The Lower Ormeau Road -
A Community In Grief
Anthony McIntyre
An Phoblacht/Republican News
13.02.92
Anthony McIntyre, a republican prisoner serving a life sentence in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, lived in the Lower Ormeau Road community up until his arrest in 1976 and retains his association with its people. He writes here of the impact of the UFF murders of five men at Graham's Bookie's shop on February 5th, and of the tragic history of a besieged community.
Cordite, its stench still bitter in the nostrils, bodies still warm, blood yet to dry and coagulate, moans of the wounded and dying, and the wails of misery filled relatives combined to form the scene of utter carnage that Joyce McCarten walked away from on Wednesday, February 5th, as she accompanied and comforted a grieving woman who has just been told her brother had died.
Even prior to the slaughter at the bookie's, the Lower Ormeau Road had been touched by tragedy. One of the victims of RUC assassin, Alan Moore, at the Sinn Fein centre on the Falls Road the day previous, Pat McBride, left a girlfriend, Bernie McDaid, and a young son, Patrick, both members of that small community.
The scenes flashed to us on the TV screen from the junction of Hatfield Street and the Ormeau Road were profoundly disturbing. The close-knit nature of the community and its familiarity with loyalist devastation were poignantly and all to evidently captured in the physical presence of those standing shocked and numbed. Joyce McCarten is a human encyclopaedia of suffering and loss due to loyalism. Her son Gary shot dead by the UVF in May 1987; brother-in-law Noel gunned down outside the studios of UTV in March 1974 by the same group; other family members slain over the years, including one mutilated to death by Albert 'Ginger' Baker - a 1970s Brian Nelson.
Alec McManus, leading a distraught relative away from the horror. Outwardly stoical and calm he was aware that his own brother Willie lay dead a few yards behind him; another brother Jim critically injured and his nephew Paul Kennedy - son of his sister Jean whose own husband Billy lost an arm in a UVF bomb attack on the Rose and Crown Bar, a mere twenty yards from the bookie's - wounded also. In 1973 I stood beside Alec McManus as he buried his fianc�e, Eileen Doherty from Slieveban Drive in Andersonstown. After shooting her dead in the Ormeau area the UFF claimed she had formed part of a guard of honour at the funeral of IRA volunteer Jim Bryson the previous month. The only funeral attended by Eileen that autumn was her own. UFF statements count for nothing to the residents of the Lower Ormeau Road.
The Lower Ormeau Road is a small enclave situated in South Belfast, territorially bordered by the River Lagan on one side and the Belfast to Dublin rail link on the other. Isolated and vulnerable it is in the middle of an otherwise orange monolith, pressed in to varying degrees by Donegal Pass, Sandy Row, the Village, Annadale Flats and the sprawling East Belfast complex. An exclusively Protestant area, the B-Specials and Orange Order flourished up until the 1950s when its first Catholic residents began to filter in. Even then this tiny trickle was regarded as an intrusion.
Our own two-up-two-down terraced home in Bagot Street along with the homes of other Catholic families had its doors daubed with the sinister 'X'. Gradually, Protestants began to drift out of the area not as refugees but of their own volition as modern housing and better living conditions enticed them to greener pastures. A steady stream of young Catholics stating out in married life took up residence in the recently vacated inferior houses. This gradual but persistent demographic shift changed the social complexion of the Lower Ormeau Road. Today there exists an identifiable Nationalist community. Yet the area is not exclusively Catholic. A number of Protestants live there or have small businesses about the road. They feel quite safe. They are quite safe.
It was within this diminutive collection of narrow streets that four of the dead had strong roots. Willie McManus, Jack Duffin, Christy Doherty and Peter 'Twin' Magee were known to almost everyone in the district. Young James Kennedy came from its cousin enclave, the Markets. Innocent, harmless people, hemmed into the bookie's by the social oppressiveness of unemployment, they were killed for being there. People pushed from pillar to post by the structures of a hideously sectarian society and state. A state which had no difficulty in making its presence felt to chase punters out of the bookie's in order not to 'provoke' triumphalist Orange bands as they saunter and strut their way through the area, was conspicuous by the lack of protection it afforded the punters once the music had died.
