill House in Belfast. Tipperary Tim competed at Aintree in the November 1927 Molyneux Steeplechase.
Fernhill House It breaks my heart to see my childhood playground going to wreck and ruin 1928 Grand National
Tipperary Tim was entered into the 1928 Grand National at the age of 10 years. He was ridden by amateur jockey Bill Dutton, a Cambridge-educated solicitor from Chester, who had left the profession to pursue horse-riding. Tipperary Tim was a 100–1 outsider and Dutton later recalled that a friend had told him before the race:
“you’ll only win if all the others fall”.
The field in 1928 was the largest to date with 42 runners starting the race. The going was very heavy and there was a dense fog. There were three false starts, after which the broken starting tape had to be knotted together. On the first circuit of the Aintree track the leader, one of the favourites, Easter Hero, mistimed the Canal Turn jump.
Rising too early he was stranded briefly on the fence before becoming trapped in the ditch, which preceded it. The next three horses, Grokle, Darracq and Eagle’s Tail were brought down by Easter Hero. Of the remaining runners (22 remained in the race), twenty refused to jump the fence. The pile-up was described by racing historian Reg Green as “the worst ever seen on a racecourse”.
Only seven horses with seated jockeys emerged from the incident to continue the race. One of these was Tipperary Tim as Dutton had chosen to take a wide route around the outside of the course, avoiding hazards that had brought down other jockeys. Because of the fog the majority of the audience were unaware of the incident at Canal Turn.
By the second jumping of Becher’s Brook only five horses remained in the race with Billy Barton leading ahead of May King, Great Span, Tipperary Tim and Maguelonne. Maguelonne was still trailing at the first fence following Valentine’s Brook where it fell. May King fell shortly afterwards before Great Span lost his saddle and rider, leaving only Billy Barton, who started with 33–1 odds, and Tipperary Tim.
Billy Barton had led the race for 2.5 miles (4.0 km) until the last fence where Tipperary Tim drew level. The riderless Great Span was between them and may have slightly hindered Billy Barton. Billy Barton struck the final fence with his forelegs and fell, dismounting his rider, Tommy Cullinan. Tipperary Tim came in first, with a time of 10 minutes 23.40 seconds, he was closely followed by the riderless Great Span; a remounted Billy Barton came a distant second and was the last to finish.
With only two horses completing the race the 1928 Grand National set a second record, for the fewest finishers. Tipperary Tim was the only horse to have completed the race without falling or unseating its rider. Kenyon received prize money of 5,000 sovereigns as well as a cup worth 2,000 sovereigns. Tipperary Tim became one of the biggest outsiders to win the Grand National, only three other horses with odds of 100–1 have won the race: Gregalach in 1929, Caughoo in 1947 and Foinavon in 1967.
There were scathing reports in the press, which described the race as “burlesque steeplechasing”, and many writers stated that a Grand National should not be won merely by avoiding an accident. The race inspired some to become involved in the sport. The future horse racing commentator Peter O’Sullevan laid his first ever bet on Tipperary Tim and cited it as the start of his life-long connection with racing. The Pathé footage of the race inspired a young Beltrán Alfonso Osorio to aspire to a career in racing. He became an amateur jockey who rode at the 1952 Grand National and others thereafter .
The World’s Greatest Race (1928)
The success of Tipperary Tim led to larger fields in the following Grand Nationals. According to racing historian T. H. Bird “everyone who owned a steeplechaser that could walk aspired to win the Grand National”, leading to more entries which, Bird lamented, “cluttered” the field with “rubbish”.
The 1929 Grand National started with 66 runners, including Tipperary Tim who, despite his success the previous year, remained a 100-1 outsider. The ditch at the Canal Turn had been removed before this race, as a result of the incident in 1928. Tipperary Tim fell during the 1929 race and did not finish. The horse enjoyed no real success aside from his 1928 Grand National win.
Main source Wikipedia
Grand National News : Tipperary Tim
The Mirror : The amazing story of Tipperary Tim and the Grand National’s biggest ever upset
If you’ve read my book you’ll know I write about this legendary horse and my childhood spent playing in and around Fernhill House.
See below for extracts.
Dad pointed to an old and imposing big house up the top end of a driveway in Glencairn Park. ‘This is Fernhill House, and it’s where Lord Carson inspected the UVF men before they went off to war.’
‘To fight the Provies?’ I asked. I was only six, but already the language of the Troubles had begun to filter through my vocabulary. The ‘Provies’ were the Provisional Irish Republican Army – the enemy currently engaged in warfare with the British Army and bombing buildings in Belfast, Londonderry and many other places, killing soldiers, police officers and innocent civilians alike, and the UVF stood for the Ulster Volunteer Force, which was better known as a Loyalist paramilitary group during the Troubles.
‘Nah,’ said Dad, laughing, ‘not them. The UVF went off to fight the Germans in the First World War. Have you heard of the 36ththirty-sixth?’
I hadn’t, so Dad gave me a quick history lesson. The 36th Ulster Division were the pride of Protestant Belfast (although many Catholics fought in it too) and distinguished itself at the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Dad used to quote the words of Captain Wilfred Spender, who watched as the 36th Division went over the top: ‘I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, the first of July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world.’
Even today, I feel an enormous sense of prised pride when I hear those words.
I loved these kinds of stories, especially about our grandfathers and great-grandfathers who’d been so brave in the face of almost certain death. In fact, my great Uncle Robert fought and tragically died two weeks before the end of the war.
‘Are the UVF still around, Da’?’ I asked, wide-eyed. I hoped they were, as I recalled the rioting and burning I was told was the work of Catholics out to get us.
‘So they are, son,’ Dad said, ‘but hey, let’s not talk about all that now. C’mon with me now and we’ll get a pastie supper.’
I jumped up and down with delight. Pastie suppers were (and still are) my favourite. Only Northern Ireland people can appreciate the delights of this deep-fried delicacy of minced pork, onions and spuds, all coated in delicious batter, with chips on the side and a Belfast Bap (a bread roll).
As we walked from the brow of the hill down to the chippy, Dad told me a few more stories about Fernhill House. It was owned by a family called Cunningham, he said, and it had stables attached to it. In one of these was housed a racehorse called Tipperary Tim. and according to legend, the horse’s jockey, William Dutton was told by a friend, ‘Billy boy, you’ll only win if the all the others fall.’
‘Sure enough,’ said Dad, ‘yer man Dutton took the horse into the Grand National in Liverpool and all the other horses fell down. And so Tipperary Tim won the race.’
‘That’s amazing!’ I shouted. ‘Does he still live in the stables? Can we go and see him? Please, Da ’ . . .’
In response, my dad laughed. ‘You’re a bit late, son,’ he said., ‘the race was won in 1928!’
In time, Fernhill House and the surrounding area would become my childhood playground and I’d spend hours playing in the park and exploring the empty mansion and its cavernous cellars. Years later, when the Loyalists called their ceasefire as part of the Good Friday Agreement, legendary Loyalist leader Gusty Spence and the ‘Combined Loyalist Military Command’ choose Fernhill House to tell the world their war was at an end and offer abject and sincere remorse to their victims.
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- Golden Brown – The Stranglers: Iconic Songs & the story behind them
- fifty skinheads appeared from nowhere, many of them wearing Chelsea and Rangers football scarves and covered in Loyalist and swastika tattoos. These psychos were obviously baying for blood – Mod blood, to be exact.
In the early 80s about thirty of us travelled from Belfast to Liverpool by boat. Then we caught the train down to London and headed straight for Carnaby Street. It felt like a religious pilgrimage and I was hypnotised by the sheer joy of just being there and drinking in the Mod culture it had given birth to.
Me in my mod days But my excitement was to be short- lived. As we walked around the legendary area and drank in the super- cool atmosphere, suddenly we heard a massive roar and what sounded like a football stampede, then three terrified young Mods ran past us as if the devil was on their tails.
Belfast Mods 1985
I feature in the documentary , see if you can spot me ?
Time stood still as we waited to see what had scared them and made them take such desperate flight. Then, from a side street, about fifty skinheads appeared from nowhere, many of them wearing Chelsea and Rangers football scarves and covered in Loyalist and swastika tattoos. These psychos were obviously baying for blood – Mod blood, to be exact.
The moment they spotted us they stopped dead and some even grinned at the Mod bounty fate had delivered them. We were in some deep shit and I searched my mind frantically for a way out.
There was only a few of us together at this stage and my heart leaped into my throat as I anticipated the beating I was about to receive. But if nothing else, I was used to brutal violence and two things came to my mind at once.
The first was that I’d experienced many gang battles between Mods and skinheads in the backstreets of the Shankill and Ballysillan, and survived largely intact. But here we were vastly outnumbered, on foreign soil (so to speak), and these guys wanted to rip us apart, limb by limb, while savouring every moment of our agony and humiliation .
I glanced over at the leaders in the front row as they hurled insults and threats. My heart sunk when I noticed some of them had already pulled out weapons, including blades, and were preparing to attack us. This was our last chance. My survival instinct kicked in . I took a deep breath and played my hand.
‘Stay back,’ I said, as calmly as I could to the boys behind me. I was aware that some of our lot were Catholics and, if anything, were probably in far more danger than I was. I stepped forward and, looking for their ‘top boy’, I suggested they all slow down and tell me what the problem was.
The Difference Between Nazi’s and Skinheads | Needles And Pins
You could have heard a pin drop as the fella in question looked me up and down as though I’d just insulted his mother. I could tell he was moments away from lunging at me and all hell kicking off.
Then I heard a familiar accent calling out from the skinhead crowd.
‘Are youse from Belfast?’ said the voice.
There was what seemed like a lifetime’s pause before I answered.
‘Feckin right,’ I said, ‘from the glorious Shankill Road!’
Now I was praying I’d made a good call.
‘That right?’ he replied. ‘So who d’you know?’
I wheeled off a few names of skinheads and assorted bad boys I knew and had grown up with on the Shankill and Glencairn and this satisfied them. We were safe, for now at least. It turned out the guy who spoke, Biff, had grown up in Glencairn, now lived and worked in London and was involved with other Loyalists living in the capital. His crew were a nasty bunch and I pitied those who had the misfortune to come across them, especially if you weren’t a WASP. If they had known some of the Mods present were Catholics, nothing would have stopped them kicking the shit out of me and the others and I silently thanked the gods for delivering us from evil.
My second thought was about the Rangers scarves and the Loyalist/English Pride-style tattoos a good number of them were sporting. An idea started to take shape in my terrified brain. Rangers was the team of choice for much of the Protestant population of Northern Ireland and, along with Chelsea and Linfield, were inextricably woven into the core of our Loyalist culture. I hoped these baying skinheads, or some of them at least, would hold the same pride and love for Queen and country as me and I thought this might just save us.
Me on the cover of a Mod book ©Jay McFall With the situation defused, I told the others to look around a bit and I’d catch up with them later. I didn’t want the skins chatting with them, finding out some of them were Catholic and undoing all my capital work. They insisted I joined them for a pint or two in the Shakespeare’s Head pub nearby and it must have looked a bit weird: a sixties style Mod, wearing eye liner and a Beatles suit, drinking and laughing with a gang of psycho Nazi skinheads.
SkinheadS & Reggae
But I had spent my life growing up among Loyalist killers and paramilitaries and nothing really fazed me anymore. I didn’t particularly like Biff and his crew but chatting with him over a few pints I realised there was much more to him than the stereotypical skinhead. His English girlfriend had just given birth to their first child and he was ‘trying to get on the straight and narrow’, – whatever that meant.
After a few hours of drinking and snorting speed with Biff and the others I left them in the pub and return to the sanity of my Mod mates. I was to come across Biff and his crew later that weekend, when they and dozens of other skinheads and punks ambushed and attacked Mods coming into or out of the all- dayer in the Ilford Palais. Luckily, I was safely inside, stoned out of my mind and living the Mod dream and I didn’t concern myself with the antics of those fools, though I did have a chat with Biff while grabbing some fresh air and a fag outside.
Safely back in Belfast, we started to plan other trips abroad, specifically to ‘The South’. Enemy territory.
You have been reading extracts from my number one best selling book A Belfast Child.
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The Story of Skinhead with Don Letts (BBC Documentary)
- The Shankill Butchers…
By age ten I’d heard shots ring out and seen the injuries caused by bullets and beatings. But nothing could’ve prepared me for the scene outside Glencairn’s community centre on Forthriver Road on an overcast morning in October 1976. Before heading to school I polished off my cornflakes and, kicking and protesting as ever, had my face wiped by Granny, who spat on a handkerchief and assaulted my grubby mush with it. ‘Come here, ye dirty wee hallion!’ she shouted as she grabbed me for the unwanted daily routine. Struggle over, I let myself out of the front door and walked the few doors to Uncle Sam’s to call for Wee Sam.
He too had succumbed to the humiliating last-minute face scrub from Aunt Gerry and as we trudged down his garden path and on to the main road through the estate we muttered darkly about our so-called elders and betters.
We’d only walked a few yards when up ahead we noticed a gathering of green and grey Land Rovers and Saracen armoured cars, which we nicknamed ‘Pigs’. That meant only one thing that the RUC and the army were out in force. To the side stood a small knot of onlookers, mostly women on their way to school, the wee ones holding their hands. This group had turned away from the scene and were speaking together. As we approached, we heard murmurs from the women and the occasional shaking of a scarfed head.
‘Fuckin’ hell,’ said Wee Sam, wide-eyed, ‘somebody musta gotten kilt up there. Look at all the peelers around.’
A knot of fear tightened in my stomach as we approached the scene. Despite being on supposedly ‘safe’ Loyalist territory, grim-faced soldiers gripped their SLRs tightly while uniformed police from the RUC spoke into radios and plain-clothes detectives huddled in a group. Judging by the mood hanging over the community centre on this cold, grey morning, we were about to see something unprecedented.
Maybe we should’ve walked on by. But we were just wee boys. Filled with childish curiosity we rubbernecked all the time. ‘C’mon,’ said Sam, grabbing me by the sleeve of my snorkel jacket, ‘let’s see what’s going on!’
We ducked past the group of clucking housewives and right up to a tall soldier in full battledress. ‘Hey mister, what’s happenin’?’ I asked. ‘Is somebody dead?’
The soldier looked down on us, not unkindly. We weren’t his enemy. Maybe he viewed similar aged boys from the Catholic areas of Ardoyne and Andersonstown in a different way, but up here we were the good guys. Supposedly.
‘If I were you two I’d bugger off to school pronto,’ he said, in a northern English voice. ‘There’s nowt to look at here.’
He was wrong. There was something to look at, lying just a couple of yards from where he stood. Behind the soldier’s back, down the grassy bank at the back of the community centre – UDA controlled, of course, and a social gathering point for those in the estate – we saw a pair of shoe-clad feet sticking out at angles from beneath a brown woollen blanket. This covered the undisputable shape of a body, and surrounding it was thick, red, jellified blood. Pints of the stuff that had spread across the grass on which the body lay, creating a semi-frozen scene of complete horror.
‘Jesus!’ I said, stepping back a couple of paces from the soldier. ‘What the fuck happened here?’
‘Never you mind,’ he said. ‘Kids your age shouldn’t be seeing things like this. And watch your language, lad.’
I ignored him and looked again. By now, a typical Belfast morning drizzle had begun to fall, covering the blanket in a fine mist. I craned my neck, and could just about see a tuft of dark, bloodstained hair sticking out of the top. Even at this age I knew that a single bullet, or even a couple of them, couldn’t have created such a mess. Rooted to the spot, I hadn’t noticed that Wee Sam was no longer by my side. I turned to see him talking animatedly to a boy of about our age standing beside his mum and went over. Wee Sam grabbed my sleeve, pulling me into the conversation.
‘Jimmy’s ma says it’s the Butchers who’s done him,’ he whispered, pointing to the body. ‘They carved him up wi’ knives and a’ that. Just cos he’s a Catholic.’
I couldn’t believe it. I knew Provies killed Loyalists, and we killed them. That’s how it was. In my mind that was all fair. We were under siege, and at war. But to have murdered this man just because he was a Catholic? And to have used knives on him, literally carving him up like a piece of meat? I knew something about this was terribly, terribly wrong and I wondered why God in all his wisdom would let such things happen. Was this the point when I started to lose faith in a Saviour who seemed to ignore the suffering of mortal men?
For weeks previously we’d heard whispers across Glencairn about a gang called the ‘Butchers’, or the ‘Shankill Butchers’. We knew they were Loyalist UVF paramilitaries, but seemingly nothing like the uncles, cousins and friends who aligned themselves to the UDA or UVF, collecting for prisoners and running shebeens, illegal drinking clubs that brought in funds. Those we knew to be UDA members, hardened as they were to whatever was going on across Belfast, seemed to be talking about this particular set of murders with a mixture of awe and horror.
As time went on, it became clear that the ‘Butchers’ killings had little connection with everyday Loyalism and more to do with the psychopathic condition of the gang’s members. It appeared they were using a black taxi to pick up their victims – innocent people on their way home – before kidnapping and murdering them. But they were also killing Protestants too; people who’d fallen foul of their notorious leader, Lenny Murphy. In short, they enjoyed killing for killing’s sake, and in mid-1970s Northern Ireland the opportunity to destroy lives at random, for any scrap of a reason, was unprecedented and easy. Life was cheap and victims would be forgotten about by the next day as another victim took their place.
The politics of Loyalist feuding was way over my head back then, but like everyone else I came to regard the Butchers as nothing short of bogeymen. They invaded my dreams and seemed to be pursuing me during my waking hours. On late summer nights and into the dark nights of autumn 1976, a group of us would gather at the bottom of the estate, playing around the woods and streams that gave this area a kind of weird beauty in the midst of all the mayhem. When darkness fell and it was time to go home, I would walk alone back up the estate, listening out in mortal fear for the distinctive sound of a wailing diesel engine climbing the hill behind me that could only be a Belfast black taxi. I was only just ten by then , but I had no reason to believe the Butchers wouldn’t grab me and rip me apart with their specially sharpened knives, just for the fun of it.
These guys meant business. The body Wee Sam and I saw was the first of four that were dumped on Glencairn by the Butchers, along with others murdered in Loyalist feuds. Some months after we came upon the scene in Forthriver Road, we were playing in and around a building site in ‘the Link’, a new part of Glencairn still under construction. Several houses were being created and while we shouldn’t have been there, nobody was stopping us from running wild around the estate and doing what we liked. We’d poked about one particular half-built house and were about to leave when I spotted what appeared to be words written on an unplastered wall.
‘Gi’e us a match, Sam,’ I said, ‘I wanna see what’s written up there.’
Sam produced a box of matches from his jeans pocket and I struck one, holding it close to the wall. The colour drained from my face as I read the words ‘Help me’. They had been written in blood. Dropping the match we legged it out of there and ran all the way home.
I told Dad, but if I expected him to be shocked I was just as surprised when his reaction was indifference. ‘Just leave well, alone, John,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You’re better off out of it.’
You have been reading extracts from my No.1 bestselling book : A Belfast Child. See blow for more details and how to order.
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See: Shankill Butchers
- Killing Rage – The life and death of Eamon Collins
The life and death of Eamon Collins
Eamon Collins
Eamon Collins (1954 – 27 January 1999) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army member in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He turned his back on the organisation in the late 1980s, and later co-authored a book called Killing Rage detailing his experiences within it.
In January 1999 he was waylaid on a public road and murdered near his home in Newry in Northern Ireland.
Early life
Camlough He was born in Camlough, County Armagh, his parents being Brian Collins and his wife Kathleen Cumiskey; his farmer father dealt in livestock, and was involved in cattle smuggling.
Camlough was a small, staunchly Irish republican town in South Armagh. Despite the sentiment of the area, the Collins family had no association and little interest in Irish Nationalist politics. Kathleen Collins was a devout Catholic, and he was brought up under her influence with a sense of awe for the martyrs of that religion in Irish history, in its conflicts with Protestantism.
After completing his schooling, Collins worked for a time in the Ministry of Defence in a clerical capacity in London before studying law at Queen’s University, where he became influenced by Marxist political ideology.
Queens In Easter 1974, as he walked home to his parents’ home in South Armagh during a break from his studies in Belfast, on arrival he found both his parents being man-handled by British troops during a house-to-house raid searching for illegal weapons, and on remonstrating with them Collins was himself seriously assaulted, and both he and his father were arrested and detained.
Troops in Armagh Collins later attributed his crossing of the psychological threshold of actively supporting anti-British Irish Republican paramilitarism to this incident. Another factor in his radicalization at this time was a Law tutor at university who had persuaded him that the newly formed Provisional Irish Republican Army was a means of opposing British military presence in Northern Ireland, as well as a vehicle for Marxist revolutionary politics, in line with the radical ideological expression of a younger generation in the IRA in the late 1970s that were now replacing an old guard which was more Catholic and nationalist.
Marxist revolutionary politics
Collins subsequently dropped out of university, and after working in a pub for a period, he joined Her Majesty’s Customs & Excise Service, serving in Newry, and would go on to use this internal position within the administrative machinery of the British Government to support IRA operations against Crown Forces personnel.
Ensign of HM Customs and Excise Around this time he married Bernadette, with whom he subsequently had four children.
IRA activity
Collins joined the Provisional IRA during the cc inmates in the late 1970s, which sought Special Category Status for Irish Republican paramilitary prisoners, and he became involved in street demonstrations at this time.
He joined the “South Down Brigade” of the IRA, based around Newry. This was not one of the organisation’s most active formations, but it sometimes worked alongside the “South Armagh Brigade”, which was one of its most aggressive units.
Psychologically unsuited to physical violence, Collins was appointed instead by the IRA as its South Down Brigade’s intelligence officer.
Ivan Toombs was a part-time major in the UDR as well as a senior Customs officer at Warrenpoint 
See: 16th January – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles
This role involved gathering information on members of the Crown security forces personnel and installations for targeting in gun and bomb attacks. His planning was directly responsible for at least five deaths, including that of the Ulster Defence Regiment Major Ivan Toombs in January 1981, with whom Collins worked in the Customs Station at Warrenpoint, and possibly three times that number.
Many of the bombing targets of his unit were of limited scale, such as the wrecking of Newry Public Library, and a public house where a Royal Ulster Constabulary choir drank after practice.
Collins became noted within IRA circles for his hard-line views on the continuance of armed campaign, and later joined its Internal Security Unit.
