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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1972-01-27, Page 2020 t OI:WHIC H SIONAIr TAR, 'I UR ' ►AYi JANUARY 27,19i`i'2 •Joe BY G. MagLEOD ROSS :Until recently a majority of People' had little " on ;,which to base, an opinion on affairs .in Ulster; "but in the November, 14th' and 21st issues of the London';' " Suinday Times" -',a-- ' connected narrative of 20,000 words appeared' covering the early 1.960'f" to d���t>;e:C The ', following i based d i,re on l t s .ase fit l g Y Jtbe: findings of°the above report. • The story of the ilIster Of the early sixties opens with a lethal Mtn' by the ruling Ulster Protestants by which a Catholic Civil Rights .movement was, mistaken for ,an attack on the sovereignty •of the Province. A mistake emanating from the fact 'that the objective of every previous Catholic challenge to date had been to effect union with Eire. For the first six years • of the sixties the attacks by :armed men of the ,Irish Republican Army, though small by, present standards, had failed miserably to promote a rising of Ulster Catholics, For opinion had -changed; a much larger Catholic middle class had emerged, less ready to accept inferiority . in . the community, yet a class whose complaints were moderate . by any sensible standards. For who tiUWlt Londonderry's distribution of wards which gave the 9000 Protestants a City Council majority in the face of 14,000 Catholic electors? The Protestants for their part had not moved forward oneiota with 'their 'myths, ' bolstered as they were by the. formula': "the Orangeman is pledged to resist .the ascendancy -of the Church of Rome", This then was the , psychological moment to dismantle the Protestant* supremacy, whicEls °illustrated by a list of Catholic demands: 1. One roan one vote in local _electrons. 2. Removal of Berryman ertng �• electoral 'boundaries. . 3', Laws . against irk lamination:' 4. Allocation of public housing by. : points system. (This, Act' held 400 persons incommunicado, without . charge or trial until the 'Brgwn Commission'- had examined each one. 'Even • so, before release, the detainee had -t-m--'F3II if tha`t TiE°'c reminder of Any, life I will not; join .any illegal , organisation.:." The Minister of Home,Affairs _. was empowered to proscribe • ANY organisation whatsoever as illegaI.) Finally 6. Disbandir of the' B -Specials. (An undisciplined and over -armed •forts of Protestant militia characterised by . .a . British officer as °"trigger-happy" 1967 saw a decisive step with the ' founding of the Catholic Civil Rights Association (CRA) at a time when their grievances had been admitted by Prime Minister O'Neill himself,' but Which he :had been unable to 'implement because of . the flint -like indifference of his political party. In June. 1968 there eviction of a Catholic from his.home in ,-.-a.,: r .esta.tat .; P.O.4 a3& ,- precipitated a protest march, but postponed trill August 23rd, it Passed ' off "without incident. However nothing . was done to' redress the grievances and it to-ok but one . more demonstration in October 1968 in Londonderry for Civil Rights to become a mass movement, and once which Craig, the Home Affairs Minister, quite" :erroneously claimed was master -Minded by the Irish Republican'Army. - • Here then was yet. another opportunity for • a reasonable Stormont, with° its- Unionist '°(*)majority, . to welcome marching/talking parades. rather than:• bombing/shooting ones. It was a basic act of misgovernment, . But" to understand the circumstances surrounding this parade, it .is Th.. necessary to realise that Derry has been a Cashpoint in Ulster's tragedy since 1689, when ' Protestants held the walls ( of Derry and- the Young Apprentices slammed the gates .CatholicT, -Jarmes . His face. IL • was this hicii made a' Ca`tth4�lic parade' INSIDE ' the • .Walls unspeakable. The App nti ;ea Ina 41opge young). retaliated by planning their (first) 'annual parade before October . lst, whereupon Mi.. Craig, Miter fpr Home., Affairs, ban1ed, all a marches in .Derry for oneinonth. Up to that moment the. Catholic parade had not aroused Much support, but under this ban it became a challenge, so that when some 2,000 marchers met a police cordon, they turned aside to; an alternate route`whi•ch• was also barred. After giving the parade half an hour to disperse, the police csharged ,and t37 casualties resulted. When 'some Belfast' students protested this - police action at Craig's house, he Called then "silly bloody fools". At this. junctures there were, several .streams of violence running: There . was the over -strained and • over -armed Royal Irish Constabulary, the police that is; there.were those rotes ants who P interUrete5 Craig's ban on • marches. . as indicating a Fenian