In such a context bitterness and sorrow, grief and sorrow, anguish and pain make themselves felt. Some of those not rendered dumb by the enormity and gravity of it all spoke in sombre tones, their voices heavy with anger. They were clearly stunned and displayed some difficulty in comprehending just what had happened.
In the midst of all this it was somewhat puzzling to listen to Alisdair McDonnell of the SDLP attempt to blame republicans for the awful events of that afternoon, adding legitimacy in a perhaps unintended sort of way to the stated UFF rationale. Sinn Fein were not permitted to say anything in response. But I suspect had they said anything their comments would have been grief-laden and not the petty political point scoring utterances of Alisdair McDonnell. Even the spokesman for the Workers' Party , regardless of his political perspective, chose not to harangue republicans but rather spoke in terms of grief, loss and human suffering. But like the victims and the censored members of Sinn Fein, he lives in the area and understandably feels the grief and bitterness of a bereaved community. Unlike Alisdair McDonnell, his association with the area is one of residence and shared experience.
The UFF in their post-massacre message said 'Remember Teebane'. But no one forgets Teebane, nor do they need the UFF or Alasdair McDonnell to remind them. When human life is lost on such a monumental scale, irrespective of who sustained it or who inflicted it, people do remember. But the people of the Lower Ormeau Road were being butchered by loyalism long before Teebane. The UVF bombing of the Rose and Crown Bar in May 1974 in which six people lost their lives, was seventeen years prior to Teebane. Neither James Kennedy nor Peter Magee were born when loyalists claimed their first victim in Belmore Street - Robert 'Scruff' Millen. The UFF are not interested in facts - just excuses.
Sectarian attacks on the beleaguered community in the Lower Ormeau Road are part of an ongoing twenty-year campaign by loyalism to hammer the community into abject submission. There is nothing new about them. They have failed. They will continue to fail. But it is incumbent on the community in that area to not only ensure that loyalism does not win in its endeavour to secure submission but to equally ensure that no more nationalists become its victims.
But the lessening of the community's vulnerability to sectarian attack shall not be secured through increased activity on the part of the RUC and the UDR. The latter in particular make no attempt to hide their sectarianism; threats of assassination by the UFF and the UVF are issued regularly from their mouths. The community can only protect itself. The presence of the RUC and UDR serves not to protect nationalists or deter loyalists - it only means that those capable of providing any defence are denied the means to do so through fear of arrest or shoot-to-kill. Arguments that a withdrawal from the area by the RUC and the UDR would only lead to 'gun-law' do not make sense. What we have at present is gun-law. The RUC/UDR/UFF make armed forays at will and without fear of prosecution.
As the state will not withdraw its sectarian forces some limited but practical measures must be taken. Vigilance must be increased and maintained at a permanently high level. People should work together as a community to secure their houses, watch their places of leisure and entertainment. Concerned political parties and community activists must make it their duty to actively advise the people on very aspect of personal community security. Nobody should be caught out as a result of complacency.
At this point in time the heartfelt sympathy of every nationalist prisoner in these wings lies with the families and friends of the deceased. To those fighting for life in hospital and the less seriously injured we send you our strongest support and solidarity. To the entire community of the Lower Ormeau Road we extend our condolences.
Hold Firm.
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From the Blanket to Boston College
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EMBARRASSED FOR ANTHONY Mcintyre ... YET AGAIN
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 08, 2014 AM 1 COMMENT
Chris Bray wrote to Boston College PR man Jack Dunn, cc'ing the college's administration and faculty, on 1 February 2014 in amazement after listening to Dunn lower the share value of Boston College's reputation.