See : IRA Internal Security Unit – Nutting Squad
At the instigation of the South Armagh Brigade’s leadership he became a member of Sinn Féin in Newry. The South Armagh IRA wanted a hard-line militarist in the local party, as they were opposed to the increasing emphasis of the Republican leadership on political over military activity.
Collins was not selected as a Sinn Féin candidate for local government elections, in part, due to his open expressions of suspicion of the IRA and Sinn Féin leadership, whom he accused of covertly moving towards a position of an abandonment of the IRA’s military campaign.
Around this time Collins had a confrontation with Gerry Adams at the funeral of an IRA man killed in a failed bombing attack over how to deal with the funeral’s policing, where Collins accused Adams a being a “Stickie” (a derogatory slang term for the Official IRA).
“Why did you not join the IRA?” Gerry Adams (FULL INTERVIEW) – BBC News
Despite his militarist convictions at this time, Collins found the psychological strain caused by his involvement in the IRA’s war increasingly difficult to deal with. His belief in the martial discipline of IRA’s campaign had been seriously undermined by the murder of Norman Hanna, a 28-year-old Newry man on 11 March 1982 in front of his wife and young daughter, who had been targeted because of his former service with the Ulster Defence Regiment, which he had resigned from in 1976.
See here for more details on : Norman Hanna killing
See : 11th March – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Trouble
Collins had opposed the targeting of Hanna on the basis that it wasn’t of a governmental entity, but had been over-ruled by his superiors, and he had gone along with the operation; his conscience burdened him afterwards about it though.
His uneasy state was further augmented by being arrested under anti-terrorism laws on two occasions, the second involving his detention at Gough Barracks in Armagh for a week, where he was subject to extensive sessions of interrogation in 1985 after an IRA mortar attack in Newry, which had claimed the lives of multiple police officers.
Gough BarracksCollins had not been involved in this operation, but after five days of incessant psychological pressure being exerted by R.U.C. specialist police officers, during which he had not said a word, he mentally broke, and yielded detailed information to the police about the organisation.
As a result of his arrest he was dismissed from his career with H.M. Customs & Excise Service.
Collins subsequently stated that the strain of the interrogation merely exacerbated increasing doubts that he had already possessed about the moral justification of the IRA’s paramilitary campaign and his actions within it.
These doubts had been made worse by the strategic view that he had come to that the organisation’s senior leadership had in the early 1980s quietly decided that the war had failed, and was now slowly manoeuvring the movement away from a military campaign to allow its political wing Sinn Féin to pursue its purposes by another means in what would become the Northern Ireland peace process.
This negated in Collins’ mind the justification for its then on-going military actions.
Statements against the IRA
After his confession of involvement in IRA activity, Collins became an RUC informant (or “Supergrass“, in contemporary media language), upon whose evidence the authorities were able to prosecute a large number of IRA members.
Crumlin Road Prison
He was incarcerated in specialized protective custody, along with other paramilitaries who had after arrest given evidence against their organisations, in the Crumlin Road Prison in Belfast from 1985 to 1987.
See : My time in the Crum : Extracts from my book A Belfast Child
However, after an appeal from his wife who remained an IRA supporter, and on receiving a message from the IRA delivered by his brother on a visit to the prison, Collins legally retracted his evidence, in return for which he was given a guarantee of safety by the IRA provided he consented to being debriefed by it. He agreed, and was in consequence transferred by the authorities to the Irish Republican paramilitary wing of the prison.
Trial for murder
As a result of losing his previous legal status as a Crown protected witness, Collins was charged with several counts of murder and attempted murder. However, on being tried in 1987 he was acquitted as the statement in which he had admitted to involvement in these acts was ruled legally inadmissible by the court, as it was judged that it had been obtained under duress and was not supported by enough conclusive corroboratory evidence to allow a legally sound conviction.
On release from prison he spent several weeks being counter-interrogated by the IRA’s Internal Security Unit to discover what had been revealed to the authorities, after which he was exiled by the organisation from the northern part of Ireland, being warned that if he was found north of Drogheda after a certain date he would be summarily executed by it.
The technical acquittal in the Crown court based upon judicial legal principles made an impact upon Collins’ view of the British state, markedly contrasting with what he had witnessed in the IRA’s Internal Security Unit, and reinforced his disillusionment with Irish Republican paramilitarism.
Post-IRA life
Peter McVerry After his exile Collins moved to Dublin and squatted for a while in a deserted flat in the impoverished Ballymun area of the city. At the time the area was experiencing an epidemic of heroin addiction and he volunteered to help a local priest Peter McVerry, who ran programmes for local youths to try to keep them away from drugs.
After several years in Dublin, he subsequently moved to Edinburgh, Scotland for a period, where he ran a youth centre. He would later write that because of his Northern Ireland background he felt closer culturally to Scottish people than people from the Irish Republic.
In 1995 he returned to live in Newry, a district known for the militancy of its communal support of the IRA, with numerous IRA members in its midst. The IRA order exiling him had not been lifted, but with a formal ceasefire from the organisation in operation ordered by its senior command, and in the sweeping changes that were underway with renunciations of violence by all the paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland that had followed on from it, he judged it safer to move back in with his wife and children who had never left Newry.
Broadcasting and published works
Having returned to live in Newry, rather than maintaining a low profile Collins decided to take a prominent role in the ongoing transition of Northern Ireland’s society, using his personal history as a platform in the media to analyze the adverse effects of terrorism.
EAMON COLLINS (NETWORK FIRST ITV ) CONFESSION.
In 1995 he appeared in an ITV television documentary entitled ‘Confession’, giving an account of his disillusioning experiences and a bleak insight into Irish Republican paramilitarism.
Killing R
ageJust read this book and I will be doing a review shortly.
In 1997 he co-authored Killing Rage, with journalist Mick McGovern, a biographical account of his life and IRA career. He also contributed to the book Bandit Country by Toby Harnden about the South Armagh IRA.
At the same time in the media he called for the re-introduction of internment after the Omagh bombing for those continuing to engage in such acts; published newspaper articles openly denouncing and ridiculing the Real IRA’s campaign, alongside publicly analysing his own past role in such activity, and the damage that it had caused on a personal and social level to the two communities of Northern Ireland.
Witness evidence against Thomas Murphy
Thomas Slab Murphy See BBC News : Who is Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy?
In May 1998 Collins gave evidence against leading republican Thomas “Slab” Murphy, in a libel case Murphy had brought against the Sunday Times, over a 1985 article naming him as the IRA’s Northern Commander.
Murphy denied IRA membership, but Collins took the witness stand against him, and testified that from personal experience he knew that Murphy had been a key military leader in the organisation. Murphy subsequently lost the libel case and sustained substantial financial losses in consequence.
After giving his testimony Collins had said in the court-room to Murphy :
“No hard feelings Slab”.
However, soon after the trial Collins’ home was attacked and daubed with graffiti calling him a “tout”, a slang word for an informer in Irish Republican circles. Since his return to Newry in 1995 his home there had been intermittently attacked with acts of petty vandalism, but after the Murphy trial these intensified in regularity and severity, and another house belonging to his family in Camlough, in which no one was resident, was destroyed by arson.
Threats were made against his children, and they faced persecution in school from elements among their peers. Graffiti threatening him with murder was also daubed on the walls of the streets in the vicinity of the family home in Newry.
Death
Collins was beaten and stabbed to death in his 45th year by an unidentified assailant(s) early in the morning of 27 January 1999, whilst walking his dogs near the Barcroft Park Estate in Newry along a quiet stretch of country lane at Doran’s Hill, just within sight of Sliabh gCuircin (Camlough Mountain).
His body also bore marks of having been struck by a car moving at speed. The subsequent police investigation and Coroner’s Inquest commented upon the extremity of weaponed violence to Collins’ head and face used during the attack.
See: 27th January – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles
Rumoured reasons behind the murder were that he had returned to Northern Ireland in breach of the IRA’s banning order, and further he had detailed IRA activities and publicly criticized in the media a multiplicity of Irish Republican paramilitary splinter groups that had appeared after the Provisional IRA’s 1994 ceasefire, and that he had testified in court against Murphy.
Gerry Adams stated the murder was “regrettable”, but added that Collins had:
“many enemies in many places”.
After a traditional Irish wake, with a closed coffin necessitated due to the damage to his face, and a funeral service at St. Catherine’s Church in Newry, Collins’ body was buried at the city’s Monkshill Cemetery, not far from the grave of Albert White, a Catholic former Royal Ulster Constabulary Inspector, whose assassination he helped to organise in 1982.
See : 18th June – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles
Subsequent criminal investigations
In January 2014 the Police Service of Northern Ireland released a statement that a re-examination of the evidence from the scene of the 1999 murder had revealed new DNA material of a potential perpetrator’s presence, and made a public appeal for information, detailing the involvement of a specific car model (a white coloured Hyundai Pony), and a compass pommel that had broken off of a hunting knife during the attack and had been left behind at the scene.
In February 2014 detectives from the Serious Crime Branch arrested a 59-year-old man at an address in Newry in relation to the murder, he was subsequently released without charge. In
September 2014 the police arrested three men, aged 56, 55 and 42 in County Armagh in relation to inquiries into the murder, all of whom were subsequently released without charges after questioning.
In January 2019 the police released a statement regarding the murder that one of the assailants of Collins had been seriously injured by an accidentally sustained knife wound during the attack, and had left traces of his own blood at the scene, and that recent scientific advances in DNA evidence had increased the possibility of his identification.
In May 2019, three men aged 60 to 62 were arrested and questioned, but then released unconditionally.
See :Bel Tel : Three released without charge in IRA informer Eamon Collins’ murder probe
Main source : Wikipedia
See :
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See : Killing Rage books I’ve read
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- Ann Ogilby’s brutal murder: ” Forgotten ” victims of the Troubles
The brutal & unforgivable murder of Ann Ogilby, also known as the Romper Room murder
Forgotten victims of the Troubles
The murder of Ann Ogilby, also known as the “Romper Room murder”, took place in Sandy Row, south Belfast, Northern Ireland on 24 July 1974.
Ann Ogilby It was a punishment killing, carried out by members of the Sandy Row women’s Ulster Defence Association (UDA) unit. At the time the UDA was a legal Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation.
The victim, Ann Ogilby, a Protestant single mother of four, was beaten to death by two teenaged girls after being sentenced to a “rompering” (UDA slang term for a torture session followed by a fatal beating) at a kangaroo court. Ogilby had been having an affair with a married UDA commander, William Young, who prior to his internment, had made her pregnant.
His wife, Elizabeth Young, was a member of the Sandy Row women’s UDA unit. Ogilby had made defamatory remarks against Elizabeth Young in public regarding food parcels. Eight weeks after Ogilby had given birth to Young’s son, the women’s unit decided that Ogilby would pay for both the affair and remarks with her life. The day following the kangaroo court “trial”, they arranged for the kidnapping of Ogilby and her six-year-old daughter, Sharlene, outside a Social Services office by UDA man Albert “Bumper” Graham.
A group of UDA women then followed the minibus which took Ogilby and Sharlene to a disused bakery in Hunter Street, Sandy Row; this empty building had been converted into a UDA club and “romper room”. After Sharlene was sent by Graham to a shop to buy sweets, Ogilby was made to sit on a bench and a hood placed over her head. Two teenagers, Henrietta Cowan and Christine Smith, acting on the orders previously given them by the unit’s leader, Elizabeth “Lily” Douglas, proceeded to savagely beat Ogilby to death with bricks and sticks. As Ogilby screamed and pleaded for her life, Sharlene, who had already returned from the shop, overheard her mother being beaten and killed
. A later autopsy report revealed that Ogilby had sustained 24 blows to the head and body, 14 of which caused a “severe fracture to the bulk of the skull”.
Within weeks of the killing, ten women and one man were arrested in connection with the murder. They were convicted in February 1975. All but one, a minor whose sentence was suspended, went to prison. The murder caused widespread revulsion, shock and horror throughout Northern Ireland and remained long in the public psyche even at a time when bombings and killings were daily occurrences.
The Ann Ogilby murder was investigated by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) which was established by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to investigate the most controversial killings carried out during the Troubles.
Events leading to the murder
Ann Ogilby
Ann Ogilby (born c.1942/1943 and sometimes referred to as Anne Ogilby), a young Protestant woman, moved to Belfast from Sion Mills, County Tyrone on a date that has not been firmly established. She was one of 13 children from a poor family.
Described as a “very attractive girl with dark-brown silky hair and blue eyes”, and a slender figure, she embarked on a transient lifestyle, regularly changing her address and employment. The jobs she held were mostly low-paid positions in offices and shops, and she was often evicted for failing to pay the rent.
Her striking good looks made her popular with men. In about 1968 she became a single mother, having been made pregnant by a married British soldier stationed in Northern Ireland who had abandoned her and their child after he was transferred to another duty station.
She started socialising with a rough crowd, and in August 1972, she met William Young, a married high-ranking member of the then-legal Ulster Defence Association (UDA) with whom she fell deeply in love and began living with him in south Belfast. Young came from the loyalist Donegall Pass area and was a local UDA commander. He told Ogilby his marriage had already broken up and that his divorce hadn’t been finalised. Ogilby by that time had three children by two different men: Sharlene, and twins Stephen and Gary. The boys had been put up for adoption after their birth, leaving only the eldest child, her daughter Sharlene, in her care.
When Young was interned inside the Maze Prison in 1973, she often visited him. He complained that his estranged wife, Elizabeth never sent him food parcels, despite her having been provided with money by the Loyalist Prisoners’ Association (LPA). The LPA was unaware of the Young couple’s estrangement.
The delivery of food parcels by women to imprisoned members was a long-established practice by the UDA and a “particular source of pride for the organisation”. Ogilby was required to make up and send him the food parcels herself which she felt was an imposition as these had to come out of her own money, although she was almost destitute.
When Ogilby mistakenly repeated Young’s complaint in a Sandy Row pub, the local Sandy Row women’s UDA unit (of which Elizabeth was a member) overheard her words and became violently angry, especially as Elizabeth was able to prove that she had been sending her husband food parcels.
Ogilby’s comments were regarded by the women’s UDA as a grievous insult to its integrity, as the unit was responsible for the assembly and distribution of the parcels. The group was already antagonistic due to Ogilby’s affair with Young, and her defamatory remarks only added fuel to their wrath. The women considered her behaviour in public immoral, ostentatious, and extremely unconventional because she frequented clubs and pubs on her own instead of with female friends which was the custom in Sandy Row. Furthermore, they believed her loud, outspoken and maverick personality, status as an unmarried mother, and habit of what was described by a local as “flaunting herself” was a cultural infraction that brought shame upon their community.
Social milieu
An Orange arch in Sandy Row, Belfast, circa 1920. Sandy Row is an Ulster Protestant working class enclave just south of Belfast city centre closely affiliated with the Orange Order whose 12 July parades are gaudy, elaborate events made notable by the traditional Orange Arches erected for the occasion.
Prior to late 20th-century urban redevelopment beginning in the 1980s, rows of 19th-century terraced houses lined the streets and backstreets that branched off the main commercial thoroughfare. Loyalist paramilitaries have had an active presence there since the early days of the Troubles.
By 1974, the violent ethno-political conflict waged between the Protestant unionists and Catholic Irish nationalists was six years old and showed no sign of abating; bombings, shootings, sectarian murders, intimidation, security alerts and military patrols were a daily feature of life in Belfast and the rest of Northern Ireland.
There was no family in working-class areas of Belfast that remained unscathed by the Troubles or insusceptible to the effects of the disorder, tension and carnage.
See : Dawn of the Troubles
Belfast 1969 : The Dawn of the Troubles ( Shankill / Falls Road
The Provisional Irish Republican Army’s bombing campaign had escalated sharply in 1972 and began to increasingly target Belfast city centre, often with lethal consequences such as on Bloody Friday on 21 July 1972, when the Provisional IRA exploded 22 bombs across the city, killing nine people and injuring over 100. This led to the erection of steel gates, manned by the British Army, thus effectively putting a security cordon or “ring of steel” around the city centre, which resulted in both Protestants and Catholics retreating further into segregated neighbourhoods, which rapidly fell under the sway of local paramilitary groups who exerted a strong influence in their respective districts.
These groups also assumed the role of policing their communities and rooting out what they described as anti-social elements. In the February 1974 edition of Ulster Loyalist, a UDA publication, the UDA warned that it intended to take firm action against teenaged criminals and vandals in the Sandy Row and Village areas.
Robert Fisk, Belfast correspondent for The Times between the years 1972-75, regarded the Sandy Row UDA as having been one of the most truculent of all paramilitary outfits in Belfast.
Their bellicose stance over the street barricades they erected during the Ulster Workers Council Strike in May 1974 almost led them into direct confrontation with the British Army and they had even made preparations to fight if the latter had smashed the UDA roadblocks. The Sandy Row UDA’s commander during this volatile period was Sammy Murphy who used as his headquarters the local Orange Hall.
Ulster Workers Council Strike
In addition to Sandy Row, Murphy had overall command of the South Belfast UDA and was referred to as a community leader in the British Army’s press releases although his name and paramilitary affiliation were not mentioned. To defuse the explosive situation, Murphy engaged in talks with the Army which proved successful. According to journalists Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack, the Sandy Row and Donegall Pass UDA were almost completely out of control by this time; both the male and female members were caught up in violence and drunkenness and already inured to beatings and killings.
Drinking clubs or shebeens where alcohol was obtained cheaply were common features in the area. Author David M. Kiely suggested that by this stage the women’s unit was more about gangsterism and mob rule than adhering to a political cause.
The Sandy Row unit was not the only women’s unit within the UDA. There was a particularly active women’s group on the Shankill Road which had been established by Wendy “Bucket” Millar as the first UDA women’s unit. A number of the members were highly visible due to the beehive hairstyles they typically wore.
Although each unit was independent of the others, Jean Moore and later Hester Dunn served as the overall leaders of the UDA’s women’s department at the UDA headquarters in Gawn Street, east Belfast. Tanya Higgins and Nancy Brown Diggs observed in their book Women Living in Conflict that the loyalist paramilitary women were “angrier and more militant” than their male counterparts.
Another analysis was provided by Sandra McEvoy in her report Women Loyalist Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland: Duty, Agency and Empowerment – a Report from the Field in which she suggested that by joining paramilitary groups like the UDA, loyalist women were provided with a sense of freedom and personal and political power that had previously been denied them in the domestic sphere; furthermore by taking up “the gun”, the women proved they were willing to go to prison for their beliefs and the loyalist cause.
The commander of the Sandy Row women’s unit was Elizabeth “Lily” Douglas, described by Kiely as having revered power above everything else in her life. As leader of that particular unit she exerted a great deal of control over the lives of other women within the area that included intimidation and moral policing. The middle of three daughters, Douglas was born and raised in an impoverished working-class family. She married at the age of 17 and had four children.
By 1974, Douglas (aged 40) who lived in a terraced house in Sandy Row’s City Street had a criminal record dating back over ten years for various offences which included smuggling, forgery, assault, inflicting bodily harm and running a brothel. When Ogilby had publicly denounced the women’s UDA over the food parcels, she was not fully aware of Douglas’ violent character and the considerable amount of authority she wielded in Sandy Row.
Kangaroo court
Ann Ogilby On 23 July 1974, eight weeks after Ogilby gave birth to a premature son, Derek, fathered by Young, five UDA women, including her lover’s wife Elizabeth Young (32), Kathleen Whitla (49, the second-in-command), Josephine Brown (18), Elizabeth Douglas (19), led by the latter’s mother, commander Lily Douglas, abducted Ogilby from a friend’s house in the Suffolk housing estate.
They took her back to Sandy Row and put her before a kangaroo court held inside the disused Warwick’s Bakery in 114 Hunter Street between Felt Street and Oswald Street, which had been converted into a UDA club.
Ogilby had often frequented the club with Young on previous occasions prior to his internment; according to Kiely she had enjoyed the company of the other patrons and being part of the camaraderie of loyalists “against the Fenians”. A total of eight women and two men presided over this “trial”; Elizabeth Young, however, had by then absented herself as she was not part of Douglas’ “Heavy Squad”. The “Heavy Squad” were the members of the Sandy Row women’s UDA unit who meted out punishment beatings by Douglas’ orders.
Ogilby was grilled for an hour over her affair with Young and regarding her calumnies over the food parcels. At some stage, Douglas told her,
“We have rules here. We all stick to them and I expect anybody new to do the same”.
Ogilby, by now frightened at the predicament in which she found herself, was additionally informed that if found guilty, she would be subjected to a “rompering”. The notorious UDA “romper rooms” had been invented in the early 1970s by UDA North Belfast Brigadier Davy Payne.
Davy Payne. Named after the children’s television programme, these “romper rooms” were located inside vacant buildings, warehouses, lock-up garages, and rooms above pubs and drinking clubs. Once inside, a victim would be “rompered” (beaten and tortured) before being killed. Although most of the victims were Catholics, many Protestants were also consigned to the “romper rooms”.
Old ‘Romper Room’ footage from 1960s resurfaces
Despite the UDA women having found Ogilby guilty, the two UDA men present at the “trial” couldn’t reach a verdict and gave orders that she be released. The women drove her to the Glengall Street bus station where she got on a bus headed for the YWCA hostel she had moved to on the Malone Road.
The women then “rearrested” her. It was alleged that this decision came about after she sarcastically remarked in reference to Douglas,
“Who does she think she is? The Queen?”
which had freshly infuriated Douglas and the others.
Blocking the bus as it pulled out of the station into the street, Douglas and her “Heavy Squad” then boarded the bus and dragged her off into the waiting car for a further grilling. Minutes later, after being alerted by the bus station staff, the car was stopped by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Although Douglas claimed they were on their way to a party, the querying policeman told the women about the report of one of them having been forced off the bus. In an attempt to mollify Douglas, Ogilby then spoke up admitting that she was the person who had been removed from the bus but that “It was nothing. Just a couple of us fooling around”.
The police however remained unconvinced of their claims and the eight women and Ogilby were taken into the RUC Queen Street station for questioning. All of the women were asked for their names and addresses; the majority lived in the Sandy Row area. Fearing the grisly fate that typically befell informers, Ogilby did not say anything to the RUC about the UDA kangaroo court or threats against her. Therefore, she and the eight other women were released without being charged the following morning at 2.00 a.m.