insurrection and there • were the off-duty B -Specials contributing a species of violence . of •, thein own. Meanwhile .Prime Minister O'Neill, trying to get a consensus to produce tangible reforms, was undercut by,, his Minister for Comme'ce, Faulkner, wino withdrew his•sup,port. O'Neill announced his reform' package on . November " 22nd 1968: An Omb-udsman; Housing allocation by a points system; A promise ted,- epeiil-'-'uhf' pecia ' Powers. Act and reform local government elections by the end of ` 19'7 1. The unrepresentative Derry . Corporation_was suspended ••sine die, and 'a niiraated - eenamisskrn- tonit ,. office. These measures calmed the Catholics of Derry, while simultaneously , angering the Protestants of Armagh'.and, Dungannon; The Right Wing Protestants - being affronted% • because the Catholics did not show enou:h hui iility to the, ;t�PN lli package, ran till further• annoyed when O'Neill sacked Craig, after which a Christmas truce was called. On New Year's Day .1969 students pof Bernadette Devlin's Catholic Peoples' ' Democratic Party . (PD) decided to celebrate the concessions with a 73 -mile march from Belfast to Derry; a dangerous gloat! They. reached the' walls of Derry on the 4th, escorted by 80 police and Were ambushed by 200 armed followers of 'the Reverend' Ian Paisley, while the ferocity of their attack astonished even the' .police, -inquiring-into- -this affair - later, the Cameron Commission found the police guilty of 'assault, ' battery and malicious damage to Catholic Bogside property, • for 'during this and succeeding nights they ran -�aicrui'.`leMtac`ipti`'rI'+e'Tb�9`;a''ak r`ti'g"th:tw -r completely. • O'Neill. 'then called an election and it 'is ' noteworthjL that it was then still possible for him to -be swept off' his feet by' cheering crowds in the :Falls Road and the Ardoyne • in Belfast, both of which localities are today IRA fortresses. It is ..also noteworthy that while he won the election,` he did not win 1'0 by enough to 'discipline his. recalcitrant followers in the Stormont and he nearly lost his -seat tb Paisley: Weakened as 'O'Neill was, it was again Derry which produced . the final upset. On, Atari! 19•th the the. Civil Rights Association proposed a march, only to have banned by the Home Affairs *Minister.�lri lieu, • some supporters of the CRA stated a sit-down' ihside the cit- walls .and . close • to some Paisleyites, whereupon , stone-t-hrowiug began.. The police charged the Catholics, driving them back to Bogside, the Catholic ghetto. At 9pm Devenney, a man with a heart condition was 'at home, while outside some teenageers were throwing stones at the When six Land Rovers esnie, round the corner, the boys rushed through Devenney's house and out the back, followed by the-po'iice, who beat up Devenney' so that he died later., 'This, together with their other actions that night when large sections of the police became a sectarian mob, has not been investigated to this day. On April the first, bombs fractured the • Belfast water ,supply mains,, follotived on .the F 25th by More,- --lasts. On the 28th-O1Neill rsigned and thus was lost "the one' politician willing to lead the Province of Ulster and its 112 million people out of the dark shadows". To the Rev: Ian. Paisley it was the • "hand of God" and- he exulted at the fall of a "traitor". O'Neill's cousin. Chichester - Clark, succeeded as . Prime Minsiter; his, withdrawal of support being the cause of O'Neill's departure. - On July 9th there was. a changes -in 7 -the -command of -the British troops in • Northern Ireland; General Freeland talCing over. It was a ticklish moment, for in '48 hours the' first of the • big Orange parades- was to start: The -:Celebration of the Bonne -in 'Derry'. Inspite of mon!ting violence over the past three month's, 'both • Chichester -Clark cand Peacocke head of the police, assured Genl. Freeland that Orange marches never caused trouble. 1 At the end of July discussion began . in Westminster on the vital subject ''f employment of troops "in aid • of 'the . "civil power". At• that moment there were only - 12000 troops available„,,:in Northern Ireland while- the Ministry of Defence calculated that . should, Westminster decide to assume direct rule over Ulster, some 30,000 would be required,. a figure which could not be found. Assuming troops were sent, on What basis should they aid the. Civil power of Ulster? The question: What ” evil power would they aid ? was nearer. _ .faced, ._,<p.erhaps -.