From: Chris Bray
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2014 4:50 PM
To: jack.dunn@bc.edu ; thomas.hachey@bc.edu ; robert.oneill.1@bc.edu ;william.leahy@bc.edu ; kevin.oneill@bc.edu ; delaneyp@bc.edu ; ed.hayward@bc.edu ;sean.hennessey@bc.edu ; bridget.burke.2@bc.edu ; amy.braitsch@bc.edu ;david.horn.3@bc.edu ; adrienne.pruitt@bc.edu ; joseph.quinn@bc.edu ;thomas.chiles@bc.edu
Cc: Ed Moloney ; Anthony McIntyre
Subject: fascinating
Jack,
I've just had the extraordinary experience of listening to your interview on NPR's "On the Media," and I'm amazed again at your shamelessness. You've discovered that Anthony McIntyre is "an individual from Northern Ireland with a long criminal record" and that "his work was very weak." Did you or any of your colleagues notice any of that during theperiod of years that Boston College contracted with him, paid him, and took his work into your archive? Did you notice any of that during the years that you boasted about the project to faculty and staff in the BC Chronicle, and during the years when Thomas Hachey and Robert O'Neill wrote the introduction to Ed Moloney's book and took a shareof the royalties? The project began in 2001; in 2014, a university suddenly discovers that, my goodness, one of the researchers we hired had a criminal record? Poor dear, did you clutch your pearls?
If NPR had interviewers who were sentient -- I'm not holding my breath -- the follow-up question would have been, "If all of that is true, why did you hire him and continue to work with him?" Lucky for you to have an exchange with a mediocre interviewer, the only kind who would ever believe anything you say.
I invite you, or anyone at BC, to answer this question: If you regard Anthony McIntyre as "an individual...with a long criminal record" whose work "was very weak," why did Boston College hire him, pay him, and archive his work? Do you not notice that if your claim is true, you've damned the organization and oversight of a project that your university sponsored? Why, gasp, this person is a convicted criminal who does shoddy work, says...the university that hired him.
Yet again, I'm embarrassed for you.
Chris Bray
We know things that could undermine Northern Ireland peace process, say retired police officers
Former US diplomat Richard Haass is chairing talks on dealing with contentious parades, flags and other issues in Northern Ireland
BY LIAM CLARKE – 19 NOVEMBER 2013
Retired police officers have warned they could be forced to reveal information which would undermine the peace process during any truth commission into Northern Ireland's past.
The warning from The Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers' Association (NIRPOA) came in a 64-page submission to the Haass Commission for dealing with the past.
The submission makes it clear that the body represents officers who have been involved in what was known as the "shoot to kill" policy, a term they reject, and it is also known to represent many retired Special Branch officers.
Yesterday, Dr Haass returned to Belfast for another round of talks about flags, parading and the Troubles' legacy.
He insisted that an end-of-year deadline for political talks to resolve the divisive issues in Northern Ireland is "doable and desirable".
The document from the NIRPOA, seen by the Belfast Telegraph, states: "Our association does not support the concept of a 'truth commission' as the circumstances in which such tools have previously been used have been completely different.
"Nor do we have any confidence that anyone other than our members would actually tell the truth. Some of the truths which our members might reveal may not be considered to be helpful to the political or 'peace' process" the document states.
This is understood to be a reference to potential embarrassment to leading politicians, in Sinn Fein and other parties, if the intelligence records are opened. This, some of the officers believe, could destabilise the Executive.
The document calls for a reduction in the number of public inquiries but makes one exception. It calls for Troubles-era inquests into deaths caused by the security forces to be rolled into a single "review of all the relevant cases, taken as a whole".
This would provide "fully-funded independent and individual legal advice for any former members of the security forces who may be required to give evidence".
It estimates that, if we hold individual inquests, the backlog would take 20 years to clear and warns that many police officers who would be required to give evidence are old and frail.
It adds that many officers who were involved in alleged shoot to kill incidents were part of a few highly trained units and such incidents could be best tackled through a single process.
The submission says that any officer found guilty of wrongdoing should be prosecuted and rejects any notion of an amnesty, either of paramilitaries or members of the security forces who may be prosecuted. It adds: "Our association holds no brief for any police officer, serving or retired, who may have committed criminal offences, whether in relation to the performance of his or her duty or otherwise."
There are signs of anger and frustration with the present system of inquests inquiries which, NIRPOA argues, "facilitate, often at public expense, a continual campaign of baseless denigration of the members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary George Cross and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, including very many of our members".
It also attacks the Historical Enquiries Team and the Police Ombudsman for having allegedly employed some "staff who are poorly equipped for their work in terms of training and experience and leaders who have frequently demonstrated flawed judgment, resulting in injustice for many of our members".