Ogilby returned to the police station a few hours later, visibly frightened, but was sent home in a taxi after refusing to give the reason for her distress. That same day inside a Sandy Row pub, Douglas told the other women that Ogilby was a troublemaker who had to die, and she speedily made arrangements to facilitate the murder.
“Romper room” beating
That same Wednesday 24 July 1974 at 3:30 pm, outside the Social Services office in Shaftesbury Square, Ogilby and her daughter were kidnapped by 25-year-old UDA man Albert “Bumper” Graham, while members of Lily Douglas’ “Heavy Squad” waited at the nearby Regency Hotel lounge bar overlooking the office.
They knew beforehand that Ogilby had an appointment that afternoon at the Shaftesbury Square office. Using the pretext that a UDA commander wished to speak with her, Graham was able to abduct Ogilby and her daughter Sharlene as they left the office; Ogilby, taken in by Graham’s words, willingly got into his blue minibus.
Having made a pre-arranged signal to the watching women, Graham drove the two females away to the UDA club in Hunter Street, Sandy Row, which had been turned into a “romper room”. When the UDA women, led by Douglas, arrived on the scene, Ogilby tried to escape, but was grabbed and forcibly detained. After Graham sent Sharlene to a corner shop to buy sweets, Ogilby was ordered by Douglas to be dragged inside the former bakery and forced upstairs to the first floor where she was made to sit on a wooden bench, blindfolded and a hood placed over her head.
By this stage, Ogilby was so intimidated and terrorised by the “Heavy Squad”, she no longer put up any resistance. Sunday Life newspaper suggested that she was bound to a chair instead of a bench.
Ciarán Barnes, a journalist writing for the paper, had conducted an interview with Sharlene Ogilby in 2010. Retired RUC detective, Alan Simpson, who devoted a chapter to the Ann Ogilby murder in his 1999 book Murder Madness: True Crimes of The Troubles, instead affirmed that Ogilby was forced by her captors to sit on a wooden bench. Although hooded and blindfolded, her hands remained untied.
Acting under earlier instructions by Douglas, who had remained downstairs, to give Ogilby a “good rompering”, two members of the “Heavy Squad”, teenagers Henrietta Piper Cowan (17) and Christine Smith (16), both of whom were wearing masks, proceeded to attack Ogilby.
Cowan punched her forcefully in the face, knocking her to the floor. Ogilby was then kicked in the face, head, and stomach by both girls before blows from sticks were rained down upon her. When the two teenagers began battering Ogilby’s face and head with bricks which had been lying about the dismantled bakery,Albert Graham and “Heavy Squad” member Josephine Brown (who was also masked), saw Ogilby’s blood staining the hood and realising things had gone too far, started to panic and remonstrated with the girls to discontinue the beating.
Cowan and Smith did stop, to smoke cigarettes and make plans to attend a disco that evening. Simpson suggested that during the attack, Ogilby had placed her hands inside the hood in a futile attempt to protect her face from the force of the bricks.
Meanwhile, Ogilby’s daughter, Sharlene, had returned from the shops; she entered the club, climbed the stairs to the first floor and began banging on the door and crying for her mother.
” My mammy’s in there “
Although by this stage Ogilby had sustained severe head injuries from the brutal assault, Sharlene heard her screaming and pleading with her assailants for mercy while they danced to blaring disco music.
Ignoring the injured woman’s pleas for her life and Sharlene’s cries, Henrietta Cowan, once again wielding a brick, resumed beating Ogilby on the head with renewed vigour until she lay dead on the floor. The beating session had lasted for over an hour. Ogilby received (according to the later autopsy report) a total of 24 blows to the head and body with a blunt object, 14 of which had caused “a severe fracture to the bulk of the skull”.
Albert Graham took Sharlene out of the building and drove her back to the YWCA hostel; as he left her on the doorstep he reassured the little girl that her mother was inside waiting for her. Sharlene was looked after by the hostel staff until she was placed in the care of the Social Services. Back at the UDA club, Cowan removed the bloodstained hood and saw by her appalling head wounds and badly-bruised, disfigured face that Ann Ogilby was obviously dead; the body was then wrapped up in a brown sack and carried downstairs. The killers went to have a drink with Lily Douglas to whom they recounted the details of the fatal beating as she had remained on the ground floor the entire time.
Afterwards, Cowan and Smith got dressed up and went out to the disco as planned.
My thoughts…
Anne is one of those almost forgotten victims of the Troubles, far less known than Jean McConville or other high-profile killings and yet her death was one of the most violent and gruesome to take place during that terrifying period of our tortured past.
Growing up among the hard men and women in the loyalist ghettos of west Belfast during the 70s my world was dominated by the unceasing violence and conflict going on all around me. By ten years of age I had become almost indifferent to the daily deaths and brutal events playing out in the streets and communities I played in and called home. Day after soul destroying day I watched in horror and disbelief at the madness and cruelty mankind was capable of and I often wondered why God in all his wisdom would let such things happen. It was a never-ending nightmare of death and fear that we were all trapped in for thirty long bloody years and I thank God that those dark days are mostly behind us.
But back then when death stalked the streets of Belfast and life was cheap some killings still had the power to shock and outrage me, especially when innocent women and children were involved regardless of political or religious background.
Few murders have disturbed and appalled me more than the wicked and vindictive killing of Ann Ogilby, an innocent single mother down on her luck who got caught up in a love triangle that ultimately led to her unforgivable and brutal killing. The fact that it was women who carried out this horrendous act makes it more frightening and harder to comprehend.
Rest in peace Anne .
Immediate aftermath
Douglas arranged for the body’s disposal and unnamed UDA men later loaded it onto a van and dumped it in a ditch in Stockman’s Lane near the M1 motorway.
It was discovered five days later on 29 July by motorway maintenance men. The RUC were immediately called to the scene which was then photographed and mapped. Ogilby, clad in a red jumper, grey trousers and wearing just one shoe, was lying on her back partly submerged in 18 inches of stagnant water with her blackened and battered face visible and her arms outstretched. Her missing shoe and a large brown sack were discovered not far away from her body at the top of the ditch.
There were no identifying documents found on her. The press, along with local television and radio news bulletins, released details regarding her physical appearance and the distinctive rings on her fingers. Hours later, a social worker from the Shaftesbury Square Social Services office, who had been scheduled to meet with Ann Ogilby on 24 July, contacted the RUC telling them that Ogilby and her daughter Sharlene had arrived at the office late for the appointment but left without explanation before the social worker could speak with Ann. She informed the RUC that Ogilby had not been seen since that afternoon.
The social worker was then taken to the mortuary where she confirmed that the dead woman inside was Ann Ogilby. One of Ogilby’s brothers later positively identified her. The police were told Sharlene was in the care of Social Services.
Due to the location of the body, the murder investigation was allocated to the RUC B Division (West Belfast), based at the Springfield Road station where CID Detective Alan Simpson served. He formed part of the CID team set up to investigate the Ogilby killing.
After Sharlene was located in a children’s home, she was interviewed by a female detective; she clearly remembered the events of 24 July. It was arranged for Sharlene to accompany three CID detectives in a car to Sandy Row and she was able to direct them to the disused bakery in Hunter Street. A Scenes of Crime Officer was sent to the scene to examine the building’s interior and collect the evidence. Forensics later showed that the bloodstains police detectives found on the floor and on the items retrieved from inside the UDA club matched Ogilby’s blood group.
Documents were also found on the premises bearing William Young’s name. By that time the suspects had already been rounded up and taken in for interrogation. These were the eight women who had been inside the car with Ogilby on the evening of 23 July following the fracas outside the Glengall Street bus station.
Ogilby, aged 31 or 32 at the time of her death, was buried in Umgall Cemetery, Templepatrick, County Antrim. Her children Sharlene and Derek were put into care. The Ogilby family received only £149 compensation from the State to cover her funeral expenses.
It was later revealed that Ogilby had planned to relocate to Edinburgh, Scotland as soon as her infant son, Derek, was released from hospital (on account of his premature birth).
Reactions
Ogilby’s murder caused widespread revulsion and shock throughout Northern Ireland, even though it had taken place during the most turbulent period of the Troubles when bombings and sectarian killings had become commonplace. Protestants were especially appalled that Ogilby, herself a Protestant, had become a victim of loyalist violence and angrily denounced the UDA.
Ciarán Barnes Journalist Ciarán Barnes described it as being one of the most brutal murders of the Troubles; adding that its sheer savagery and the fact that it was carried out by women against another woman within earshot of her child left a lasting impression upon the public psyche.
The UDA leadership had not sanctioned the killing; and there was general condemnation from the UDA prisoners inside the Maze Prison. According to Ian S. Wood, the UDA’s commander Andy Tyrie had not sufficient control over the many units that comprised the UDA to have been able to prevent the punishment beating from being carried out.
A spokesman for the UDA released a statement condemning the killing and the women’s unit that carried it out which was first published in the Irish Times on 8 February 1975:
We have completely disowned them [Sandy Row women’s UDA]. We think the whole affair was foul and sickening. Ogilby was cleared by the UDA of an allegation about her private life long before she was killed. The killing was an act of jealousy by a group of women.
Following the Ogilby attack, the Sandy Row women’s UDA unit was permanently disbanded by the UDA leadership. None of the other UDA women’s units had consented to or been aware of the fatal punishment beating until it was reported in the news. Additionally, the Sandy Row women’s unit notwithstanding, UDA “romper rooms” were more commonly used by male members of the organisation than by their female counterparts.
Journalists Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack described Ogilby’s death as typical of the “brutish … culture” that dominated the UDA and other paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. In reference to this attack and other cases of “rompering”, the authors argue that “rape and the beating and humiliation of women in working-class Belfast was as routine as gunfire but was subsumed in the maelstrom of violence engulfing the North”.
Convictions
Within weeks of the killing, the RUC had arrested ten women and one man in connection with the murder; this group contained Douglas’ entire “Heavy Squad”.
Most of the women were unemployed and at least three had male relatives imprisoned for paramilitary offences. On 6 February 1975 at the Belfast City Commission, teenagers Henrietta Cowan and Christine Smith pleaded guilty to murder. They were now aged 18 and 17 respectively. Characterised as having been “without feeling or remorse”, they were convicted of carrying out the murder and sentenced to be detained at Armagh Women’s Prison for life at the pleasure of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Smith was not the only member of her family to be involved in loyalist paramilitary activity. Her elder brother, prominent South Belfast UDA member Francis “Hatchet” Smith (28), was shot dead in Rodney Parade, off Donegall Road, by the IRA in January 1973 after he, as part of a UDA unit, gunned down Peter Watterson, a 15-year-old Catholic boy, in a drive-by sectarian shooting at the Falls Road/Donegall Road junction. A roofer by trade who was married with one child he was (despite his wife having been Catholic), the local UDA commander in the Village area where he lived.
Described to the court as the leader of the Sandy Row women’s UDA unit, Lily Douglas who had ordered the fatal punishment beating, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The charge of murder was withdrawn on the grounds that she had not actually intended for her “Heavy Squad” to kill Ogilby and she was subsequently sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in Armagh Prison.
She received two further sentences (which were to run concurrently with her 10 years) of three years each, for intimidation and detaining Ogilby against her will. The exact motive for the murder was not established in court.
During police interrogation, Douglas maintained that Ogilby’s killing was the result of a personal vendetta, stating:
“It was not a UDA operation, they had nothing to do with it. It was just a move between a lot of women, a personal thing”.
In his book The Protestants of Ulster which was published in 1976, Geoffrey Bell stated that the women murdered her as punishment for her affair with William Young. Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack suggested that jealousy and bloodlust were the motives for the murder.
The others received lesser sentences: Albert Graham and Josephine Brown, after pleading guilty, were sentenced to three years imprisonment on charges of being accessories after the fact and causing grievous bodily harm to Ann Ogilby; the Crown withdrew the murder charge against the pair after recognising their attempt to prevent Cowan and Smith from continuing with the fatal beating.
The unit’s second-in-command, Kathleen Whitla was given two years for intimidation; Maud Tait (21), Anne Gracey (28), Elizabeth Douglas, Jr (19) and Marie Lendrum (23), were all sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for intimidation, and an unnamed 16-year-old was given an 18-months suspended sentence for intimidation. The convictions resulted in the largest single ingress of loyalist women into a Northern Ireland prison.
Denouncing the UDA, the trial judge, Mr. Justice McGonigle stated:
“What appears before me today under the name of the UDA is gun law, a vicious, brutalising organisation of persons who take the law into their own hands and who, by kangaroo courts and the infliction of physical brutality, terrorise a neighbourhood through intimidation”.
During the trial, it emerged that plans to kill Ogilby had been formulated by the UDA unit several months before her kangaroo court “trial”. Lily Douglas was lambasted by Justice McGonigle,
“You ordered and directed the punishment of this girl. You chose and chose well those who were to carry out your directions. When you heard what had happened you organised the cover-up and disposal of the body. Your concern was that these happenings should not come to light. You were the commander of these women; your responsibility was great. You are no stranger to crime. You have a record of smuggling, forgery, assault and actual bodily harm and aiding and abetting the keeping of a brothel. Though the last of these was in 1961 it is an indication of your character.”[
The Northern Irish press dubbed Elizabeth “Lily” Douglas “the Sandy Row executioner”.
Aftermath
Sharlene Ogilby later married and has three children of her own. After her mother’s murder, she was taken to live in Sion Mills by an uncle and aunt. For a while she kept in touch with her brother Gary but has since lost contact; she has no knowledge of what happened to her other brothers Stephen and Derek.
Lily Douglas died shortly after being released from Armagh Prison on compassionate grounds in 1979; Kathleen Whitla is also deceased. Henrietta Cowan and Christine Smith were both released from Armagh in December 1983 after serving nine years. They returned to the Sandy Row area. Loyalist sources claimed Smith “deeply regretted” the part she played in Ogilby’s murder. Graham, following his release from prison, also returned to south Belfast. To the present day he has steadfastly refused to discuss the murder.
The rest of the women involved in Ogilby’s murder are to date living in Sandy Row or the Village. William Young died in 2007.
The disused bakery in Hunter Street has since been demolished.
Belfast poet Linda Anderson wrote a poem, Gang-Bang Ulster Style, based on the Ogilby killing. It was published in the August 1989, no. 204 edition of Spare Rib.
Ann Ogilby’s murder also featured in a Gavin Ewart poem entitled, The Gentle Sex (1974). The murder was investigated by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET), which was established by the PSNI to inquire into the most controversial killings perpetrated during the Troubles.
See : 29th July
See: Lorraine McCausland murder: Seven men released
See: Murder of Margaret Wright 25 years ago sparked revulsion and bloody retribution
See : Billy Elliot (RHC)
In an ironic twist I knew and grew up with both Lorraine and Margaret . God rest their souls.
See : Anne Marie Smyth killing
See : ANNE MARIE’S KILLER BRAGS ABOUT MURDER; Loyalists vow to silence UVF man
Margaret Wright See : Jean McConville – The Shameful & Unforgivable Murder of a Widow & Mother of Ten
Notes:
- ^ Author David M. Kiely gives her age as 17 at the time of her move which would make the year approximately 1959/1960,[ref:”Elizabeth Douglas: the Sandy Row executioner”. Belfast Telegraph. David Kiely. 1 June 2005] however RUC detective Alan Simpson contradicts this date in his book Murder Madness: True Crimes of The Troubles” by stating that Ann Ogilby arrived in Belfast “some six years” before her murder, making the year of her arrival 1967 or 1968. [ref: Murder Madness: True Crimes of The Troubles, p.34]
- ^ The UDA was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella organisation for the many loyalist vigilante groups known as “defence associations”. It was structured along military lines with brigades, battalions, companies, platoons and sections. Although Andy Tyrie was the overall commander, the brigadiers enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and regarded their own territories as “their personal fiefdoms”. [ref: Loyalists. Peter Taylor. p.199]. The UDA remained legal until 10 August 1992 when it was proscribed by the British Government.
- ^ Lily Douglas came from City Street, Henrietta Piper Cowan came from Teutonic Street, Josephine Agnes Brown from Blythe Street; located in Sandy Row. The others had Sandy Row addresses as well with the exception of Christine Kathleen Smith who lived in Tates Avenue, which is in the neighbouring Village area and Kathleen Whitla of Howard Street South in Donegall Pass. [ref: Ciaran Barnes. Andersonstown News]
- ^ Although Lily Douglas admitted to the CID that she made the necessary arrangements for the disposal of Ann Ogilby’s body, she refused to give the names of the men who carried out the removal. Ciaran Barnes alleged that Sandy Row UDA commander Sammy Murphy (now deceased) was involved. [ref=”Sunday Life. Ciaran Barnes]
- My ‘time’ in the Crum Prison – mid 80s
My ‘time’ in the Crum Prison – mid 80s
…but a matter of life and death. These were the lads who would go on to be the ‘top boys’ of Loyalist paramilitarism and in time would become infamous in Belfast and well beyond. They’d do time in the Maze prison or in ‘ the Crum’ – the damp, dank Crumlin Road gaol that is now a major tourist attraction in Belfast. I have to confess that I was in there too – but not for any romantic notion of defending Loyalism against hordes of Republican invaders.
In fact, it was for motoring offences.
I had a very reckless approach to taxing and insuring my scooter and given that I was prone to crashing or falling off it, this wasn’t great behaviour. Time after time the RUC would flag me down and demand that I produce my documents at the nearest station. Of course, I never had any of these so it would be off to court, and a fine that I couldn’t or wouldn’t pay. This happened so frequently that eventually the magistrate demanded that I either pay the fine straight away or spend three days in Crumlin Road gaol.
Well, I didn’t have much else to do that weekend, to be honest. And I didn’t want to be slapped with a big fine that would be on my mind for ages. So to the surprise of the magistrate I said, ‘I’ll take prison, please,’ and with that I was marched down the steps of the dock and through the tunnel that links the courthouse with the gaol. As I walked I thought about all the paramilitary hard men from both sides who’d been taken on this very journey, many receiving multiple life sentences for the terrible stuff they’d done. I wasn’t exactly in their ranks, but a taste of the Crum would be something to tell the boys when I was finally sprung on the Monday.
Me in my mod days and when I was banged up ! Unfortunately for me, I’d overlooked two things. The first was that my time in prison coincided with a bank holiday Monday. There wouldn’t be enough screws present that day to take me through the release procedure, so I’d have to come out on the Tuesday instead. That took the wind out of my sails a wee bit. The second was my clothing. I’d arrived at court complete with sixties paisley shirt, eyeliner and a string of beads around my neck. This wasn’t great gear for going to prison in and when I arrived in the prison to take the obligatory shower the screw in charge gave me a filthy look.
‘Are ye seriously goin’ in there looking like a fruit,’ he asked. ‘D’ye think that’ll be fun for ye?’
I looked at myself in the cracked mirror. The guy was right. Some of the fellas in here were psychos, not exactly sympathetic to lads who looked a bit gay, as I’m sure I did. I couldn’t do much about the shirt, but I scrubbed off the eyeliner and handed in the love beads for safekeeping. Then, in an act of defiance, I scratched the words ‘Mods UTC’ (‘Up The Hoods’) on the door of the shower with a pen before handing that in too. I headed into the prison and to my cell for what turned out to be a pleasant few days.
My graffiti is still there. Because I wasn’t in for anything heinous nobody took any notice of me. Also, I was a skinny lad with hollow legs and I enjoyed the carb-heavy prison food served up to us three times a day. I can’t say I was sorry to be released but it was an experience, and I could always talk it up a bit for the benefit of my mates.
Many years later I took my young son on an organised tour of the prison, which is now a museum. I showed him the shower, and the graffiti that I’d etched on to the door. An American tourist overheard me talking to my boy about my ‘time’ in the Crum, and for the rest of the tour he and his fellow visitors treated me like royalty – Republican, no doubt. I didn’t tell them the truth . . .
.why let the facts get in the way of a good story ?As I’ve said, the spell in gaol was towards the end of a long period of joy-riding, shoplifting and drug-taking, some of which I was lifted for, many others that I got away with. In the 1980s, stealing cars and joyriding was almost a full-time occupation for many of Northern Ireland’s teenage males
This was the scenario one such Saturday night, when we jacked a car just…
How ironic that my book is now on sale in the gift shop of The Crumlin Road jail !
See : Tarred and Feathered: Street Justice Belfast Style.
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- Joe McCann – Life & Death
Joe McCann – Life & Death
Joe McCann (2 November 1947 – 15 April 1972) was an Irish republican volunteer. A member of the Irish Republican Army and later the Official Irish Republican Army, he was active in politics from the early 1960s and participated in the early years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
He was shot dead, after being confronted by RUC Special Branch and British paratroopers in 1972.
Early life
He was born in the Lower Falls area of Belfast, and spent most of his life there and in the nearby Markets area of the city. His mother died when he was four years old leaving, four children. His father remarried. He was educated at the Christian Brothers school on Barrack Street in Belfast, where he developed an interest in the Irish language. A bricklayer by trade, he joined the Fianna Éireann at age 14 and the IRA in the early 1960s.
In 1964 he was involved in a riot on Divis Street in Belfast in opposition to the threat from loyalist leader Ian Paisley to march on the area and remove an Irish tricolour flying over the election office of Billy McMillen. In 1965 he was arrested for the possession of bayonets with five other men. They served nine months in Crumlin Road jail. He had expressed an interest in the priesthood while a teenager. He joined the Third Order of Saint Francis in his later teens.
McCann was active in the IRA’s involvement in the civil rights activism, protesting against the development of the Divis Flats. McCann became Officer Commanding of the IRA in the Markets, involved in housing issues and any matters which related to local government.
In 1969, after sectarian rioting in Belfast, the IRA split into two factions: the newly created Provisional Irish Republican Army, traditionalist militarists, and the existing organisation, which became known as the Official IRA, Marxist-Leninist-oriented socialists. McCann sided with the Officials. His brothers Dennis, Patrick and Brian, also joined the OIRA.
Personal life
McCann married Anne McKnight who hailed from a strong republican family in the Markets area in Belfast. Anne’s older brother, Bobby, was part of the 1956–62 border campaign and was arrested and jailed, as well as later being interned. Anne’s brother Seán sided with the Provisionals after the 1969 split, and went on to represent South Belfast for Sinn Féin.