-because -the - Ulster ` Constabulary and the B -Specials • were . politically biased.. Consequently if Army, which is non-political, .was ordered to '. aid a politically -oriented. .police force --itsvr leh�'o i ' rt -tay—s4-•.._ . before the Army lost its impartiality in the eyes of the community. Thus it carne about that the irresponsibility of the British Labour Cabirr le = served to' 'prostitute . • the Army's fair reputation. B'y. July 30/31 the Cabinet, itching to get away on,- its n .its 'summer holidays, • decided that • Calpighan, the Home Secretary, could give gerrymandering 1 Qlaichester Plot h t11e troops IF HE ASKED FOR TIIEM; •the "strings'" tei'bi Worked out later. It took only two days for the consequences -.of Labour's ambiguous b' fornutla" to become apparent: u , . in the' riot following the Belfast Orange march ern, August. 2nd, ' two- police st;atiot°_earq.e. close to being ov-errGtn. The police asked for troops but General •Freilanct denied their employment. The ,Army's• interpretation of the' '`formula" was: NO :QUESTION OF C'OMMITT!NG TROOPS UNTIL :ALL METHODS EXHAUSTED BY POLICE-, Wlien Freeland was , asked: -'"Does 'all methods' mean the RUC must call out 'the B -Specials before the Army mill move'?". the answer was: It does! It followed that before the Army would move Stormont" would be forced into an assault which the Catholics ' would neither forgive nor forget. The ,Stormont, learning it would not lease its independence• if it called in troops, :" authorised the. Apprentices" parade for August 12th. �. Now' the Apprentices'•Parade; consisting as it does of solid - c i t mens, e'lebrat ing. the'r ©ratinued---e-nio m .nt --af what- hold essential tp their .survival nan'tely: their political hegemony 'oven their Catholic fellows,. Was neither •more nor less , provocative, than usual. A A mere 5000, wearing bowler hats, marching' along the walls oaf' Derry; but a few threw pennies ,down upon the impoverished Bogsiders below. After • 10 months of political . frustratt'on, Bogside Was-. not prepared to take this lying down. Viole' ce was implie'it and' it became more than ale police could: contain. In 'repelling the police charges. the Bogsiders could argue! - that they \ere_ defending tlaemselves frc a repetition of What hapFiened to Devenney, while the Protestants • .-,read into their defence a Fenian insurrection. At 3:30' pm on the third day, when the wind shifted p, and blew CS, gas on to the Protestant portion of Derry, the new- Prime Minister .ordered, the B-Specials-MMobilised, and:-thiese, mingling with the • Protestant mobs, began to r4 urn shops in 3isho Stree _and a ferocious_ clash seemed itarnuni'nt. Stormont 4:atled Westminster for troops and at 5 m on Thursday, p, y. the. 1 lth, the first truckloads • rumbled. across the river Foyle: As the police departed the - Bogsiders victory cheers reached Belfast that same evening. A Catholic victory is always possible in Derry because they outnumber the Protestants five to one- and' the Eire border is close' , by. In Belfast, being surrounded by Protestants, the Catholics can• be held hostage for etheir co -religionists elsewhere. Consequently the dispatch, ,of troops to Derry was bound to shatter the last -\remnants of civil order in, Belfast', becuase the vers arrival of troops now• implied defeat for the police. 'For this reason the -inhabitants' of' the ghettoes of P Falls Road and the ' ardoyne were only ant icipat ing 'retribution when the\ erected barricades. A ni ht Pa rt 1 selected .officers, though in fact this did not occur until October and .then it was a Protestant wiu___. shot he first police officer. But nciw the police had .so far 'lost . their nerve "as to disqualify themselves from ever- ; bearing artns"'• „Wen `they ' brought out three Shorland artm'oured cars;. _...armed with 30 calibre Browning machine' guns and' fired bursts into the, Divis . Flats, 'a 9. -year old r his ote is � stat was killed � ,boy, � � in bedroom. 'and. by Friday evening . 150 houses; " mostly Catholic, had been put to the torch. Meanwhile the troops vainly tried to separate the two cotmmu•ntties. Subsequent comment on the troops action varied from,. the gratitude of the perry Catholics to 'the Stormont statesman who complained; "If it -hadn't been for the ----ing Army, we. would have killed a thousand of them by Saturday", while the Grand Master of the Grand orange Council from the safety of, his houseboat on the Thal -nes said: "We're getting the troops and we're getting - them without strings". -- Thus did Britain compound the ' Ulster • tragedy, while betraying the Army into the hands of a partisan government. of .the utmost ferocity ensued, suq'h that 10 civilians were kilted and 1 civilians and 4 ;police officers were wounded by gunfire. Polite intelligence anticipated • Ho' intervention, picking off ' Y (To be concluded) * "Unionist" in this Case means 'continued union with Great Britain. for Your INSURANCE 'moor •call . , • acEwan £ilikicalitaus 44 North St.;– 524-9531' , Donald G.. MacEwan Pert*'' S. 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