It states: "In relation to the past, our principle concern is that there will be no attempt to rewrite history in a way which seeks to imply some sort of moral equivalence between the police (and other elements of the security forces) and the terrorists.
"In relation to the future, our principle concern is that our members will be able to live out their lives in dignity and privacy, with appropriate care being provided for those with physical or mental problems which are attributable to their public service."
seenitallbefore77p· 13 hours ago
look,lets have the truth,the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
you cannot change what happened yesterday,as tomorrow never comes........
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+3
Seamus0997p· 19 hours ago
If the NIRPOA have information that could undermine the peace process, that means they have and are concealing it. So what is new about the deception, lying and the dishonestly of this branch of the OO/UVF?
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+26
Yahoe_Yahboyee108p· 4 days ago
So if you come after us then we'll bring down the peace process. Nice
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Reply7 replies · active 19 hours ago
+14
flagless202095p· 20 hours ago
While there were many honourable people in the RUC and British army doing their best in a desperate situation, it serves nobody and especially not the peace process to cover up and deny the fact that the system was broken and fatally compromised by British Intelligence. By supplying arms and intelligence to loyalists, by operating covert murder gangs who terrorised catholics in the guise of the MRF, by reserving lethal force for dealing with Republicans while taking (at best) a more judicial approach to loyalists, by targeting defence solicitors for assassination, by setting up a military unit 'the FRU' to coordinate collusion and more specifically by the use of Brian Nelson controlling the targetting of the UDA which itself was legal, by tolerating if not encouraging dual membership of loyalist paramilitaries and the UDR, they drove catholics in their thousands into the arms of the Provos. For many a point came where the state was seen as sinister corrupt and ir-reformable and lead with tragic consequences to the conclusion for some that the only option was it's violent overthrow. Moderate anti-violent catholics lived in despair as they lost their youths to the hatred engendered by these programmes and those on the other side who wanted a peaceful future, including in many cases security force members that weren't privy to or part of the covert war, were marginalized and betrayed by the setting aside of democratic and legal norms. To acknowledge all of this would not threaten but instead strengthen the peace process as everyone knows the bulk of the truth anyway and are capable of forgiveness, it is the continued denial of the truth that locks people in the past. All sides have a duty to this society to admit their mistakes instead of denying or justifying them. That includes the Provisionals, for their actions too deeply damaged this society and only added to its tearing apart. Denying their complicity in the Kingsmills slaying of protestant workers after an act of trying to protect their catholic workmate from what they thought were loyalist gunmen is but one heart breaking example of the ultimate futility and hopelessness of their strategy to 'unite us'. We all lost the plot and should just bloody well admit it!
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+14
boland100p· 4 days ago
This group of ex branch men are as arrogant now as they were on duty.
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Reply2 replies · active 1 day ago
-5
Woburn_exile85p· 4 days ago
The very people who whine about truth commissions et al are those who have a long history in showing disrespect to all due legal processes. The brave men and women who put their lives on the line on a daily basis don't need a truth commission, the brave men and women who fed the security forces intelligence about the forces of terror and crime certainly don't need a truth examination body or some such thing. To all those who whine about the past my message is GET A LIFE. The world does not care about your past.
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Reply18 replies · active 2 days ago
+9
InErnest102p· 4 days ago
None of this raking up the past is helpful to the peace process! Those politicians calling loudest for 'dealing with the past' are those who seem unwilling to deal with the present or future. I hope not, but I fear the Haass talks will be a glorified finger pointing exercise.
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Reply1 reply · active 3 days ago
+5
SMCTIME87p· 4 days ago
I'd like to see the crooked ex-special branch boys have to answer for themselves, while taking down Sinn Fein while they're at it. The peace process will survive without them, it's not like we all don't know what they were up to.
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+16
nallyterrace82p· 4 days ago
"In relation to the past, our principle concern is that there will be no attempt to rewrite history in a way which seeks to imply some sort of moral equivalence between the police (and other elements of the security forces) and the terrorists."
Sorry guys, you cannot have your cake and eat it. The gunning down of civilians on Bloody Sunday was just as despicable an act as any gunning down of civilians by paramilitary groups. The members of the security forces who informed and equipped the gunmen who shot people down are just as bad as those who pulled the trigger.