IRA activities
McCann was appointed commander of the OIRA’s Third Belfast Battalion. By 1970, violence in Northern Ireland had escalated to the point where British soldiers were deployed there in large numbers. From 3–5 July 1970, McCann was involved in gun battles during the Falls Curfew between the Official IRA and up to 3,000 British soldiers in the Lower Falls area that left four civilians dead from gunshot wounds, another killed after being hit by an armoured car and 60 injured.
On 22 May 1971, the first British soldier to die at the hands of the Official IRA, Robert Bankier of the Royal Green Jackets was killed by a unit led by McCann. McCann’s unit opened fire on a passing British mobile patrol near Cromac Square, hitting the patrol from both sides. He was the fourth British soldier to die on active service & the seventh overall since the conflict began.
Robert Bankier In another incident, McCann led a unit which captured three UVF members in Sandy Row. The UVF had raided an OIRA arms dump earlier that day and the OIRA announced they would execute the three prisoners if the weapons were not returned. McCann eventually released the three UVF members, allegedly because they were “working class men”.
On 9 August 1971, his unit took over the Inglis bakery in the Markets area and fortified it, following the introduction of internment without trial by the Northern Ireland authorities. They defended it throughout the night from 600 British soldiers who were seeking to arrest paramilitary suspects.
The action allowed other IRA members to slip out of the area and avoid arrest. He was photographed during the incident, holding an M1 carbine, against the background of a burning building and the Starry Plough flag.
In early February 1972, he was involved in the attempted assassination of Ulster Unionist politician and Northern Ireland Minister for Home Affairs John Taylor in Armagh City, outside the then Hibernian Bank on Russell Street. McCann and another gunman fired on Taylor’s car with Thompson submachine guns, hitting him five times in the neck and head; he survived, though he was badly injured. In another incident MaCann and another man were standing outside a Belfast cinema to purchase tickets for the film Soldier Blue when McCann spotted a British Army checkpoint.
Death
McCann was killed on 15 April 1972 in Joy Street in The Markets, in disputed circumstances. He had been sent to Belfast by a member of the Dublin command as he was at the top of the RUC Special Branch wanted list. He was told by the Official IRA Belfast command to return for his own safety to Dublin. However he ignored their requests and remained in Belfast.
The RUC Special Branch was aware of his presence in Belfast and were on the look out for him. On the morning of his death, he was spotted by an RUC officer who reported his whereabouts to the British Parachute Regiment, who were carrying out a road block in the immediate area at the time. McCann was approached by the RUC officer who informed him that he was under arrest. McCann was unarmed and tried to run to evade arrest when confronted by the soldiers. He was shot dead at the corner of Joy Street and Hamilton Street after a chase on foot through the Markets.
McCann was hit 3 times according to the pathology report, the fatal shot hitting him in the buttock and passing up through his internal organs. Ten cartridge cases were found close to his body, indicating that he had been shot repeatedly at close range. Bullet holes were also visible in the walls of nearby houses.
See : 15th April – Deaths & Events in Northern Ireland Troubles
McCann was the leader of the most militant of the OIRA’s members in Belfast and was much more enthusiastic about the use of “armed struggle” in Northern Ireland than the OIRA leadership. His killing was closely followed by the organisation calling a ceasefire. As a result, it was rumoured that the reason that McCann was unarmed when he was killed was that the Official leadership had confiscated his personal weapon, a .38 pistol.
Some former OIRA members have even alleged that McCann’s killing was set up by their Dublin leadership.
Five days of rioting followed his death. Turf Lodge, where McCann lived, was a no-go area and was openly patrolled by an OIRA land rover with the words “Official IRA – Mobile Patrol” emblazoned on the side. The OIRA shot five British soldiers, killing three, in revenge for McCann’s killing, in different incidents the following day in Belfast, Derry and Newry.
Funeral and tributes
McCann’s funeral on 18 April 1972 was attended by thousands of mourners. A guard of honour was provided by 20 OIRA volunteers and a further 200 women followed carrying flowers and wreaths. Four MPs including Bernadette Devlin were also in attendance. Cathal Goulding the Official IRA Chief of Staff, provided the graveside oration in Milltown Cemetery.
Goulding said:
By shooting Joe McCann [the British government’s] Whitelaws and their Heaths and their Tuzos have shown the colour of their so called peace initiatives. They have re-declared war on the people…We have given notice, by action that no words can now efface, that those who are responsible for the terrorism that is Britain’s age old reaction to Irish demands will be the victim of that terrorism, paying richly in their own red blood for their crimes and the crimes of their imperial masters.
In spite of this hardline rhetoric, however, Goulding called a ceasefire just six weeks later, on 29 May 1972. One of the more surprising tributes to McCann came from Gusty Spence, leader of the Ulster Volunteer Force loyalist group. Spence wrote a letter of sympathy to McCann’s widow, expressing his, “deepest and profoundest sympathy” on the death of her husband.
“He was a soldier of the Republic and I a Volunteer of Ulster and we made no apology for being what we were or are…Joe once did me a good turn indirectly and I never forgot him for his humanity”.
This is thought to refer to an incident in which three UVF men wandered into the Lower Falls, were captured by OIRA men, but were released unharmed on McCann’s orders.
In 1997, a plaque was unveiled at the spot on Joy street in the Markets where McCann was killed. Members of the various republican factions, the Workers’ Party of Ireland (ex Official IRA), Sinn Féin (political wing of the Provisional IRA) and the Irish Republican Socialist Party (a splinter, along with the Irish National Liberation Army from the Official republican movement in 1974) were all in attendance.
A ballad about Joe McCann has been authored in tribute by Eamon O’Doherty.
Inquiry and trial
In 2010, the Historical Enquiries Team investigation into the killing of Joe McCann found it was unjustified.
In December 2016, two British soldiers, known as Soldier A and Soldier C, were arrested and charged with murder. The trial commenced in Belfast April 2021. In May 2021, the trial collapsed and the two soldiers were acquitted. The judge found, amongst other things, that the soldiers’ statements given in 1972 to the Royal Military Police, on which the prosecution was based, were inadmissible because the statements were provided without the soldiers being under caution.
The family are set to apply to the Attorney General to request an inquest
Trial of ex-soldiers over 1972 killing of Official IRA member collapses
Two army veterans acquitted of Joe McCann’s murder after judge ruled some evidence inadmissible
Joe McCann’s widow, Anne, centre, leaves the court in Belfast after the case collapsed. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent@rorycarroll72
Tue 4 May 2021 19.16 BST
Two former British army paratroopers accused of murdering an Official IRA commander during the Troubles have been acquitted after their trial in Northern Ireland collapsed.
The two veterans, known as soldiers A and C, had been accused of murdering Joe McCann on 15 April 1972, in a closely watched trial with political ramifications.
The case collapsed when the Public Prosecution Service decided not to appeal against a decision by Mr Justice O’Hara to exclude some evidence as inadmissible.
The result delighted army veterans’ groups and their supporters, who said the case was the latest example of old soldiers being subjected to a politically motivated witch-hunt. McCann’s family said justice had been denied.
Joe McCann. Photograph: PA McCann was a member not of the Provisional IRA but its republican Marxist rival, the Official IRA. He was photographed in 1971 holding a rifle beside the Starry Plough, the flag of the Irish labour movement.
A year later when a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer tried to arrest McCann, he fled, prompting soldiers A and C and a now deceased paratrooper, soldier B, to open fire, hitting the 24-year-old in the back. The case hinged on whether the force used was reasonable.
Prosecutors said soldiers A and C believed McCann was armed but they found no weapon. A defence lawyer said McCann was suspected of murders and could have committed more if he had evaded arrest, leaving the soldiers with a “binary choice” of shooting to effect the arrest or letting him escape.
See Guardian for full story : Trial of ex-soldiers over 1972 killing of Official IRA member collapses
Buy my number one best selling book , see link below
- Kriss Donald – The Brutal Racist Killing of an Innocent Schoolboy
Kriss Donald – The Racist Killing of an Innocent Schoolboy
Kriss Donald 2 July 1988 – 15 March 2004
Kriss Donald was a 15-year-old white Scottish boy who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow in 2004 by a gang of men of Pakistani origins.
On 15 March 2004, Kriss was abducted from Kenmure Street by five men associated with a local British Pakistani gang led by Imran Shahid. The kidnapping was supposedly revenge for an attack on Shahid at a nightclub in Glasgow city centre the night before by a local white gang.
The innocent schoolboy had nothing to do with the attack and was randomly selected by the gang who were hunting for any white boy to exact revenge for the attack.
Kriss was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Despite protesting his innocence Kriss was bundled into a car and was savagely attacked over a prolonged period of time before the gang took him to Clyde Walkway where he was horrifically murdered .
The corner stated that the murder was the most savage and brutal they had ever seen. Kriss was beaten and then held down while he was repeated stabbed more that a dozen times. While still alive he was doused in petrol and set on fire as he bleed to death.
The RACIST Murder of Kriss Donald
The case highlighted the lack of attention the media and society in general give to white sufferers of racist attacks compared to that given to ethnic minorities. It is also suggested the crime demonstrates how society has been forced to redefine racism so as to no longer include white victims.
Daanish Zahid Initially, two men were arrested in connection with the crime. One man, Daanish Zahid, was found guilty of Kriss Donald’s murder on 18 November 2004 and was the first person to be convicted of racially motivated murder in Scotland.
Zahid Mohammed Another man, Zahid Mohammed, admitted involvement in the abduction of Donald and lying to police during their investigation and was imprisoned for five years. He was released after serving half of his sentence and returned to court to give evidence against three subsequent defendant
Three suspects were arrested in Pakistan in July 2005 and extradited to the UK in October 2005, following the intervention of Mohammed Sarwar, the MP for Glasgow Central.
Extradition of three men to Scotland
The Pakistani police had to engage in a “long struggle” to capture two of the escapees. There is no extradition treaty between Pakistan and Britain, but the Pakistani authorities agreed to extradite the suspects.
There were numerous diplomatic complications around the case, including apparent divergences between government activities and those of ambassadorial officials; government figures were at times alleged to be reluctant to pursue the case for diplomatic reasons.
Imran Shahid, Zeeshan Shahid, and Mohammed Faisal Mushtaq The three extradited suspects, Imran Shahid, Zeeshan Shahid, and Mohammed Faisal Mushtaq, all in their late twenties, arrived in Scotland on 5 October 2005. They were charged with Donald’s murder the following day. Their trial opened on 2 October 2006.
On 8 November 2006, the three men were found guilty of the racially motivated murder of Kriss Donald. All three had denied the charge, but a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh convicted them of abduction and murder.
Each of the killers received sentences of life imprisonment, with Imran Shahid given a 25-year minimum term, Zeeshan Shahid a 23-year minimum and Mushtaq receiving a recommended minimum of 22 years
Lack of media coverage
The BBC has been criticised by some viewers because the case featured on national news only three times and the first trial was later largely confined to regional Scottish bulletins including the verdict itself. Although admitting that the BBC had “got it wrong”, the organisation’s Head of Newsgathering, Fran Unsworth, largely rejected the suggestion that Donald’s race played a part in the lack of reportage, instead claiming it was mostly a product of “Scottish blindness”.
In preference to reporting the verdict the organisation found the time to report the opening of a new arts centre in Gateshead in its running order. The BBC again faced criticisms for its failure to cover the second trial in its main bulletins, waiting until day 18 to mention the issue and Peter Horrocks of the BBC apologised for the organisation’s further failings.
Peter Fahy, spokesman of race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, noted that the media as a whole tended to under-report the racist murders of white people, stating
“it was a fact that it was harder to get the media interested where murder victims were young white men”.
The British National Party was accused by Scotland’s First Minister and Labour Party MSP Jack McConnell among others of seeking to exploit the case for political advantage, and an open letter signed by MSPs, trades unionists, and community leaders, condemned the BNP’s plans to stage a visit to Pollokshields. The group did hold a rally in the area, leading to accusations that it was fuelling racial tension.
Conduct of accused
Following their convictions, the killers – particularly Imran Shahid, due to his reputation and distinctive appearance – continued to draw attention for events that occurred inside the prison system. From the time of their remand in 2005, it was known to the authorities that other prisoners had particular intent to attack the accused, and an incident at HMP Barlinnie prompted Imran Shahid to be placed in solitary confinement, a practice which continued regularly until 2010, due to the continual threat of violence against him, and the aggressive behaviour he showed when he did come into contact with others.
He appealed against this measure as a breach of his human rights, which was rejected in 2011 and in 2014 but upheld in October 2015 by the UK Supreme Court. It was found that prison rules had not been correctly adhered to in the application for, or extension of, some periods totalling 14 months of his 56 months of detention, but that overall, the reasons for keeping him in solitary confinement for his own safety were valid.
He was not offered any financial compensation, which he had tried to claim.
In the interim, the concerns over violent reprisals had proven correct, as Shahid was attacked twice (the second incident, in which a fellow murderer struck him with a barbell weight in the gym at HMP Kilmarnock in 2013, caused serious injury) and also attacked another prisoner with a barbell, for which he was sentenced to additional jail time in March 2016; he had received a concurrent sentence for violence in 2009 after being racially abused by another prisoner.
Shahid also received media attention for cases he brought against the prison service governors in 2017 for unlawful removal of his possessions (a ‘penis pump’ for erectile dysfunction which was deemed to have negligible medical benefit, and an Xbox games console which it was believed could have been adjusted to access the internet), which were dismissed.
Zahid Mohammed, who later changed his name to Yusef Harris to avoid connection to the murder, was convicted and imprisoned in 2017 for another separate incident involving weapons, threats and driving his vehicle at police.
In 2009, the sibling of the Shahid brothers, Ahsan Shahid, and the brother of Faisal Mushtaq, Farooq Mushtaq, were both convicted and imprisoned for their own involvement in violent gang-related disorder in Pollokshields which included the use of firearms. A third man, Omar Sadiq was also convicted. In September 2020, Omar Sadiq was stabbed to death in a violent attack in Glasgow. Ahsan Shahid also had previous convictions for fraud from 2002 and was jailed for the same crime in 2017 along with his wife.
Main source: Wikipedia
See: Three jailed for life for race murder of schoolboy
See: Racists are jailed for life after abducting and killing boy, 15
See also
- Lola – The Kinks : Iconic Songs & the story behind them
Lola – The Kinks : Iconic Songs
The original UK 45 release cover for Lola Iconic Songs and the story behind them
“Lola” is a song written by Ray Davies and performed by English rock band the Kinks on their album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. The song details a romantic encounter between a young man and a possible cross-dresser, whom he meets in a club in Soho, London. In the song, the narrator describes his confusion towards Lola, who:
“walked like a woman but talked like a man”
The song was released in the United Kingdom on 12 June 1970, while in the United States it was released on 28 June 1970. Commercially, the single reached number two on the UK Singles Chart and number nine on the Billboard Hot 100.
The track has since become one of The Kinks’ most iconic and popular songs, later being ranked number 422 on “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” as well as number 473 on the “NME‘s 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time” list.
Since its release, “Lola” has appeared on multiple compilation and live albums. In 1980, a live version of the song from the album One for the Road was released as a single in the US and some European countries, becoming a minor hit. In the Netherlands it became #1, just as in 1970 with the studio version. Other versions include live renditions from 1972’s Everybody’s in Show-Biz and 1996’s To the Bone.
The “Lola” character also made an appearance in the lyrics of the band’s 1981 song, “Destroyer“.
The Kinks – Lola (Official Audio)
Lola was the lead single from the album “Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One” originally released in the UK and the US in June 1970 and reached number two on the UK Singles Chart nine on the Billboard Hot 100
Lyrics
“Lola”
I met her in a club down in old Soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry-cola [LP version – Coca-Cola:]
C O L A cola
She walked up to me and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said Lola
L O L A Lola la-la-la-la LolaWell I’m not the world’s most physical guy
But when she squeezed me tight she nearly broke my spine
Oh my Lola la-la-la-la Lola
Well I’m not dumb but I can’t understand
Why she walked like a woman and talked like a man
Oh my Lola la-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la LolaWell that’s the way that I want it to stay
And I always want it to be that way for my Lola
La-la-la-la Lola
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola
La-la-la-la LolaWell I left home just a week before
And I’d never ever kissed a woman before
But Lola smiled and took me by the hand
And said dear boy I’m gonna make you a manWell I’m not the world’s most masculine man
But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man
And so is Lola
La-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la Lola
Lola la-la-la-la Lola la-la-la-la LolaSource: www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kinks/lola
Origin and inspiration
My Thoughts
As an old mod I have long loved the Kinks and everything about them and their iconic music legacy is embedded deep within my soul and still gives me much pleasure and joy. In my opinion they are one of the most underrated English bands of the 60s and although their music has always been well received and revered by their musical peers, they never had the commercial success of the Who or the Stones and to my mind that is a shame.
From the first time I heard Lola spoke to me in a way few tunes do and the surreal theme of the lyrics and the haunting melody its in my top ten tunes ever!
ray davis Ray Davies has claimed that he was inspired to write “Lola” after Kinks manager Robert Wace spent a night in Paris dancing with a cross-dresser.
Davies said of the incident, “In his apartment, Robert had been dancing with this black woman, and he said, ‘I’m really onto a thing here.’ And it was okay until we left at six in the morning and then I said, ‘Have you seen the stubble?’ He said ‘Yeah’, but he was too pissed [intoxicated] to care, I think”.[7]
It was a real experience in a club. I was asked to dance by somebody who was a fabulous looking woman. I said “no thank you”. And she went in a cab with my manager straight afterwards. It’s based on a personal experience. But not every word.
– Ray Davies
Drummer Mick Avory has offered an alternative explanation for the song’s lyrics, claiming that “Lola” was partially inspired by Avory’s frequenting of certain bars in West London.
Avory said:
“We used to know this character called Michael McGrath. He used to hound the group a bit, because being called The Kinks did attract these sorts of people. He used to come down to Top of the Pops, and he was publicist for John Stephen’s shop in Carnaby Street. He used to have this place in Earl’s Court, and he used to invite me to all these drag queen acts and transsexual pubs. They were like secret clubs. And that’s where Ray [Davies] got the idea for ‘Lola’. When he was invited too, he wrote it while I was getting drunk”.
Ray Davies has denied claims that the song was written about a date between himself and Candy Darling—Davies contends the two only went out to dinner together and that he had known the whole time that Darling was trans.
Candy Darling In his autobiography, Dave Davies said that he came up with the music for what would become “Lola”, noting that brother Ray added the lyrics after hearing it.[9] In a 1990 interview, Dave Davies stated that “Lola” was written in a similar fashion to “You Really Got Me” in that the two worked on Ray’s basic skeleton of the song, saying that the song was more of a collaborative effort than many believed.[10]
Writing and recording
I remember going into a music store on Shaftesbury Avenue when we were about to make “Lola”. I said, “I want to get a really good guitar sound on this record, I want a Martin”. And in the corner they had this old 1938 Dobro [resonating guitar] that I bought for £150. I put them together on “Lola” which is what makes that clangy sound: the combination of the Martin and the Dobro with heavy compression.
– Ray Davies
Written in April 1970, “Lola” was cited by Ray Davies as the first song he wrote following a break he took to act in the 1970 Play for Today film The Long Distance Piano Player. Davies said that he had initially struggled with writing an opening that would sell the song, but the rest of the song “came naturally”.
Initial recordings of the song began in April 1970, but, as the band’s bassist John Dalton remembered, recording for “Lola” took particularly long, stretching into the next month.
During April, four to five versions were attempted, utilizing different keys as well as varying beginnings and styles. In May, new piano parts were added to the backing track by John Gosling, the band’s new piano player that had just been auditioned. Vocals were also added at this time. The song was then mixed during that month. Mick Avory remembered the recording sessions for the song positively, saying that it “was fun, as it was the Baptist’s [John Gosling’s] first recording with us”.
The guitar opening on the song was produced as a result of combining the sound of a Martin guitar and a vintage Dobro resonating guitar. Ray Davies cited this blend of guitar sounds for the song’s unique guitar sound.
I remember going into a music store on Shaftesbury Avenue when we were about to make “Lola”. I said, “I want to get a really good guitar sound on this record, I want a Martin”. And in the corner they had this old 1938 Dobro [resonating guitar] that I bought for £150. I put them together on “Lola” which is what makes that clangy sound: the combination of the Martin and the Dobro with heavy compression.
– Ray Davies
Release
Despite the chart success “Lola” would achieve, its fellow Lola vs. Powerman track “Powerman” was initially considered to be the first single from the album. However, “Lola”, which Ray Davies later claimed was an attempt to write a hit, was eventually decided on as the debut single release.
“Lola” was released as a single in 1970. In the UK, the B-side to the single was the Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society outtake “Berkeley Mews“
while the Dave Davies-penned “Mindless Child of Motherhood” was used in the US. It became an unexpected chart smash for the Kinks, reaching number two in Britain and number nine in the United States.
The single also saw success worldwide, reaching the top of the charts in Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa, as well as the top 5 in Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Switzerland. The success of the single had important ramifications for the band’s career at a critical time, allowing them to negotiate a new contract with RCA Records, construct their own London Studio, and assume more creative and managerial control.
In a 1970 interview, Dave Davies stated that, if “Lola” had been a failure, the band would have “gone on making records for another year or so and then drifted apart”.
Although the track was a major hit for the band, Dave Davies did not enjoy the success of “Lola”, saying, “In fact, when ‘Lola’ was a hit, it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Because it was taking us out of a different sort of comfort zone, where we’d been getting into the work, and the writing and the musicality was more thought about. It did have that smell of: ‘Oh blimey, not that again.’ I found it a bit odd, that period. And then it got odder and weirder”.
Mick Avory said that he “enjoyed the success” the band had with “Lola” and its follow-up, “Apeman“.
I wanted to write a hit [with “Lola”.] It wasn’t just the song. it was the musical design. It wasn’t a power chord song like “You Really Got Me“. It was a power chord beginning. It needed a special acoustic guitar sound … sonorous, growling, with an attack to it.
– Ray Davies, Radio 4’s Master Tapes
Controversy
Originally, “Lola” saw controversy for its lyrics. In a Record Mirror article entitled “Sex Change Record: Kink Speaks”, Ray Davies addressed the matter, saying, “It really doesn’t matter what sex Lola is, I think she’s alright”.
