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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