You cannot seek to be seen as the upholder of law and order if you actively subvert their most fundamental principles for some intangible sense of the greater good. That is after all the stuff of terrorism - the idea that going against law and order can be justified by a greater good.
If there was nothing to be ashamed of, if the security forces are so assured that the illegal activities they partook could not in any way be seen as equivalent to paramilitary violence. . .then why all the lies? Why the murky web of falsities, half-truths and limp justifications?
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+19
corgie102p· 4 days ago
The " Into the dark " book by a retired RUC detective exposed the dirty work of the Special Branch of the RUC. Now we see the RUC retired officers threatening anyone who would dare to tell the truth. Once again we are reminded why the RUC were put out to pasture!
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+8
neilharland76p· 4 days ago
No surprise the RUC special branch don't wish to talk. They took great pleasure in turning kids into robots and MKultra style experiments all sanctioned by her Royal highness, leaving a trail behind them. And lots of them have lined their pockets at the expense of the victims still struggling to get their own accounts heard and acknowledged.
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+17
Surenah97p· 4 days ago
Of those killed by British security forces:
187 (~51.5%) were civilians
145 (~39.9%) were members of republican paramilitaries
18 (~4.9%) were members of loyalist paramilitaries
13 (~3.5%) were fellow members of the British security forces
Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:
1080 (~52%) were members of the British security forces
728 (~35%) were civilians
187 (~9%) were members of republican paramilitaries
56 (~2.7%) were members of loyalist paramilitaries
10 (~0.4%) were members of the Irish security forces
Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:
868 (~85.4%) were civilians
93 (~9%) were members of loyalist paramilitaries
41 (~4%) were members of republican paramilitaries
14 (~1.3%) were members of the British security forces
Where do we begin?
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Reply8 replies · active 4 days ago
+5
whatabouteryrules75p· 4 days ago
Those unhappy people who seek the truth are victims , and are seeking closure from injustice. Every man, woman and child resident in Northern Ireland for the past 50 yrs is a victim.
Sadly, the real cancer is in the bellies of those who feel victimised by the failure of the legal system, and the forces of law and order, to punish savagely the evildoers. These unlucky people have suffered agonies of hurt, many for several decades. It does not matter if their lost ones were innocent victims, or blood crazed psychopaths. In their eyes THEY are the real victims and their minds and judgement are unhinged by grief. An old testament eye-for-an-eye style retribution is demanded. THEY should realise that no words, no amount of tribunals or trials or truth forums will heal their wounds. The biggest watershed moment during the last hundred years in this country was the release of the prisoners, and this can be matched only by families and groups ceasing to clamour for retribution for past atrocities. The truly evil ones are without shame and shall never be punished as they deserve. A new watershed is needed, a new line drawn in the sand.
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+12
Chrisdoh97p· 4 days ago
Do you call the UVF or the UDA brave men, as it was them who worked in collusion with the RUC and the BA, in the murdering of catholics
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Reply2 replies · active 4 days ago
+8
jj148884p· 4 days ago
'Shoot to kill policy' the Police didn't do a very good job if this was an actual policy, the so called troubles could have been over alot sooner if the Police had adhered to this shoot to kill policy, just saying.
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Reply1 reply · active 4 days ago
+16
justplainmad106p· 4 days ago
Let the truth be known; it's the least we can do to bring a sense of justice to the victims and their loved ones.
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+10
Vinegar_Hill57p· 4 days ago
I totally see their point. How can we trust certain elements to admit uncomfortable truths - Gerry Adams won't even admit to being in the IRA despite the proverbial dogs in the street knowing otherwise!! There is no way we could trust the Republican movement to be honest unless politically expedient. Perhaps when they admit the full truth about the Disappeared (the location of remaining bodies for example) and when Adams finally admit his membership then we can talk business. I suspect calls for a truth commission are a fig leaf anyway - are the Sinn Fein leadership happy for the identities of all the informers within the IRA to be made public? I suspect if they were made public, a few more people would be getting Disappeared, and if certain allegations are to be believed, that includes some fairly prominent figures! Effect on the peace process of Republicans discovering their leadership who sold them the ceasefire are working for MI5?
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