Some radio stations would fade the track out before implications of Lola’s biological sex were revealed. On 18 November 1970, “Lola” was banned from being played by some radio stations in Australia because of its “controversial subject matter”.
The BBC banned the track for a different reason: the original stereo recording had the words “Coca-Cola” in the lyrics, but because of BBC Radio’s policy against product placement, Ray Davies was forced to make a 6000-mile round-trip flight from New York to London and back on June 3, 1970, interrupting the band’s American tour, to change those words to the generic “cherry cola” for the single release, which is included on various compilation albums as well.
Reception and legacy
“Lola” received positive reviews from critics. Upon the single’s release, the NME praised the song as “an engaging and sparkling piece with a gay Latin flavour and a catchy hook chorus”.
Writing a contemporary review in Creem, critic Dave Marsh recognized it as “the first significantly blatant gay-rock ballad”.Billboard said of the song at the time of its US release, “Currently a top ten British chart winner, this infectious rhythm item has all the ingredients to put the Kinks right back up the Hot 100 here with solid impact”.
Rolling Stone critic Paul Gambaccini called the song “brilliant and a smash”. Music critic Robert Christgau, despite his mixed opinion on the Lola vs. Powerman album, praised the single as “astounding”.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic lauded the song for “its crisp, muscular sound, pitched halfway between acoustic folk and hard rock”. Ultimate Classic Rock ranked “Lola” as The Kinks’ third best song, saying “the great guitar riff that feeds the song is one of Dave’s all-time greatest”. Paste Magazine listed the track as the band’s fourth best song.
The song was also well-liked by the band. Mick Avory, who noted the song as one of the songs he was most proud to be associated with, said “I always liked ‘Lola’, I liked the subject. It’s not like anything else. I liked it for that. We’d always take a different path”.
In a 1983 interview, Ray Davies said, “I’m just very pleased I recorded it and more pleased I wrote it”. The band revisited the “Lola” character in the lyrics of their 1981 song, “Destroyer“, a minor chart hit in America.
Satirical artist “Weird Al” Yankovic created a parody of the song called “Yoda“, featuring lyrics about the Star Wars character of the same name, on his 1985 album Dare to Be Stupid.[30]
Live versions
Since its release, “Lola” became a mainstay in The Kinks’ live repertoire, appearing in the majority of the band’s subsequent set-lists until the group’s break-up.
In 1972, a live performance of the song recorded at Carnegie Hall in New York City appeared on the live half of the band’s 1972 album, Everybody’s in Show-Biz, a double-LP which contained half new studio compositions and half live versions of previously released songs.
A live version of “Lola”, recorded on 23 September 1979 in Providence, Rhode Island, was released as a single in the US in July 1980 to promote the live album One for the Road. The B-side was the live version of “Celluloid Heroes“.
The single was a moderate success, reaching number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also released in some countries in Europe (although not the UK) in April 1981. It topped the charts in both the Netherlands, matching the number one peak of the original version, and in Belgium, where it exceeded the original’s peak of three.
It also charted in Australia, peaking at number 69 and spending 22 weeks on the charts. Although not released as a stand-alone single in the UK, it was included on a bonus single (backed with a live version of “David Watts” from the same album) with initial copies of “Better Things” in June 1981.
This live rendition, along with the live versions of “Celluloid Heroes” and “You Really Got Me” from the same album, also appeared on the 1986 compilation album Come Dancing with The Kinks: The Best of the Kinks 1977–1986.
Although it did not appear on the original 1994 version, another live version of “Lola” was included on the 1996 US double-album release of To the Bone, the band’s final release of new material before their dissolution.
Covers
Madness – Lola
BAD MANNERS – LOLA
Robbie Williams – Lola
Top 10 70s Songs You Forgot Were Awesome
Iconic Songs & the story behind them
- Tarred and Feathered: Street Justice Belfast Style.
Tarred and Feathered: Street Justice Belfast Style
Life during the Troubles
Here are the opening few pages of my bestselling book: A Belfast Child
As a child, I loved the housing estate of Glencairn. To my mind it was paradise. Cut into the hillside, and with unbeatable views of the city on one side and the Divis Mountains on the other, it was like arriving in heaven after the hell of living among the urban sectarian flashpoints of West Belfast. Here were trees, lush green fields, sparkling clear rivers and streams that rushed down from the mountainside and were filled with fish. Us kids spent long hot summers splashing about in the ‘Spoon’, a natural cavernous feature of the landscape filled with water, and feasted on wild berries, strawberries and nuts that grew along the banks of the river.
Here were our close family and friends, housed in the damp flats and maisonettes that had been hurriedly built to house those Protestants ‘put out’ of their homes in the city by avenging Catholics. They too were being burnt from their homes but back then my young Loyalist heart felt no sympathy for them; in my opinion they supported the IRA and had started the ‘war’.
Up in Glencairn we felt safe and free. As long as we all obeyed the rules, of course.
These rules were not the laws of the land. They were not enforced by police, army or government officials. They were not set down in any written form, but we all knew what they were and who had made them. And even as small children, we knew that a heavy price would be extracted for those foolish enough to break the rules. A heavy price, and sometimes a very public price too.
Our two-bedroom maisonette was situated at the bottom of a small grassy hill facing St Andrew’s church Church and the local shopping complex, which consisted of a Chinese chippy, the VG general store, a laundrette, a newsagent’s, a wine lodge and the local Ulster Defence Association – UDA – drinking club called ‘Grouchos’ . In fact, we could roll down it almost to our back door – a game my younger brother David and I played frequently. In the winter when the hill was covered in snow, we would make sledges out of old bits of wood and spend hours and hours going up and down the hill, never feeling the cold. Dad would have a go at us for all the mud and grass we trailed into the flat but his was a good-natured telling-off. The truth was that he was pleased to see us all happy and carefree again after the trauma of the previous few years, and the sudden and final disappearance of my mum.
One late spring afternoon I was revolving rolling towards our back door, Dad’s beloved Alsatian dog Shep (my best friend and constant companion) in hot pursuit. Dad called him Shep after the Elvis song and he was able to knock our letter box with his nose when he wanted to come indoors. The grass had recently been cut and was damp, meaning that it stuck to every part of my clothing. I came to a halt just short of our back wall, the sweet smell of cut grass filling my nostrils, before standing up to brush it all off my jumper. As I did, I noticed my cousin, Wee Sam, running up towards our house from the direction of the main road.
‘John! Davy! C’mon, hurry up! There’s summin’ going on down the shops!’
Wee Sam was red in the face and could hardly get his words out. ‘It must be good,’ I said, ‘cos you look like you’re about to die.’
‘Not me,’ he replied, ‘but there’s a woman down there looks likely to. C’mon, we gotta see this!’
He turned tail and without thought we ran after him. As anyone who’s ever grown up on a housing estate will know, if there’s a commotion taking place word gets around like lightning. In Loyalist Glencairn there was always something going on and it was violent as often as not violent. As we ran, it seemed that from every direction half of estate was also making its way to the shops from every direction facing St. Andrews church from every direction. ‘This must be big,’ I thought as I ran, my wee brother trying to keep up with me. On this estate, as in every area of Belfast afflicted by the Troubles, very few people turned away from troubledanger. The natural sense of curiosity found in spades among Northern Irish people was too strong for that.
In the few minutes it took us to run from our house, a large crowd had already gathered outside the shops. A gang of ‘hard men’, whom we all knew to be paramilitary enforcers, seemed to be at the centre of the action. Local women stood on the fringes of the crowd, shouting, swearing and spitting.
‘Fuckin’ Fenian- loving bitch!’
‘Youse deserve to die, ye fuckin’ Taig-loving hoor!’ (‘Taig’ is an offensive slang term for a Catholic).
I pushed in to get a better look. At the heart of the crowd was a young woman, struggling against the grip of the men holding her. Her cheap, fashionable clothes were torn and her eyes were wild and staring, like an animal’s before slaughter. She screamed for them to take their hands off her, spitting at her accusers and lashing out with her feet. It was no use. One of the bigger guys pulled her hands behind her back and dragged her against a concrete lamppost. Someone passed him a length of rope and with a few expert strokes he’d lashed the young woman against the post by her hands, quickly followed by her feet. She reminded me of a squaw captured by cowboys in the Westerns I loved to watch and then re-enact using local kids in games that could last for days.
Except this wasn’t a game. This was justice Glencairn style – all perfectly normal to me and my peers and we took it in our stride. Although she was still squealing like a pig, the resistance seemed to have gone out of the woman. Smelling blood, the crowd pushed forwards and the woman’s head hung low in shame and embarrassment. One of the men grabbed a hank of her long hair and wrenched her head upwards, forcing her to look him right in the eye.
‘You,’ he said slowly, ‘have been caught going with a Taig, so you have! Do you deny it?’
Now I recognised the woman. She was a girl off the estate. I ha’d seen her walking down Forthriver Road on her way to meet her mini-skirted mates. They’d pile into a black taxi and head into town for a bit of drinking and dancing. I guess it was on one of these nights out that she’d met the Catholic boy – the ‘Taig’ – who was at the centre of the allegations. Good job he wasn’t here now, because he might already be lying in a pool of blood, a bullet through his head.
The woman shook her head. There was no point trying to talk her way out of anything now.
‘Fuck you,’ she said defiantly. ‘Fuck youse all.’
‘Grab her hair!’ shouted a female voice from the crowd. ‘Cut off the fuckin’ lot!’
The enforcer produced a large pair of scissors from his pocket. Slowly, deliberately, he tightened his grip on her hair before hacking savagely at the clump below his fist. Amid cheers he threw it at her feet before continuing his rough barbering skills. Within minutes he’d finished and now the woman looked like a cancer victim. Blood oozed from the indiscriminate cuts he’d made on her head and as it ran down her face it intermingled with her tears and snot. She was not a pretty sight.
‘ back!’ demanded one of the enforcers. The crowd parted and someone came forward with an open tin of bright red paint. Knowing what was to come, and not wanting to be physically contaminated with the woman’s shame, the crowd moved even further back.
The UDA man poured the contents of the tin all over the woman’s head, allowing it to run the entire length of her body, right down to her platform boots. She looked like she’d been drowned in blood. Then a pillow was passed up, and ham-hands the enforcer tore a big hole in the cotton, exposing the contents – feathers, hundreds and thousands of them.
‘G’wan,’ said a voice, ‘give her the full fuckin’ works.’
Without further ado the man poured the white feathers all over the woman, head to toe. They clung to the paint, giving the impression of a slaughtered goose hanging off the telegraph pole.
‘That will teach ye not to go with filthy Taigs,’ said the enforcer. ‘Any more of this and youse’ll get a beating then a bullet, so you will. Understand?’
Through the paint and the feathers came a small nod of the head.
‘Good,’ said the man. ‘And just so ye don’t forget, here’s a wee something we made for you earlier.’
To laughter and jeers, the man produced a cardboard sign which he placed around the woman’s neck. In the same red paint used to humiliate her, someone had written ‘Fenian Lover’ across the middle of the cardboard.
‘Leave her there for half an hour,’ commanded the man to a subordinate, ‘then cut her down.’ The crowd dispersed, a few women spitting on the victim as they left.
‘Jesus,’ said Wee Sam, wide-eyed. ‘Did you see that? Looked like she’d been shot in the head and the feathers were her brain running down her face. Fuckin’ amazing.’
‘Course I saw it,’ I said. ‘I was right at the front, wasn’t I? The bitch deserved it. Imagine going with Taigs, the dirty whorehoor.’
‘Let’s wait round the shops till they chop her down,’ said Sam. ‘See where she goes.’
We’d been playing one of our eternal games of Cowboys and Indians recently and we’d got into the idea of tracking people down stealthily. So we waited until another paramilitary cut the woman’s rope and watched as she slumped to the ground.
‘I think she’s pissed herself,’ said Sam.
‘Ssh,’ I replied, ‘she’ll hear us. Wait while she gets up.’
We watched the woman slowly pick herself up from the pavement. She wiped her eyes and looked around. The area outside the shops was now completely deserted, as though nothing had happened. An angry mob had been replaced by an eerie silence.
As she stumbled off, we nudged each other. ‘Look,’ I said., ‘Look what’s happening. She’s leaving a trail!’
She was too, a trail of blood- red boot prints. We gave her twenty or so yards’ start, then in single file began to follow her, sidling up against walls and lamp-posts like the gang of Cherokees we imagined we were. We must have gone a good quarter- mile when she turned into a pathway leading up to a small, shabby flat. We saw her fumbling in her pocket for a key, noticing the relief on her face as she found it still there. The lock turned and she went inside without a backwards glance.
‘That’s it,’ said Sam, ‘fun’s over. Let’s go home.’
‘Wait,’ I said. I watched as the woman put on a light, looked in a mirror then drew the curtains tightly. Some part of me, the part that wasn’t screaming ‘Fenian bitch!’ with all the others, suddenly felt hugely sorry for her. She only looked about seventeen17 or eighteen18 – not much older than my sister Margaret. What had she really done wrong, other than meet a nice boy she liked? Did she deserve such brutal treatment? After this I never saw her around the estate again. She’d probably fled for her ,life, never to return. And who could blame her?
Something inside of me knew I’d witnessed a terrible thing, yet I knew I couldn’t even begin to think like this. It was against the rules; the same unwritten rules and code of conduct that this young woman had disobeyed. Fear of the paramilitaries created a culture of silence and where we lived this was a survival strategy we all lived by. We were all products of this violent environment and we were had been desensitised conditioned to events that no child should ever have to witness.
I shuddered, pulled my thin jacket close around me and with the others, headed for the safety of home.
Even now, more than forty years later, whenever I smell the sweet smell aroma of cut grass I am transported back to that dusky spring evening in the early 70’s seventies and the woman’s brutal punishment, and I can hardly believe the madness of my childhood in Glencairn.
Click to oreder To buy my book from amazon follow this link: https://tinyurl.com/wzpp5ra
Reviews
Famous folk loving it
See : Tarring and feathering
See: Belfast Telegraph Public humiliation that was all too familiar during Troubles
- The Andy Rowe Show – My Interview
The Andy Rowe Show – My Interview
Click to listen 
Here’s my latest interview , as you can tell Im rather nervous and as a result I get a little muddled in some areas and stumble over some of the questions and answers as if I have no idea what Im speaking about.
This is simply the story of a boy trying to grow up, survive, thrive, have fun & discover himself against a backdrop of events that might best be described as ‘explosive’, captivating & shocking the world for thirty long years.
To order a copy follow this link https://tinyurl.com/wzpp5ra
- Máire Drumm: Life & Death
…
Máire Drumm
Life & death
22 October 1919 – 28 October 1976
Máire Drumm (22 October 1919 – 28 October 1976) was the vice-president of Sinn Féin and a commander in Cumann na mBan. She was killed by Ulster loyalists while recovering from an eye operation in Belfast’s Mater Hospital.
Born in Newry, County Down, to a staunchly Irish republican family. Drumm’s mother had been active in the War of Independence and the Civil War. Drumm grew up in the village of Killeen, County Armagh, right on the border with County Louth. She played camogie for Killeen. She was active in the republican movement after meeting her husband, a republican prisoner, and became involved in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in the 1960s and worked to rehouse Catholics forced from their homes by loyalist intimidation.
She was jailed twice for seditious speeches. After she was released from HM Prison Armagh, raids on her house by the security forces escalated, her health began to fail and she was admitted to the Mater Hospital, Belfast.
On 28 October 1976, Máire Drumm was shot dead in her hospital bed in a joint operation by the Red Hand Commando.
See: Red Hand Commando
Quotes
Drumm’s speeches and quotations can be found on murals across Northern Ireland. These include:
- “The only people worthy of freedom are those who are prepared to go out and fight for it every day, and die if necessary.“
- “We must take no steps backward, our steps must be onward, for if we don’t, the martyrs that died for you, for me, for this country will haunt us forever.“
See: 28th october
- Aberfan Disaster 21st October 1966: 116 children and 28 adults killed
Aberfan Disaster
21st October 1966
Aberfan is a former coal mining village in the Taff Valley 4 miles (6 km) south of the town of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.
On 21 October 1966, it became known for the Aberfan disaster, when a colliery spoil tip collapsed into homes and a school, killing 116 children and 28 adults.
Aberfan The Untold Story
Aberfan disaster
For many years, millions of cubic metres of excavated mining debris from the colliery were deposited on the side of Mynydd Merthyr, directly above the village of Aberfan on the opposite side of the valley. Huge piles, or “tips”, of loose rock and mining spoil had been built up over a layer of highly porous sandstone that contained numerous underground springs, and several tips had been built up directly over these springs.
Although local authorities had raised specific concerns in 1963 about spoil being tipped on the mountain above the village primary school, these were largely ignored by the National Coal Board‘s area management.
Early on the morning of Friday, 21 October 1966, after several days of heavy rain, a subsidence of about 3–6 metres occurred on the upper flank of colliery waste tip No. 7. At 9:15 a.m. more than 150,000 cubic metres of water-saturated debris broke away and flowed downhill at high speed. A mass of over 40,000 cubic metres of debris slid into the village in a slurry 12 metres (39 ft) deep.
The slide destroyed a farm and twenty terraced houses along Moy Road, and struck the northern side of the Pantglas Junior School and part of the separate senior school, demolishing most of the structures and filling the classrooms with thick mud and rubble up to 10 metres (33 ft) deep. Mud and water from the slide flooded many other houses in the vicinity, forcing many villagers to evacuate their homes.
116 children and 28 adults were killed
Aberfan Memorial
The Queen and Prince Philip visited Aberfan on 29 October 1966.
What Happened At Aberfan? This Is The Full Story | The Crown
After the disaster the Mayor of Merthyr immediately launched a Disaster Fund to aid the village and the bereaved. By the time the Fund closed in January 1967, nearly 90,000 contributions had been received, totalling £1,606,929. The Fund’s final sum was approximately £1,750,000 equivalent to £32 million today .
The concerns of the village and donors grew about how the money in the fund would be used: some felt it should be used to compensate the bereaved, whilst others felt it should benefit the wider community. The funds paid for the memorial garden and cemetery along with other facilities to aid the regeneration of Aberfan both physically and emotionally.
The cemetery is where many of the victims are buried. The original Portland and Nabresina Stone memorials erected shortly after the disaster began to deteriorate, and in 2007 the Aberfan Memorial Charity refurbished the garden area, including all of the archways and memorials. The weathered masonry was replaced with polished pearl white granite, all inscriptions were re-engraved and additional archways were erected.
The Coventry Playground was built in 1972 on the site of the old Merthyr Vale School, with money collected by the people of Coventry. The playground was officially opened by the mayor of Coventry.
A memorial garden was opened on the site of Pantglas Primary School, which was destroyed during the disaster. The park was partly opened by the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, on her visit to Aberfan in 1974.
The Aberfan Memorial Charity was founded in 1989 and is responsible for the maintenance and repair of the cemetery and memorial garden
Place of worship
Bethania Welsh Independent Chapel was built in 1876 and rebuilt in 1885. At the time of the Aberfan disaster in 1966 the chapel was used as a temporary mortuary where victims were taken to be identified by relatives. The chapel was demolished in 1967 and a new chapel erected in 1970. By 2007 the chapel had fallen into disrepair and was closed; memorial items from the disaster were relocated to Cardiff Bay.
Aberfan Calvinistic Methodist chapel was built 1876, in an Italianate style. The foundation stone was laid by Sarah Griffiths, wife of the owner of the Aberfan Estate. It became a Grade II listed building in August 1999, for its architectural interest as a well-designed Victorian chapel with an unaltered stone facade; it was judged to be prominent in Aberfan, and had retained its interior with a good gallery.
After the Aberfan disaster, the chapel was furnished with a memorial organ by the Queen. After extensive renovation, the chapel reopened at Easter 2008, but dry rot quickly set in, destroying newly installed window frames and beams. The cost of repair was estimated at £60,000. In August 2012 parishioners were banned from attending the church after an inspection condemned the building, and in October it was offered for sale, with a guide price of £22,000.
Inhabitants of the Welsh mining village of Aberfan attend the mass funeral for 81 of the 190 children and adults who perished when a landslide engulfed the junior school. (Photo by George Freston/Getty Images) 
GB. WALES. Aberfan Coal Slip Disaster. Two surviving children stand at the top of the hill overlooking the miners digging to find children still buried in the slag. Over one hundred children in the apparent safety of their school were buried under the waste of a sliding coal tip. 1966. 
In 2015 a fire was reported at the chapel in the early hours of 11 July. Fire crews from Merthyr, Treharris, Abercynon, Aberbargoed, Pontypridd and Barry attended, spending a total of eight hours at the scene. Nearby houses were evacuated.
Pyromaniac: Daniel Brown, 27, has been jailed for five years for torching a chapel used as a mortuary for 116 children killed in the Aberfan disaster A 27-year-old man was later arrested in relation to the fire
The village has two smaller chapels: the former Smyrna Baptist Chapel, built in 1877, which is now closed and is used as a community centre, and the Zion Methodist Chapel, originally English Primitive Methodist, located on Bridge Street and built in 1891
See: Man jailed for torching chapel used as mortuary for 116 children killed in Aberfan disaster
Main Source : Wikipedia Aberfan Disaster
- A signed copy of my book ? Last chance for Xmas delivery
Signed copy of my book
Hi folks
See below for details on how to order a signed copy:
The book is selling beyond my wildest expectations and the reviews are awesome , so good in fact you’d think I was paying for them ,lol
I have quite a few copies at home and if you would like to receive a signed copy they cost only £10.00 plus postage .
Click a buy now button below to order
UK Orders
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Click here to buy You can email directly : belfastchildis@googlemail.com
Date 1st September 2020
Here’s a quick update on the book launch, promo and a link to order a signed copy.
Only thirteen days to go until my life story is in the public domain and having worked on it and waited almost twenty five years to see it in print I must admit I’m extremely nervous and apprehensive about its forthcoming release.
Having grown up during and lived through some of the worst years of the Troubles I know my story is far from unique and many have suffered far more both physically and emotionally due to the nightmare that stalked our lives for thirty long blood soaked years.
However due to the secret of my dual heritage, compounded by growing up in and around some of the most violent Loyalist estates in West Belfast the sudden and final disappearance of my catholic mother hunted me throughout my life and my search for her is the main theme throughout the book. The Troubles provide the backdrop and needless to say my story includes brief accounts of some of the highest profile and soul-destroying times that we all lived through.
Although I know this area will be a very divisive issue I hope when reading it folk bear in mind that I’m writing about these accounts as seen through the eyes of a child living through them.
Despite the madness throughout the book/my life there is much laughter and many accounts also of my crazy teenage years in and around Glencairn and drug fuelled mod years and later the rave scene in and around London. When all is said and done no one else has ever walked in my shoes and although I expect much criticism when folk read the book, I hope it might make them stop and think for a moment : Was it all worth it ?
I think not.
Promo
Sadly, due to the coronavirus I will not be doing book signings in Belfast, Scotland and Ireland as originally planned. Thank god because I hate that side of things and wasn’t really looking forward to it to be honest lol. The publisher has informed me that this may change over the coming months and I will keep you updated via here or on Twitter.
If you want a signed copy of the book see blow.
In regards to interviews etc there are quite a few lined up, including radio , podcasts , TV and in print and I will be posting details of these as and when they happen or become available.
Another aspect of the publishing world Im not looking forward to.
The cost is £10.00 plus £2.50 for postage per book.
Please note the book will be dispatched within a few days of payment
Click here to buy directly from Amazon : Buy A Belfast Child
My Email: belfastchildis@googlemail.com
- Introduction to my book: Read it here plus top reviews
A Belfast Child
by
John Chambers
Read the introduction to my No.1 Best Selling book here:
INTRODUCTION
‘Historically, Unionist politicians fed their electorate the myth that they were first class citizens . . . and without question people believed them. Historically, Republican/Nationalist politicians fed their electorate the myth that they were second class citizens . . . and without question the people believed them. In reality, the truth of the matter was that we all, Protestant and Catholic, were third class citizens, and none of us realised it!’
Hugh Smyth, OBE (1941–
–2014). Unionist politician.Although I was raised in what is probably one of the most Loyalist council estates in Belfast, I was never what you might term a conventional ‘Prod’. Don’t get me wrong – coming from Glencairn, situated just above the famous Shankill Road and populated by Protestants (and their descendants) who fled intimidation, violence and death in other parts of Belfast at the beginning of the Troubles, I was (and remain) a Loyalist through and through. I was unashamedly proud of my Northern Irish Protestant ancestry (still am) and couldn’t wait for all the fun and games to be had on 12th ‘The Twelfth’, or ‘Orangeman’s Day’ (still can’t). Even after 30 plus years of living away from the place my dreams are populated by bags of Tayto Cheese & n Onion crisps, pastie suppers from Beattie’s on the Shankill and pints of Harp lager. I cheer on the Northern Ireland Football team (though I’m not a massive football fan I watch all the big games) and I bitch frequently about the doings of Sinn Fein.
I’m a working-class Belfast Loyalist through and through and very proud of my culture and traditions. Yet from an early age I sensed that I was somehow different. As a child I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and when I discovered the truth in my early teens, I was embarrassed, mortified and ashamed – but maybe not particularly shocked. I always knew there was something not ‘quite right’ about me. The secret was that I wasn’t as ‘Super Prod’ as I thought; there was another strand of Northern Irish tradition in my background, one that was equally working-class Belfast, but as diametrically opposed to Protestantism as you’re likely to get. There’s a comedy song that probably still does the rounds in clubs across Ireland, North and South, called ‘The Orange and The Green’, the chorus of which goes something like ‘It is the biggest mix-up that you have ever seen/My father he was Orange and my mother she was Green.’ In other words, a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. This song could have been written about our family directly, so closely did it match our dynamic.
Now, if you’re reading this from the comfort of any other country than Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland or Scotland, you’ll be (just about) forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. Catholics marrying Protestants? So what? No big deal, surely. No one cares . But in a country like Northern Ireland, where tribalism still reigns supreme and the local people can sniff out a person’s religion just by looking at them, the
The marriage of my own parents, John Chambers (Protestant) and Sally McBride (Catholic), fell apart in the late 1960s as Belfast burned in the early days of the Troubles. The ferocity of hatred between the city’s two warring communities scorched many people desperately trying to find sanctuary in a country heading towards all–out civil war. As we’ll see, my parents’ marriage was among these early casualties. Their lives, and the lives of their four children, would change forever and were shaped by the sectarian madness that tore Belfast and all of Northern Ireland apart and brought us all to the brink of an abyss that threatened and ruined our daily lives.
This isn’t a book about the day-to-day events of the Troubles. There are plenty of excellent histories available detailing the period in all its gory glory, and from all viewpoints. If you need deep context, I’d recommend reading one of these, or even visiting Belfast. It’s safe now and as a tourist you won’t find a warmer welcome anywhere on this earth. As we say, Northern Irish people are the friendliest in the world – just not towards each other.
Although I love history, I’m not a historian and I don’t intend this book to be a dry run through of the events of 1969 onwards. As I child I learned the stories and legends of the Battle of Boyne and the Siege of Derry at my grandfather’s and father’s knees, becoming immersed in the Loyalist culture that would shape and dominate my whole existence.
I just happened to be there at the time – an ordinary kid in an extraordinary situation made even more complicated by the secret of my dual heritage. This is simply the story of a boy trying to grow up, survive, thrive, have fun and discover himself against a backdrop of events that might best be described as ‘explosive’, captivating and shocking the world for thirty
30long years. I’ve written this book because even I find my own story hard to believe sometimes, and only when I see it on the shelves will I truly know that it happened. In addition, it’s a story I would like my own children and grandchildren to read.I want them to live in peace, harmony and understanding in a multicultural world where everyone tolerates and respects each other. I suppose I’ve always been a dreamer….
When they read my book, which I hope they will, they might understand what it is to grow up in conflict, hatred and intolerance, and work towards a better future for themselves and others. When I was
20twenty,21twenty-one, I knew that if I didn’t leave Northern Ireland soon, I would end up either in prison or dead, or on the dole for rest of my life. This was the brutal reality I was faced with. My own personal journey through life and the Troubles had lead me to a crossroads in my life and I made the monumental choice to leave Belfast and all those I loved behind and start a new life in London.I would hate to think my son, daughter or nephews and nieces back in Belfast would ever have to make the same drastic judgement about their own situation.
My Loyalist heart and soul respects and loves all mankind, and providing the
As a child growing in Loyalist Belfast during the worst years of the Troubles, I hated Catholics with a passion and I could never forgive them for what I saw as their passive support of the IRA and other Republican terrorist groups. However, unlike many of my peers around me, I was never comfortable with the killing of non-combatants, regardless of political or religious background, and I mourned the death of innocent Catholics as much as innocent Protestants. In my childhood, I looked up to the Loyalist warlords and those who served them and when they killed an IRA member I celebrated with those around me. As I grew older and wiser my views changed. I no longer based my opinions and hatred on religion, but on politics and the humanity shown to others.
I’m a peace-loving Loyalist and therefore want everlasting peace in Northern Ireland. We do exist, despite perceptions from some quarters, but our voices are rarely heard, drowned out by the actions of the few, and certainly nowhere near as frequently as our Republican neighbours who are very much ‘on message’ with their own take on events. I hope this book goes some way to redressing that balance, and that whatever ‘side’ you might be on (or on no side at all) you will enjoy it, and that it will make you stop and think.
Finally, the story you are about to read is my own personal journey through the Troubles and my perception of growing up in Loyalist Belfast. In no way am I speaking for the wider Loyalist community or Protestant people and the views expressed here are my own. For reasons of security, some names have been changed.
John Chambers
England, April 2020
Click to buy Click here to buy: A Belfast Child by John Chambers
Click here to read more reviews
- Captain Robert Falcon Scott & the ill fated Terra Nova Expedition
Robert Falcon Scott & the ill fated Terra Nova Expedition
Robert Falcon Scott CVO (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition of 1910–1913.
On the first expedition, he set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S and discovered the Antarctic Plateau, on which the South Pole is located. On the second venture, Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, less than five weeks after Amundsen’s South Pole expedition.
The deadly race to the South Pole
A planned meeting with supporting dog teams from the base camp failed, despite Scott’s written instructions, and at a distance of 162 miles (261 km) from their base camp at Hut Point and approximately 12.5 miles (20 km) from the next depot, Scott and his companions died.
Scott’s Last Letter
I want to tell you that I was not too old for this job. It was the younger men that went under first.
Scott’s Last Letter “I want you to secure a competence for my widow and boy. I leave them very ill provided for but feel the country ought not to neglect them. After all, we are setting a good example to our countrymen, if not by getting into a tight place, by facing it like men when we were there.”
Race to the South Pole-The Terra Nova Expedition Documentary
When Scott and his party’s bodies were discovered, they had in their possession the first Antarctic fossils ever discovered. The fossils were determined to be from the Glossopteris tree and proved that Antarctica was once forested and joined to other continents.
Before his appointment to lead the Discovery expedition, Scott had followed the career of a naval officer in the Royal Navy. In 1899, he had a chance encounter with Sir Clements Markham, the president of the Royal Geographical Society, and thus learned of a planned Antarctic expedition, which he soon volunteered to lead.
Having taken this step, his name became inseparably associated with the Antarctic, the field of work to which he remained committed during the final 12 years of his life.
The grave of Scott and bowers Following the news of his death, Scott became a celebrated hero, a status reflected by memorials erected across the UK. However, in the last decades of the 20th century, questions were raised about his competence and character. Commentators in the 21st century have regarded Scott more positively after assessing the temperature drop below −40 °C (−40 °F) in March 1912, and after re-discovering Scott’s written orders of October 1911, in which he had instructed the dog teams to meet and assist him on the return trip.
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Captain Scott and Southern party at the South Pole. British Antarctic Expedition, 1910-13. Photographer: Henry Bowers 
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See: Scott of the Antarctic – the last letter: ‘Excuse the writing – it’s been minus 40
See: Captain Scott’s Antarctic team letters published in book
See: Captain Scott: Facts and Information
See: Captain Robert Falcon Wikipedia
Terra Nova Expedition
Routes to the South Pole taken by Scott and Amundsen The Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. It was led by Robert Falcon Scott and had various scientific and geographical objectives. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery expedition to the Antarctic from 1901 to 1904. He also wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole. He and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, where they found that the Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. Scott’s entire party died on the return journey from the pole; some of their bodies, journals, and photographs were found by a search party eight months later.
The expedition, named after its supply ship, was a private venture, financed by public contributions and a government grant. It had further backing from the Admiralty, which released experienced seamen to the expedition, and from the Royal Geographical Society.
The expedition’s team of scientists carried out a comprehensive scientific programme, while other parties explored Victoria Land and the Western Mountains. An attempted landing and exploration of King Edward VII Land was unsuccessful. A journey to Cape Crozier in June and July 1911 was the first extended sledging journey in the depths of the Antarctic winter.
For many years after his death, Scott’s status as tragic hero was unchallenged, and few questions were asked about the causes of the disaster which overcame his polar party. In the final quarter of the 20th century the expedition came under closer scrutiny, and more critical views were expressed about its organization and management. The degree of Scott’s personal culpability and, more recently, the culpability of certain expedition members, remains controversial
- Death of Robert Hamill: 27th April 1997
Death of Robert Hamill
Robert Hamill Robert Hamill was an Irish Catholic civilian who was beaten to death by a loyalist mob in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Hamill and his friends were attacked on 27 April 1997 on the town’s main street. It has been claimed that the local Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), parked a short distance away, did nothing to stop the attack.
At the time of the murder, tension between loyalists (mainly Protestants) and Irish nationalists (mainly Catholics) was high, mostly due to the ongoing Drumcree parade dispute.
— Disclaimer –
The views and opinions expressed in this post/documentaries are solely intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors.
Death
Loyalism RUC Robert Hamill
Hamill and his friends were attacked by a group of loyalists while walking home from St. Patrick’s dance hall at about 1.30 a.m on 27 April 1997.
After walking along Market Street from the dance hall, they came to the intersection of Market and Thomas Streets in Portadown, where they were attacked. Hamill and his friend, Gregory Girvan, were kicked by the crowd while their attackers shouted abuse at them and Robert Hamill was knocked unconscious almost immediately.
Girvan’s wife and sister, Joanne and Siobhán Garvin, respectively, called for help from four RUC officers sitting in a Land Rover about twenty feet away from the attack, but they did not intervene to stop the attack. The assault lasted about ten minutes, leaving both men unconscious. Just before the ambulance arrived, one of the RUC men got out of the Land Rover and told Garvin to put Robert into the recovery position.
Robert Hamill never regained consciousness and died of his injuries eleven days later on 8 May 1997, aged 25. The cause of his death was recorded as
“Diffuse Brain Injury associated with Fracture of Skull due to Blows to the Head”.
Six people were arrested after Robert Hamill’s death, but only one was eventually tried for his murder.
Investigation
Trial of Paul Hobson
Paul R. Hobson was charged with murder, but found not guilty, though he was found guilty of unlawful fighting and causing an affray and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. The case under which Hobson was prosecuted is questionable as the main witness,
Constable Atkinson of the then RUC, was at one stage a suspect in conspiracy to cause murder in the same case. His solicitor also did not use crucial evidence in the case to cross-examine witnesses. Mr. Justice McCollum said during his verdict that the killing was a sectarian act, with a very large number of loyalists attacking a small number of nationalists, but that he could not decide whether the RUC men had left their Land Rover or not during the attack.
Allegations of police collusion
The RUC have been criticised for initially claiming in press releases that there was a riot between two large groups; then afterwards claiming it was a large group attacking a group of four. Rosemary Nelson was solicitor for the Hamill family until she was assassinated by a loyalist car bomb in Lurgan
See Rosemary Nelson
There have been allegations of collusion between the RUC and suspects. A public inquiry is currently being held on the recommendation of Cory Collusion Inquiry
New charges
In December 2010 it was announced that three people, including a former RUC officer, were to be charged in relation to Robert Hamill’s death.
In September 2014 District Judge Peter King, sitting at Craigavon court, ruled that a key witness was entirely unreliable and utterly unconvincing. The case against the three, ex-policeman Robert Cecil Atkinson, his wife Eleanor Atkinson, and Kenneth Hanvey, was not sufficient to try.
Man acquitted of Robert Hamill’s Murder in Portadown, March 1999
References
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h Cory Collusion Report Robert Hamill
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g The Sectarian Killing of Robert Hamill Archived 2009-09-06 at the Wayback Machine, Amnesty International, 1 October 1999.
- ^ Portadown man cleared of Robert Hamill’s murder, RTÉ News, 25 March 1999
- ^ Claims against RUC at Hamill inquiry, RTÉ News, 13 January 2009
- ^ Robert Hamill Inquiry
- ^ Moriarty, Gerry (22 December 2010). “Former RUC officer to be charged in Hamill case”. The Irish Times. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
- ^ “Robert Hamill murder: Three accused will not face trial”. BBC News. Retrieved 2016-07-23.
- John Bingham UVF : Life & Death
John Bingham Life & Death
John Dowey Bingham (c. 1953 – 14 September 1986) was a prominent Northern Irish loyalist who led “D Company” (Ballysillan), 1st Battalion, Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). He was shot dead by the Provisional IRA after they had broken into his home.
Bingham was one of a number of prominent UVF members to be assassinated during the 1980s, the others being Lenny Murphy, William Marchant, Robert Seymour and Jackie Irvine
– Disclaimer –
The views and opinions expressed in these pages/documentaries are solely intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors.
Ulster Volunteer Force
John Bingham was born in Northern Ireland around 1953 and was brought up in a Protestant family. Described as a shopkeeper, he was married with two children. He lived in Ballysillan Crescent, in the unionist estate of Ballysillan in North Belfast, and also owned a holiday caravan home in Millisle, County Down.
He was a member of the “Old Boyne Island Heroes” Lodge of the Orange Order. On an unknown date, he joined the Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation, the UVF, and eventually became the commander of its “D Company”, 1st Battalion, Ballysillan, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
See: Oranger Order
He was the mastermind behind a productive gun-running operation from Canada, which over the years had involved the smuggling of illegal weapons into Northern Ireland to supply UVF arsenals; however, three months after Bingham’s death, the entire operation collapsed following a raid on a house in Toronto by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in December 1986.
Bingham was one of the loyalist paramilitaries named in the evidence given by supergrass Joe Bennett, who accused him of being a UVF commander. He testified that he had seen Bingham armed with an M60 machine gun and claimed that Bingham had been sent to Toronto to raise funds for the UVF.
These meetings opened contact with Canadian businessman John Taylor, who became involved in smuggling guns from North America to the UVF. As a result of Bennett’s testimony, Bingham was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment after being convicted of committing serious crimes.
He publicly denounced the supergrass system before live television cameras outside Belfast’s Crumlin Road Courthouse when he was released in December 1984 after his conviction had been overturned, having spent two and a half years in prison.
Martin Dillon On one occasion, Bingham allegedly placed a loaded pistol inside journalist Martin Dillon‘s mouth because of the latter’s offensive words he had used against him. In an attempt to make amends for his threat, Bingham invited Dillon to visit him at his home in North Belfast.
Dillon accepted the invitation and after several whiskeys and brandishing a pistol, Bingham offered to show him his racing pigeons as he was an avid pigeon fancier. He then told Dillon that he shouldn’t believe what people said about him claiming that he couldn’t harm a pigeon. As they said farewell at the front door, Bingham reportedly murmured in a cold voice to Dillon:
“You ever write about me again and I’ll blow yer fuckin’ brains out, because you’re not a pigeon”.
Killing
IRA Belfast Brigade, shoot & kill UVF Inner Council memember John Bingham 14 September 1986
In July 1986, a 25-year-old Catholic civilian, Colm McCallan, was shot close to his Ligoniel home; two days later, he died of his wounds. The IRA sought to avenge McCallan’s death by killing Bingham, the man they held responsible for the shooting.[
Bingham was also believed to have been behind the deaths of several other Catholic civilians.
Ballysillan, north Belfast, where John Bingham lived and commanded the Ballysillan UVF
At 1:30 am on 14 September 1986, Bingham had just returned to Ballysillan Crescent from his caravan home in Millisle. Three gunmen from the IRA’s Ardoyne 3rd Battalion Belfast Brigade, armed with two automatic rifles and a .38 Special, smashed down his front door with a sledgehammer and shot Bingham twice in the legs. Despite his injuries, Bingham ran up the stairs in an attempt to escape his attackers and had just reached a secret door at the top when the gunmen shot him three more times, killing him.
He was 33 years old. He was given a UVF paramilitary funeral, which was attended by politicians from the two main unionist parties, the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Members of his “Old Boyne Island Heroes” Orange Order (OO) Lodge formed the guard of honour around his coffin, which was covered with the UVF flag and his gloves and beret. Prominent DUP activist George Seawright helped carry the coffin whilst wearing his OO sash, and called for revenge.
See: George Seawright
In retaliation, the UVF killed Larry Marley, a leading IRA member from Ardoyne who was also a close friend of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams. The IRA in their turn gunned down William “Frenchie” Marchant the following spring on the Shankill Road. The deaths of three leading UVF members caused suspicion amongst the UVF leadership that someone within their ranks was setting up high-ranking UVF men by passing on pertinent information to the IRA; therefore, they decided to conduct an enquiry.
Although it was revealed that the three men, Shankill Butcher Lenny Murphy, Bingham, and Marchant had all quarrelled with powerful UDA fund-raiser and racketeer James Pratt Craig prior to their deaths, the UVF did not believe the evidence was sufficient to warrant an attack against Craig, who ran a large protection racket in Belfast.
James Craig Craig was later shot to death in an East Belfast pub by the UDA (using their “Ulster Freedom Fighters” covername) for “treason”, claiming he had been involved in the assassination of South Belfast UDA brigadier John McMichael, who was blown up by a booby-trap car bomb planted by the IRA outside his Lisburn home in December 1987.
See : James Craig
In Ballysillan Road, there is a memorial plaque dedicated to the memory of Bingham. His name is also on the banner of the “Old Boyne Island Heroes” Lodge.
- Signed copy of my book & update on book launch /Promo
- My book Update for Blog
Hi Folks ,
Just a very short post to let you all know that the book has been out for a week now and is selling beyond my wildest dreams or expectations.
I’ve been rank in the top three – five in three different categories ( this fluctuates daily) since launch day and the repsond so far has been awesome.
Needless to say Im delighted with this and excited about the coming weeks and the various promotional events/interviews lined up.
To order following this link : You can pre-order via https://tinyurl.com/wzpp5ra or see my pinned Tweet below.
- Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division: Iconic Songs & the story behind them
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Joy Division
June 1980
Iconic Songs & the story behind them
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” is a song by English rock band Joy Division, released in June 1980. Its lyrics were inspired by lead singer Ian Curtis‘ marriage problems and frame of mind before his suicide in May 1980
Recording
Joy Division first recorded “Love Will Tear Us Apart” at Pennine Studios, Oldham, on 8 January 1980, along with the B-side, “These Days”. This version was similar to the version the band played live. However, singer Ian Curtis and producer Martin Hannett disliked the results, and the band reconvened at Strawberry Studios, Stockport in March to rerecord it.
Drummer Stephen Morris recalled:
Stephen Morris Martin Hannett played one of his mind games when we were recording it – it sounds like he was a tyrant, but he wasn’t, he was nice. We had this one battle where it was nearly midnight and I said, “Is it all right if I go home, Martin – it’s been a long day?”
And he said [whispers], “OK … you go home”.
So I went back to the flat. Just got to sleep and the phone rings.
“Martin wants you to come back and do the snare drum”.
At four in the morning! I said,
“What’s wrong with the snare drum!?”
So every time I hear “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, I grit my teeth and remember myself shouting down the phone,
“YOU BASTARD!” …
I can feel the anger in it even now. It’s a great song and it’s a great production, but I do get anguished every time I hear it.
The guitar on the recording, a 12-string Eko guitar, was played by Bernard Sumner. While Curtis generally did not play guitar, to perform the song live, the band taught him how to strum a D major chord. Sumner said:
Ian Curtis Ian didn’t really want to play guitar, but for some reason we wanted him to play it. I can’t remember the reason now … We showed him how to play D and we wrote a song. I wonder if that’s why we wrote “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, you could drone a D through it. I think he played it live because I was playing keyboards.
While Joy Division were recording, U2 were in the studio to see Hannett about producing their first album, Boy. U2 singer Bono said of the encounter:
Bono Talking to Ian Curtis is … or was a strange experience because he’s very warm … he talked—it was like two people inside of him—he talked very light, and he talked very well-mannered, and very polite.
But when he got behind the microphone he really surged forth; there was another energy. It seemed like he was just two people and, you know, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, it was like [when] that record was released … it was like, as if, there were the personalities, separate; there they were, torn apart.
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart, 1995 Remastered Version (Official Video)
Releases
Lyrics
“Love Will Tear Us Apart”
When routine bites hard,
And ambitions are low,
And resentment rides high,
But emotions won’t grow,
And we’re changing our ways,
Taking different roads.Then love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.Why is the bedroom so cold?
You’ve turned away on your side.
Is my timing that flawed?
Our respect runs so dry.
Yet there’s still this appeal
That we’ve kept through our lives.But love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.You cry out in your sleep,
All my failings exposed.
And there’s a taste in my mouth,
As desperation takes hold.
Just that something so good
Just can’t function no more.But love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.
Love, love will tear us apart again.
Joy Division “Love Will Tear Us Apart” became Joy Division’s first chart hit, reaching number 13 in the UK Singles Chart.
The following month, the single topped the UK Indie Chart. The song also peaked at number 42 on the Billboard disco chart in October 1980.
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” also reached number 1 in New Zealand in June 1981.
The single was re-released in 1983 and reached number 19 on the UK charts and number 3 in New Zealand during March 1984. In 1985, the 7″ single was released in Poland by Tonpress in different sleeve under licence from Factory and sold over 20,000 copies. In November 1988, it made one more Top 40 appearance in New Zealand, peaking at number 39.
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” appears on the Substance compilation album. It was first recorded for a John Peel session in November 1979, then re-recorded in January 1980 and March 1980. It is the latter version that appears on Substance. The January 1980 version, which has become known as the “Pennine version”, originally appeared as one of the single’s B-sides.
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart (Pennine Version)
In 1995, to publicise the release of Permanent, the track was reissued, complete with a new remix by Arthur Baker and a new radio edit, also known as the “Permanent Mix”. On 24 September 2007, the single was again reissued, in its original configuration. This time, it was to publicise the Collector’s Edition re-issues of the band’s three albums. Although the single was now issued on the Warner label, it retained the classic Factory packaging, including the FAC 23 catalogue number.
Cover photo
According to Curtis’s wife Deborah, to create the single cover photo, the song title was etched upon a sheet of metal; this was aged with acid and exposed to the weather to create the appearance of a stone slab.
For the 12″ version of the single, a photograph of a grieving angel on the Ribaudo family tomb in Genoa‘s Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno (sculpted by Onorato Toso circa 1910) was used. This photograph was taken by Bernard Pierre Wolff in 1978.
Music video
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]
The video was shot by the band themselves on 25 April 1980 as they rehearsed the song at T.J. Davidson’s studio, where the band had previously rehearsed during the early days of their career. At the start of the video, the door that opens and shuts is carved with Ian Curtis’ name; reportedly this was the beginning of an abusive message (the rest later erased) carved into the door.
Due to poor production, the video’s colour is ‘browned out’ at some points. Also, as the track recorded during the recording of the video was poor, it was replaced with the single-edit recording of the song by the band’s record company in Australia, leading to problems with the synchronisation of music and video. This edited version of the music video would later become the official version due to the improvement of sound quality.
This was the only promotional video the band ever produced as Ian Curtis hanged himself three weeks after the video was recorded.
Legacy
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” was named NME Single of the Year in 1980, and was listed as the best single of all time by NME in 2002.
In 2004, the song was listed by Rolling Stone magazine at number 179 in its list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.
In 2011, the song was listed at number 181.
In May 2007, NME placed it at number 19 in its list of the 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever, one place ahead of another Joy Division song, “Transmission”. The song is also listed as being one of the 5 best indie songs of all time in the “All Time Indie Top 50”.
The song reached number 1 in the inaugural Triple J Hottest 100 music poll of 1989 and again in 1990. When being interviewed for New Order Story, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys stated that “Love Will Tear Us Apart” was his favourite pop song of all time.
At Christmas 2011, listeners of Dublin’s Phantom FM voted “Love Will Tear Us Apart” as their favourite song of all time. Furthermore, in 2012, in celebration of the NME‘s 60th anniversary, a list of the 100 Greatest Songs of NME‘s Lifetime was compiled, and the list was topped by “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. Serbian rock musician, journalist and writer Dejan Cukić wrote about “Love Will Tear Us Apart” as one of the 46 songs that changed history of popular music in his 2007 book 45 obrtaja: Priče o pesmama. In 2015, the online magazine Pitchfork listed “Love Will Tear Us Apart” as number 7 upon their “200 best songs of the 1980s” compilation
Following Curtis’s suicide, his wife Deborah had the phrase “Love Will Tear Us Apart” inscribed on his memorial stone.
In June 2013, Mighty Box Games released Will Love Tear Us Apart?, a browser-based video game that adapts every verse of the song into a level
My Thoughts ?
Epic and awesome on so many different levels and one of my fave tunes of all time. The melancholy lyrics and theme of the tune touch my heart and souls everytime I hear it and it never grows old. Truly a song that defined the music scene back then.
New Order – Love Will Tear Us Apart [Live in Glasgow]
THE CURE – Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division COVER)
Joy Division: The Story Of the Band & Death of Ian Curtis
Love Will Tear Us Apart – Nerina Pallot
See: Joy Division open up about ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’
See: Ian Curtis
See: Joy Division
- Signed copy of my book & update on book launch /Promo
Signed copy of my book & update on book launch /Promo
Hi folks
See below for details on how to order a signed copy:
12th Sep 2020
Well folks the book is a No.1 best Seller to my absolute delight and Im buzzinf
Signed copy of my book: A Belfast Child
Please note I am waiting on a delivery of books from the warehouse and therefore if you order a signed copy it will take a little longer to reach you.
Also, if you are ordering from outside the UK the postage is substantially higher and I suggest you email me and I will send you an online invoice with an amended price to cover postage charges.
If you can’t wait to read my amazing story you can order directly from Amazon:
Use the link below to order a signed copy.
Click to buy You can email directly : belfastchildis@googlemail.com
I’m actually embarrassed offering this option but quite a few folk have contacted me enquiring about a signed copy and therefore I thought I’d make this available to those interested.
If you would like a signed copy of my book, please purchase via this link (above) and fill in the contact form below, making sure to include your email and the text you wish to appear in the book. If you require more than one copy, please email me and I will send you details and an online invoice.
Date 1st September 2020
Here’s a quick update on the book launch, promo and a link to order a signed copy.
Only thirteen days to go until my life story is in the public domain and having worked on it and waited almost twenty five years to see it in print I must admit I’m extremely nervous and apprehensive about its forthcoming release.
Having grown up during and lived through some of the worst years of the Troubles I know my story is far from unique and many have suffered far more both physically and emotionally due to the nightmare that stalked our lives for thirty long blood soaked years.
However due to the secret of my dual heritage, compounded by growing up in and around some of the most violent Loyalist estates in West Belfast the sudden and final disappearance of my catholic mother hunted me throughout my life and my search for her is the main theme throughout the book. The Troubles provide the backdrop and needless to say my story includes brief accounts of some of the highest profile and soul-destroying times that we all lived through.
Although I know this area will be a very divisive issue I hope when reading it folk bear in mind that I’m writing about these accounts as seen through the eyes of a child living through them.
Despite the madness throughout the book/my life there is much laughter and many accounts also of my crazy teenage years in and around Glencairn and drug fuelled mod years and later the rave scene in and around London. When all is said and done no one else has ever walked in my shoes and although I expect much criticism when folk read the book, I hope it might make them stop and think for a moment : Was it all worth it ?
I think not.
Promo
Sadly, due to the coronavirus I will not be doing book signings in Belfast, Scotland and Ireland as originally planned. Thank god because I hate that side of things and wasn’t really looking forward to it to be honest lol. The publisher has informed me that this may change over the coming months and I will keep you updated via here or on Twitter.
If you want a signed copy of the book see blow.
In regards to interviews etc there are quite a few lined up, including radio , podcasts , TV and in print and I will be posting details of these as and when they happen or become available.
Another aspect of the publishing world Im not looking forward to.
The cost is £10.00 plus £2.50 for postage per book.
Please note the book will be dispatched within a few days of payment
Click here to buy directly from Amazon : Buy A Belfast Child
My Email: belfastchildis@googlemail.com
- Testing something – Help ?
Can someone please be kind enough to fill this short form in , dont matter what Im just testing something out on my blog.
Cheers
- Shot at Dawn Memorial
Shot at Dawn Memorial
The Shot at Dawn Memorial is a monument at the National Memorial Arboretum near Alrewas, in Staffordshire, UK.
It commemorates the 306 British Army and Commonwealth soldiers executed after courts-martial for desertion and other capital offences during World War I.
Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or post without permission (a pass, liberty or leave) and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with unauthorized absence (UA) or absence without leave (AWOL , which are temporary forms of absence.
,
Background
The memorial is to servicemen executed by firing squad during the First World War. It is alleged that soldiers accused of cowardice were often not given fair trials; they were often not properly defended, and some were minors.
Shot at Dawn, National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, by Roy Kevin Holloway
Other sources contend that military law, being based on Roman rather than Common law, appears unfamiliar to civilian eyes but is no less fair.
It was the court’s role to establish facts, for example, not for prosecutors and defenders to argue their cases; and Holmes states:
“it was the first duty of the court to ensure the prisoner had every advantage to what he was legally entitled”.
If men seemed unrepresented it was because they generally chose to speak in their own defence. The usual cause for their offences has been re-attributed in modern times to post-traumatic stress syndrome and combat stress reaction. Another perspective is that the decisions to execute were taken in the heat of war when the commander’s job was to keep the army together and fighting.
Of the 200,000 or so men court-martialed during the First World War, 20,000 were found guilty of offences carrying the death penalty. Of those, 3000 actually received it, and of those sentences, 346 were carried out.
The others were given lesser sentences, or had death sentences commuted to a lesser punishment, e.g. hard labour, field punishment or a suspended sentence (91 of the men executed were under a suspended sentence: 41 of those executed were previously subject to commuted death sentences, and one had a death sentence commuted twice before). Of the 346 men executed, 309 were pardoned, while the remaining 37 were those executed for murder, who would have been executed under civilian law.
The families of these victims often carried the stigma of the label of :
“coward”.
Another side to this form of justice is the lasting emotional pain caused to those who were in the firing squads, shooting those found guilty.
WW1 Veterans Recall Executions
Britain was one of the last countries to withhold pardons for men executed during World War I: In 1993, John Major emphasised to the House of Commons that pardoning the men would be an insult to those who died honourably on the battlefield and that everyone was tried fairly.
However, in August 2006 the then Defence Secretary, Des Browne, reversed this decision. He stated that he did not want:
Lord Browne of Ladyton “to second guess the decisions made by commanders in the field, who were doing their best to apply the rules and standards of the time”, but that “it is better to acknowledge that injustices were clearly done in some cases, even if we cannot say which – and to acknowledge that all these men were victims of war”
In 2007, the Armed Forces Act 2006 was passed allowing the soldiers to be pardoned posthumously, although section 359(4) of the act states that the pardon “does not affect any conviction or sentence.”
Memorial
Andy DeComyn The memorial was created by the British public artist Andy DeComyn. It was created in 2000 as a gift from the artist to the relatives and was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum by Gertrude Harris, daughter of Private Harry Farr, in June 2001. Marina Brewis, the great-niece of Lance Corporal Peter Goggins, also attended the service.
The memorial portrays a young British soldier blindfolded and tied to a stake, ready to be shot by a firing squad.
The memorial was modelled on the likeness of 17-year-old Private Herbert Burden, who lied about his age to enlist in the armed forces and was later shot for desertion.
It is surrounded by a semicircle of stakes, on each of which are listed the names of the soldiers executed in this fashion.
Tables
By Nationality
*129 Australian servicemen were sentenced to death, 119 of them for desertion, but all of these sentences were commuted by the Australian Governor-General.
By Theatre of War
By Charge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_at_Dawn_Memorial
See: Post Traumatic stress disorder
See: Shell Shock – The Trauma of Battle
See: Fragging – The deliberate killing or attempted killing by a soldier of a fellow soldier
- Patrick Rooney First Child killed in the Troubles 14th August 1969 : Northern Ireland History
Patrick Rooney Age 9
First Child killed in the Troubles
Patrick Rooney
14th August 1969
Patrick was the first child to be killed during the Troubles he died shortly after being struck by a tracer bullet by the RUC as he lay in his bed in his family home in Divis Tower. The shot was fired from a heavy browning machine-gun mounted on an RUC Shorland armoured car.
The Scarman tribunal concluded that the shot was not justified.
The report described the activities of three Shorland vehicles which passed up and down Divis Street in the vicinity of Divis Tower. Ordered into the area after the fatal shooting of Herbert Roy , they were immediately fired on and attacked with an explosive device and petrol bombs by republicans.
Gunners inside the vehicles returned fire with machine-guns and the ground floor Rooney flat was hit by at least four bullets.
See: The Scarman Tribunal
Patrick was in bed at the time and was hit in the head and died shortly after arriving at hospital.
Patrick’s distraught mother that day His mother said during an interview:
” There was rioting, half the street was on fire. I was trying to watch TV and Patrick had gone to bed. Ill always remember he told me not to wake him up until late because he was serving at one o’clock mass. He was an altar boy at St. Mary’s “
His father a former soldier said:
” The rioting got worse and then the shooting started I thought of getting all the children into one room but before we had time to organised and lie down the room lit up in flames ,I was grazed by a bullet and Patrick seemed to fall along the wall. I thought he fainted from seeing me bleed, but then I saw the back of his head was covered in blood and I knew the flashes had been bullets and that Patrick was shot”
After the shooting the Ronneys moved to Manchester with their other children but later returned to Belfast. His mother stated:
” I wasn’t content knowing that Patrick was buried here and I wanted to be near him “
Patrick’s Funeral A year after his death the couple had another son and named him after Patrick.
Belfast 1969 – Peace Walls & Barricades – Ireland Part 1
In a further tragedy for the family Mrs Rooney’s sister Mary Sheppard was shot dead by loyalist in 1974 whilst a nephew Sean Campbell was also killed by loyalist three years later in 1977. Two friends of one of their sons were also killed during the Troubles. One Stephen Bennett was killed in an inal bomb in 1982. Another relative Thomas Reilly was shot dead by a soldier in 1983,
The book Unholy Smoke by G.W Target is dedicated:
Click to buy To the Memory of
{Patrick Rooney
Age 9
Killed by a stray bullet
Divis Street
Belfast
During the fighting on the night of august 14th 1969
Christ have mercy on us.
Children of the Troubles
Main Source : Lost Lives
Click to buy See: Family of boy shot dead express disappointment at decision not to prosecute
See: Fifty years on, I still want justice for Patrick, says brother who watched him die in family home
- Dawn of the Troubles – August 1969: Northern Ireland History
Dawn of the Troubles – August 1969
Northern Ireland History
During 12–16 August 1969, there was an outbreak of political and sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, which is often seen as the beginning of the thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising out of the civil rights campaign, which demanded an end to discrimination against Catholics and Irish nationalists.
– Disclaimer –
The views and opinions expressed in these blog posts/documentaries are solely intended to educate and provide background information to those interested in the Troubles of Northern Ireland. They in no way reflect my own opinions and I take no responsibility for any inaccuracies or factual errors
Belfast 1969 : The Dawn of the Troubles ( Shankill / Falls RD)
Events leading up to the August riots
The first major confrontation between civil rights activists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary occurred in Derry on 5 October 1968, when a NICRA ( Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement ) march was baton-charged by the RUC.
Disturbed by the prospect of major violence, the prime minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O’Neill, promised reforms in return for a “truce”, whereby no further demonstrations would be held.
Terence O;Neill In spite of these promises, in January 1969 People’s Democracy, a radical left-wing group, staged an anti-government march from Belfast to Derry. Ulster loyalists, including off-duty USC members, attacked the marchers a number of times, most determinedly at Burntollet Bridge (about five miles outside Derry). The RUC were present but failed to adequately protect the marchers. This action, and the RUC’s subsequent entry into the Bogside, led to serious rioting in Derry.
See: Burntollet Bridge incident
My thoughts?
Although 1969 is generally regarded as the beginning of the modern Troubles sectarian tensions had been bubbling for some time in the north and loyalist paramilitaries were responsible for the first politically motivated killings since the IRA’s 1950s campaign. The UVF were responsible for three civilian deaths in 1966 including Patrick Scullion who became the first victim of the Troubles. Peter Ward who was killed by Gusty Spences team and a protestant pensioner Matilda Gould who was severely burned in a fire started by the UVF and died a few weeks later.
In March 1966 Gerry Fitt took his place in Westminster giving a voice to a wide range of nationalist grievances. Plans by Republicans to mark the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising stirred up political tensions even more and Unionists paranoia’s were exasperated and stoked by Ian Paisley , who called for a counter parade which led to his arrest and conviction for unlawful assembly . This led to widespread social unrest and by August 1969 with the rise and protestant/loyalist suspicion of the NICRA ( Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement ) Northern Ireland was on the brink of an abyss that would plunge us all into a thirty year nightmare of never ending death and destruction and the stage was set for the beginning of the Troubles!
History Of Loyalism Part 1
In March and April 1969, there were six bomb attacks on electricity and water infrastructure targets, causing blackouts and water shortages. At first the attacks were blamed on the Irish Republican Army (IRA), but it later emerged that members of the loyalist Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV) and Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) had carried out the bombings in an attempt to implicate the IRA, destabilise the Northern Ireland Government and halt the reforms promised by Terence O’Neill.
There was some movement on reform in Northern Ireland in the first half of 1969.
On 23 April Ulster Unionist Party Members of the Northern Ireland Parliament voted by 28 to 22 to introduce universal adult suffrage in local government elections in Northern Ireland at their parliamentary party meeting. The call for “one man, one vote” had been one of the key demands of the civil rights movement.
James Chichester-Clark Five days later, Terence O’Neill resigned as UUP leader and Northern Ireland Prime Minister and was replaced in both roles by James Chichester-Clark. Chichester-Clark, despite having resigned in protest over the introduction of universal suffrage in local government, announced that he would continue the reforms begun by O’Neill.
Street violence, however, continued to escalate. On 19 April there was serious rioting in the Bogside area of Derry following clashes between NICRA marchers against loyalists and the RUC. A Catholic, Samuel Devenny, was severely beaten by the RUC and later died of his injuries.
On 12 July, during the Orange Order’s Twelfth of July marches, there was serious rioting in Londonderry, Belfast and Dungiven, causing many families in Belfast to flee from their homes.
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Another Catholic civilian, Francis McCloskey (67), died one day after being hit on the head with batons by RUC officers during disturbances in Dungiven.
As a result of these events, residents of the Catholic Bogside area of Derry set up the Derry Citizens’ Defence Association to organise the defence of the neighbourhood, should the need arise.
Battle of the Bogside
This unrest culminated in a pitched battle in Derry from 12–14 August, known as the Battle of the Bogside. As the yearly march by the Protestant loyalist Apprentice Boys skirted the edge of the Catholic Bogside, stone-throwing broke out.
The RUC—on foot and in armoured vehicles—drove back the Catholic crowd and attempted to force its way into the Bogside, followed by loyalists who smashed the windows of Catholic homes.
Thousands of Bogside residents mobilised to defend the area, and beat back the RUC with a hail of stones and petrol bombs. Barricades were built, petrol bomb ‘factories’ and first aid posts were set up, and a radio transmitter (“Radio Free Derry”) broadcast messages and called on
“every able-bodied man in Ireland who believes in freedom”
to come defend the Bogside.The overstretched police resorted to throwing stones back at the Bogsiders and were helped by loyalists. They received permission to fire CS gas into the Bogside – the first time it had been used by police in the UK. The Bogsiders believed that the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC), the wholly Protestant police reserves, would be sent in and would massacre the Catholic residents. On 13 August, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association called for protests across Northern Ireland in support of the Bogside, to draw police away from the fighting there. That night it issued a statement:
A war of genocide is about to flare across the North. The CRA demands that all Irishmen recognise their common interdependence and calls upon the Government and people of the Twenty-six Counties to act now to prevent a great national disaster. We urgently request that the Government take immediate action to have a United Nations peace-keeping force sent to Derry.
Violence in Belfast
A loyalist mural in Belfast commemorating the 1969 riots
Belfast saw by far the most intense violence of the August 1969 riots. Unlike Londonderry, where Catholic nationalists were a majority, in Belfast they were a minority and were also geographically divided and surrounded by Protestants and loyalists. For this reason, whereas in Derry the fighting was largely between nationalists and the RUC, in Belfast it also involved fighting between Catholics and Protestants, including exchanges of gunfire and widespread burning of homes and businesses.
On the night of 12 August, bands of Apprentice Boys arrived back in Belfast after taking part in the Derry march. They were met by Protestant pipe bands and a large crowd of supporters. They then marched to the Shankill Road waving Union Flags and singing “The Sash My Father Wore” (a popular loyalist ballad).
The Sash
According to journalists Patrick Bishop and Eamonn Mallie,:
“Both communities were in the grip of a mounting paranoia about the other’s intentions. Catholics were convinced that they were about to become victims of a Protestant pogrom; Protestants that they were on the eve of an IRA insurrection”.
Wednesday 13 August
Eamonn McCann The first disturbances in Northern Ireland’s capital took place on the night of 13 August. Derry activists Eamonn McCann and Sean Keenan contacted Frank Gogarty of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association to organise demonstrations in Belfast to draw off police from Derry. Independently, Belfast IRA leader Billy McMillen ordered republicans to organise demonstrations, “in support of Derry”.
In protest at the RUC’s actions in Derry, a group of 500 nationalists assembled at Divis flats and staged a rally outside Springfield Road RUC station, where they handed in a petition.
After handing in the petition, the crowd of now 1,000–2,000 people, including IRA members such as Joe McCann, began a protest march along the Falls Road and Divis Street to the Hastings Street RUC police station. When they arrived, about 50 youths broke away from the march and attacked the RUC police station with stones and petrol bombs.
The RUC responded by sending out riot police and by driving Shorland armoured cars at the crowd. Protesters pushed burning cars onto the road to stop the RUC from entering the nationalist area.
At Leeson Street, roughly halfway between the clashes at Springfield and Hastings Street RUC police stations, an RUC Humber armoured car was attacked with a hand grenade and rifle fire.
Billy McMillen At the time, it was not known who had launched the attack, but it has since emerged that it was IRA members, acting under the orders of Billy McMillen. McMillen also authorised members of the Fianna (IRA youth wing) to attack the Springfield Road RUC police station with petrol bombs. Shots were exchanged there between the IRA and RUC.
In addition to the attacks on the RUC, the car dealership of Protestant Isaac Agnew, on the Falls Road, was destroyed. The nationalist crowd also burnt a Catholic-owned pub and betting shop. At this stage, loyalist crowds gathered on the Shankill Road but did not join in the fighting.
That night, barricades went up at the interface areas between Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods.
A Shorland armoured car. The RUC used Shorlands mounted with Browning machine guns during the riots.
Thursday 14 August and early hours of Friday 15 August
On 14 August, many Catholics and Protestants living on the edge of their ghettos fled their homes for safety.
The loyalists viewed the nationalist attacks of Wednesday night as an organised attempt by the IRA
“to undermine the constitutional position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom”.
The IRA, contrary to loyalist belief, was responding to events rather than orchestrating them. Billy McMillen called up all available IRA members for “defensive duties” and sent parties out to Cupar Street, Divis Street and St Comgall’s School on Dover Street. They amounted to 30 IRA volunteers, 12 women, 40 youths from the Fianna and 15–20 girls. Their arms consisted of one Thompson submachine gun, one Sten submachine gun, one Lee–Enfield rifle and six handguns.
A “wee factory” was also set up in Leeson Street to make petrol bombs. Their orders at the outset were to, “disperse people trying to burn houses, but under no circumstances to take life”.
What Is The Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Falls–Shankill interface near Divis Tower
That evening, a nationalist crowd marched to Hastings Street RUC station, which they began to attack with stones for a second night. Loyalist crowds (wielding petrol bombs, bricks, stones, sharpened poles and protective dustbin lids) gathered at neighbouring Dover and Percy Streets.
They were confronted by nationalists, who had hastily blocked their streets with barricades. Fighting broke out between the rival factions at about 11:00 pm. The RUC concentrated their efforts on the nationalist rioters, who they scattered with armoured cars. Catholics claimed that USC officers had been seen giving guns to the loyalists, while journalists reported seeing pike-wielding loyalists standing among the RUC officers.
From the nearby rooftop of Divis Tower flats, a group of nationalists would spend the rest of the night raining missiles on the police below. A chain of people were passing stones and petrol bombs from the ground to the roof.
Loyalists began pushing into the Falls Road area along Percy Street, Beverly Street and Dover Street. The rioters contained a rowdy gang of loyalist football supporters who had returned from a match.
On Dover Street, the loyalist crowd was led by Ulster Unionist Party MP John McQuade. On Percy Street, a loyalist opened fire with a shotgun and USC officers helped the loyalists to push back the nationalists. As they entered the nationalist ghetto, loyalists began burning Catholic homes and businesses on Percy Street, Beverly Street and Dover Street.
At the intersection of Dover and Divis Street, an IRA unit opened fire on the crowd of RUC police officers and loyalists, who were trying to enter the Catholic area. Protestant Herbert Roy (26) was killed and three officers were wounded.
At this point, the RUC, believing they were facing an organised IRA uprising, deployed Shorland armoured cars mounted with Browning machine guns, whose .30 calibre bullets “tore through walls as if they were cardboard”.
In response to the RUC coming under fire at Divis Street, three Shorland armoured cars were called to the scene. The Shorlands were immediately attacked with gunfire, an explosive device and petrol bombs. The RUC believed that the shots had come from nearby Divis Tower. Gunners inside the Shorlands returned fire with their heavy machine-guns. At least thirteen Divis Tower flats were hit by high-velocity gunfire.
Patrick Rooney A nine-year-old boy, Patrick Rooney, was killed by machine-gun fire as he lay in bed in one of the flats. He was the first child to be killed in the violence.
See: 14th August 1969
At about 01:00, not long after the shooting of Patrick Rooney, the RUC again opened fire on Divis Tower. The shots killed Hugh McCabe (20), a Catholic soldier who was ‘on leave’. He and another had been on the roof of the Whitehall building (which was part of the Divis complex) and were pulling a wounded man to safety. The RUC claimed he was armed at the time and that gunfire was coming from the roof, but this was denied by many witnesses.
The Republican Labour Party MP for Belfast Central, Paddy Kennedy, who was on the scene, phoned the RUC headquarters and appealed to Northern Ireland Minister for Home Affairs, Robert Porter, for the Shorlands to be withdrawn and the shooting to stop. Porter replied that this was impossible as,
“the whole town is in rebellion”.
Porter told Kennedy that Donegall Street police station was under heavy machine-gun fire. In fact, it was undisturbed throughout the riots.
Sometime after the killing of Hugh McCabe, some 200 loyalists attacked Catholic Divis Street and began burning houses there. A unit of six IRA volunteers in St Comgall’s School shot at them with a rifle, a Thompson submachine gun and some pistols; keeping the attackers back and wounding eight of them. An RUC Shorland then arrived and opened fire on the school. The IRA gunmen returned fire and managed to escape.
Falls–Shankill interface near Clonard Monastery
West of St Comgall’s, loyalists broke through the nationalist barricades on Conway Street and burned two-thirds of the houses. Catholics claimed that the RUC held them back so that the loyalists could burn their homes. The Scarman Report found that RUC officers were on Conway Street when its houses were set alight, but “failed to take effective action”. Journalist Max Hastings wrote that loyalists on Conway Street had been begging the RUC to give them their guns.
Ardoyne
Rioting in Ardoyne, north of the city centre, began in the evening near Holy Cross Catholic church. Loyalists crossed over to the Catholic/nationalist side of Crumlin Road to attack Brookfield Street, Herbert Street, Butler Street and Hooker Street. These had been hastily blocked by nationalist barricades. Loyalists reportedly threw petrol bombs at Catholics “over the heads of RUC officers”,as RUC armoured cars were used to smash through the barricades.
IRA gunmen fired the first shots at the RUC, who responded by firing machine-guns down the streets, killing two Catholic civilians (Samuel McLarnon, 27, and Michael Lynch, 28) and wounding ten more.
Friday 15 August
The morning of 15 August saw many Catholic families in central Belfast flee to Andersonstown on the western fringes of the city, to escape the rioting. According to Bishop and Mallie,
“Each side’s perceptions of the other’s intentions had become so warped that the Protestants believed the Catholics were clearing the decks for a further attempt at insurrection in the evening”.
At 04:30 on Friday 15 August, the police commissioner for Belfast asked for military aid. From the early hours of Friday, the RUC had withdrawn to its bases to defend them. The interface areas were thus left unpoliced for half a day until the British Army arrived.
The Deputy Police Commissioner had assumed that the British Army would be deployed by 10:00 or 11:00. At 12:25 that afternoon, the Northern Ireland cabinet finally sent a request for military aid to the Home Office in London. However, it would be another nine hours until the British Army arrived at the Falls/Shankill interface where it was needed.
Many Catholics and nationalists felt that they had been left at the mercy of the loyalists by the forces of the state who were meant to protect them.
The IRA, which had limited manpower and weaponry at the start of the riots, was also exhausted and low on ammunition. Its Belfast commander, Billy McMillen, and 19 other republicans were arrested by the RUC early on 15 August under the Special Powers Act.
There was fierce rioting in streets around Clonard Monastery , where hundreds of Catholic homes were burned
Falls–Shankill interface near Clonard Monastery
The Wall (Belfast Short documentary)
On 15 August, violence continued along the Falls/Shankill interface. Father PJ Egan of Clonard Monastery recalled that a large loyalist mob moved down Cupar Street at about 15:00 and was held back by nationalist youths. Shooting began at about 15:45. Egan claimed that himself and other priests at Clonard Monastery made at least four calls to the RUC for help, but none came.
A small IRA party under Billy McKee was present and had two .22 rifles at their disposal. They exchanged shots with a loyalist sniper who was firing from a house on Cupar Street, but failed to dislodge him, or to halt the burning of Catholic houses in the area.
Almost all of the houses on Bombay Street were burned by the loyalists, and many others were burned on Kashmir Road and Cupar Street – the most extensive destruction of property during the riots.
A loyalist sniper shot dead Gerald McAuley (15), a member of the Fianna (IRA’s youth wing), as he helped people flee their homes on Bombay Street.
See: 15th August
At about 18:30 the British Army’s The Royal Regiment of Wales was deployed on the Falls Road, where they were greeted with subdued applause and cheering.
However, despite pleas from locals, they did not move into the streets that were being attacked. At about 21:35 that night, the soldiers finally took up positions at the blazing interface and blocked the streets with barbed-wire barricades. Father PJ Egan recalled that the soldiers called on the loyalists to surrender but they instead began shooting and throwing petrol bombs at the soldiers.
The soldiers could only fire back on the orders of an officer when life was directly threatened. The loyalists continued shooting and burned more Catholic-owned houses on Bombay Street, but were stopped by soldiers using tear gas.
Ardoyne
Soldiers were not deployed in Ardoyne, and violence continued there on Friday night. Nationalists hijacked 50 buses from the local bus depot, set them on fire and used them as makeshift barricades to block access to Ardoyne. A Protestant civilian, David Linton (48), was shot dead by IRA gunmen at the Palmer Street/Crumlin Road junction.
Several Catholic-owned houses were set alight on Brookfield Street. The Scarman Report found that an RUC armoured vehicle was nearby when Brookfield Street was set alight, but made no move.
Saturday 16 August
On the evening of 16 August the British Army was deployed on Crumlin Road. Thereafter, the violence died down into what the Scarman report called, “the quiet of exhaustion”.
Disturbances elsewhere
Towns and cities where major riots took place
In aid of the Bogsiders, the NICRA executive decided to launch protests in towns across Northern Ireland. The Scarman Report concluded that the spread of the disturbances “owed much to a deliberate decision by some minority groups to relieve police pressure on the rioters in Londonderry”. It included the NICRA among these groups.
On the evening of 11 August a riot erupted in Dungannon after a meeting of the NICRA. This was quelled after the RUC baton charged nationalist rioters down Irish Street. There were claims of police brutality.
On 12 August, republicans attacked the RUC police stations in Coalisland, Strabane and Newry.
On 13 August there were further riots in Dungannon, Coalisland, Dungiven, Armagh and Newry. In Coalisland, USC officers opened fire on rioters without orders but were immediately ordered to stop.
On 14 August riots continued in Dungannon, Armagh and Newry. In Dungannon and Armagh, USC officers again opened fire on rioters. They fired 24 shots on Armagh’s Cathedral Road, killing Catholic civilian John Gallagher and wounding two others.
In Newry, nationalist rioters surrounded the RUC station and attacked it with petrol bombs. In Crossmaglen on 17 August, the IRA attacked the local RUC station and withdrew after an exchange of fire.
Reactions
On 13 August, Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Jack Lynch made a television address in which he stated that the Irish Defence Forces was setting up field hospitals along the border and called for United Nations intervention. He said:
It is evident that the Stormont Government is no longer in control of the situation. Indeed, the present situation is the inevitable outcome of the policies pursued for decades by successive Stormont Governments. It is clear, also, that the Irish Government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse. It is obvious that the R.U.C. is no longer accepted as an impartial police force. Neither would the employment of British troops be acceptable
The Irish Government have, therefore, requested the British Government to apply immediately to the United Nations for the urgent despatch of a Peace-keeping Force […] We have also asked the British Government to see to it that police attacks on the people of Derry should cease immediately.
When the Irish government met on 14 and 15 August, it decided to send troops to protect the field hospitals, and to call up the first line army reserves:
“in readiness for participation in peace-keeping operations”.
This, along with Lynch’s statement, fuelled rumours that Irish troops were about to cross the border and intervene. On 16 August, three Irish nationalist members of the Northern Ireland Parliament—Paddy Devlin, Paddy O’Hanlon and Paddy Kennedy—went to the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. They demanded the Irish government send guns to protect Catholics in Northern Ireland, but this was refused.
The prime minister of Northern Ireland, James Chichester-Clark, responded:
“In this grave situation, the behaviour of the Dublin Government has been deplorable, and tailor-made to inflame opinion on both sides”.
On 14 August he stated in the Northern Ireland Parliament:
This is not the agitation of a minority seeking by lawful means the assertion of political rights. It is the conspiracy of forces seeking to overthrow a Government democratically elected by a large majority. What the teenage hooligans seek beyond cheap kicks I do not know. But of this I am quite certain – they are being manipulated and encouraged by those who seek to discredit and overthrow this Government”.
Chichester-Clark denied that his government was not doing enough to bring about the reforms sought by the civil rights movement, or that this was a cause of the violence. Instead, he said:
“The real cause of the disorder is to be found in the activities of extreme Republican elements and others determined to overthrow our State”.
On 23 August, Catholic Cardinal William Conway, together with the Bishops of Derry, Clogher, Dromore, Kilmore, and Down & Connor, issued a statement which included the following:
The fact is that on Thursday and Friday of last week the Catholic districts of Falls and Ardoyne were invaded by mobs equipped with machine-guns and other firearms. A community which was virtually defenceless was swept by gunfire and streets of Catholic homes were systematically set on fire. We entirely reject the hypothesis that the origin of last week’s tragedy was an armed insurrection.
The Irish republican party, Sinn Féin, issued a statement saying that
“The present events in the Six Counties are the outcome of fifty years of British rule. The civil rights demands, moderate though they are, have shown us that Unionist rule is incompatible with democracy. The question now is no longer civil rights, but the continuation of British rule in Ireland”.
Representatives of the British and Northern Ireland governments—including British prime minister Harold Wilson and Northern Irish prime minister Chichester-Clark—held a two-day meeting at 10 Downing Street, beginning on 19 August. A Communique and Declaration was issued at the end of the first day
It re-affirmed that Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom unless the people of Northern Ireland decided otherwise, and that the Northern Ireland and British governments are solely responsible for affairs in Northern Ireland.
The Irish government failed to have a resolution on Northern Ireland put to a vote at the UN.
In late August, the Northern Ireland government announced the establishment of an inquiry into the riots, to be chaired by Justice Scarman (and known as the “Scarman Inquiry”).
A committee under Baron Hunt was also set up to consider reform of the Northern Ireland police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and reserve Ulster Special Constabulary, which led to the latter being disbanded.
Effects
The rioting petered out by Sunday, 17 August. By the end of the riots:
8 people had been killed, including:
5 Catholics shot dead by the RUC
2 Protestants shot dead by nationalist gunmen
1 Fianna member shot dead by loyalist gunmen
750 + people had been injured – 133 (72 Catholics and 61 Protestants) of those injured suffered gunshot wounds
150+ Catholic homes and 275 + businesses had been destroyed – 83% of all buildings destroyed were owned by Catholics
During July, August and September 1969, 1,820+ families had been forced to flee their homes, including
1,505 Catholic families
315 Protestant families
Catholics generally fled across the border into the Republic of Ireland, while Protestants generally fled to east Belfast.
The Irish Defence Forces set up refugee camps in the Republic – at one point the Gormanston refugee camp held 6,000 refugees from Northern Ireland.
Long-term effects
The modern “peace line” at Bombay Street in Belfast, seen from the Irish Catholic/nationalist side..
The August riots were the most sustained violence that Northern Ireland had seen since the early 1920s. Many Protestants, loyalists and unionists believed the violence showed the true face of the Northern Ireland Catholic civil rights movement – as a front for the IRA and armed insurrection.
They had mixed feelings regarding the deployment of British Army troops into Northern Ireland. Eddie Kinner, a resident of Dover Street who would later join the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), vividly recalled the troops marching down his street with fixed bayonets and steel helmets. He and his neighbours had felt at the time as if they were being invaded by their “own army”.
Catholics and nationalists, on the other hand, saw the riots (particularly in Belfast) as an assault on their community by loyalists and the forces of the state. The disturbances, taken together with the Battle of the Bogside, are often cited as the beginning of the Troubles. Violence escalated sharply in Northern Ireland after these events, with the formation of new paramilitary groups on either side, most notably the Provisional Irish Republican Army in December of that year.
On the loyalist side, the UVF (formed in 1966) were galvanised by the August riots and in 1971, another paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association was founded out of a coalition of loyalist militants who had been active since August 1969. The largest of these were the Woodvale Defence Association, led by Charles Harding Smith, and the Shankill Defence Association, led by John McKeague, which had been responsible for what organisation there was of loyalist violence in the riots of August 1969. While the thousands of British Army troops sent to Northern Ireland were initially seen as a neutral force, they quickly got dragged into the street violence and by 1971 were devoting most of their attention to combatting republican paramilitaries.
The Irish Republican Army
The role of the IRA in the riots has long been disputed. At the time, the organisation was blamed by the Northern Ireland authorities for the violence. However, it was very badly prepared to defend nationalist areas of Belfast, having few weapons or fighters on the ground.
The Scarman Inquiry, set up by the British government to investigate the causes of the riots, concluded:
Undoubtedly there was an IRA influence at work in the DCDA (Derry Citizens’ Defence Association) in Londonderry, in the Ardoyne and Falls Road areas of Belfast, and in Newry. But they did not start the riots, or plan them: indeed, the evidence is that the IRA was taken by surprise and did less than many of their supporters thought they should have done.
In nationalist areas, the IRA was reportedly blamed for having failed to protect areas like Bombay Street and Ardoyne from being burned out. A Catholic priest, Fr Gillespie, reported that in Ardoyne the IRA was being derided in graffiti as:
“I Ran Away”.
However, IRA veterans of the time, who spoke to authors Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, disputed this interpretation. One, Sean O’Hare, said:
“I never saw it written on a wall. That wasn’t the attitude. People fell in behind the IRA, stood behind them 100%”. Another, Sean Curry, recalled, “some people were a bit angry but most praised the people who did defend the area. They knew that if the men weren’t there, the area wouldn’t have been defended.”
At the time, the IRA released a statement on 18 August, saying, it had been, “in action in Belfast and Derry” and “fully equipped units had been sent to the border”. It had been, “reluctantly compelled into action by Orange murder gangs” and warned the British Army that if it, “was used to supress [sic] the legitimate demands of the people they will have to take the consequences” and urged the Irish government to send the Irish Army over the border.
Cathal Goulding, the IRA Chief of Staff, sent small units from Dublin, Cork and Kerry to border counties of Donegal, Leitrim and Monaghan, with orders to attack RUC posts in Northern Ireland and draw off pressure from Belfast and Derry. A total of 96 weapons and 12,000 rounds of ammunition were also sent to the North.
Nevertheless, the poor state of IRA arms and military capability in August 1969 led to a bitter split in the IRA in Belfast. According to Hanley and Millar, “dissensions that pre-dated August [1969] had been given a powerful emotional focus”.
In September 1969, a group of IRA men led by Billy McKee and Joe Cahill stated that they would no longer be taking orders from the Dublin leadership of the IRA, or from Billy McMillen (their commander in Belfast) because they had not provided enough weapons or planning to defend nationalist areas. In December 1969, they broke away to form the Provisional IRA and vowed to defend areas from attack by loyalists and the RUC. The other wing of the IRA became known as the Official IRA. Shortly after its formation, the Provisional IRA launched an offensive campaign against the state of Northern Ireland.
The RUC and USC
The RUC: A Force Under Fire
The actions of the RUC in the August 1969 riots are perhaps the most contentious issue arising out of the disturbances. Nationalists argue that the RUC acted in a blatantly biased manner, helping loyalists who were assaulting Catholic neighbourhoods. There were also strong suggestions that police knew when loyalist attacks were to happen and seemed to disappear from some Catholic areas shortly before loyalist mobs attacked.
This perception discredited the police in the eyes of many nationalists and later allowed the IRA to effectively take over policing in nationalist areas. In his study, From Civil Rights to Armalites, nationalist author Niall Ó Dochartaigh argues that the actions of the RUC and USC were the key factor in the worsening of the conflict. He wrote:
From the outset, the response of the state and its forces of law and order to Catholic mobilisation was an issue capable of arousing far more anger and activism than the issues around which mobilisation had begun. Police behaviour and their interaction with loyalist protesters probably did more to politically mobilise large sections of the Catholic community than did any of the other grievances.
The Scarman Inquiry found that the RUC were “seriously at fault” on at least six occasions during the rioting. Specifically, they criticised the RUC’s use of Browning heavy machine-guns in built-up areas, their failure to stop Protestants from burning down Catholic homes, and their withdrawal from the streets long before the Army arrived. However, the Scarman Report concluded that, “Undoubtedly mistakes were made and certain individual officers acted wrongly on occasions.
But the general case of a partisan force co-operating with Protestant crowds to attack Catholic people is devoid of substance, and we reject it utterly”.
The report argued that the RUC were under-strength, poorly led and that their conduct in the riots was explained by their perception that they were dealing with a co-ordinated IRA uprising. They pointed to the RUC’s dispersal of loyalist rioters in Belfast on 2–4 August in support of the force’s impartiality.
Of the B-Specials (Ulster Special Constabulary or USC), the Scarman Report said:
There were grave objections, well understood by those in authority, to the use of the USC in communal disturbances. In 1969 the USC contained no Catholics but was a force drawn from the Protestant section of the community. Totally distrusted by the Catholics, who saw them as the strong arm of the Protestant ascendancy, they could not show themselves in a Catholic area without heightening tension. Moreover, they were neither trained nor equipped for riot control duty.
The report found that the Specials had fired on Catholic demonstrators in Dungiven, Coalisland, Dungannon and Armagh, causing casualties, which, “was a reckless and irresponsible thing to do”. It found that USC officers had, on occasion, sided with loyalist mobs. There were reports that USC officers were spotted hiding among loyalist mobs, using coats to hide their uniforms. Nevertheless, the Scarman Report concluded, “there are no grounds for singling out mobilised USC as being guilty of misconduct”.
See: The B Specials
Main Source : Wikipedia
See also
See: The Troubles
See: Operation Banner
See: : 1969 Northern Ireland riots
See: 1886 Belfast Riots between Catholics & Protestants
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