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Home , Billy Giles, Blanket protest, Brendan Hughes, Brendan McFarlane, Christopher John Hanna, Eddie Copeland

INTERVIEWS

We moved then from Castletown Cross to Dundalk. My father was on the Fire Brigade in Dundalk and we had to move into town and we Bridie went to the firemen’s houses in Market Street. Jack, my eldest brother, was in the army at the time and as my father grew older Jack O’Byrne eventually left the army. He got my father’s job in the Council driving on the fire brigade and nee Rooney, steamroller and things. boRn Roscommon, 1919 Then unfortunately in 1975 a bomb exploded in ’m Bridie O’Byrne - nee Crowes Street (Dundalk). I was working in the Echo at the time and I was outside the Jockeys Rooney. I was born in (pub) in Anne Street where 14 of us were going Glenmore, Castletown, out for a Christmas drink. It was about five minutes to six and the bomb went off. At that in Roscommon 90 time I didn’t know my brother was involved in years ago 1 . My it. We went home and everyone was talking Imother was Mary Harkin about the bomb and the bomb. The following day myself and my youngest son went into town from Roscommon and my to get our shopping. We went into Kiernan’s first father was Patrick Rooney to order the turkey and a man there asked me from Glenmore. I had two how my brother was and, Lord have mercy on Jack, he had been sick so I said, “Oh he’s grand. “Did you brothers Jack and Tom and He’s back to working again.” And then I got to not know my sister Molly; just four of White’s in Park Street and a woman there asked me about my brother and I said to her, “Which that your us in the family. I lived there of my brothers?” And the woman on the other until I was three when we side of me said, “Did you not know that your brother brother was in the bomb explosion last night.” I was in moved to Castletown Cross. nearly died. I just ran out of the shop with We were very happy and we Patrick and came home. I think it was Fr. the bomb were a contented family. We Hackett was here at the time, he was waiting outside the house for me and he took me up to explosion had everything a family the hospital to see him. That was how I heard last could want. We had eight about Jack. night.” cows, hens and pigs, butter, It was a terrible time. The nuns were in the milk and everything and we hospital and they said to me not to tell my were well off. I never knew mother because she was elderly and I didn’t tell her. He lived for three days but they couldn’t get what it was like to be poor the shrapnel of the car out of his side. They until I got married I have to worked as hard as they could on him but they couldn’t save his life. I was there with him when tell you the truth. he died. It was a terrible time. I look back on it and it was a terrible day. I used to have a bicycle and I went from here to the hospital on my bicycle and from there I went down to my mother’s little bungalow in Ladywell Square. When I went into the house she said to me, “Bridie what’s wrong?” And I said, “Nothing’s

1 Born in 1919 INTERVIEWS

wrong.” I was trying to hide what had ; whatever went on with our happened, that he had died. I was only into the government here and the army there. I don’t house and the two nuns came in behind me and know what went on. It was like secret service they said, “Oh Mrs Rooney, poor Jack, poor at the time and he would never tell you what it Jack.” And she said, “Bridie why didn’t you tell was. Anyway I think they are sworn to secrecy me? I knew there was something wrong.” And in the army, that you couldn’t talk about what I told her the truth. I said, “The nuns had told went on with the officers. That was Jack’s job me not to tell you.” when he was in the army, driving Captain Stack up and down across the border. That was the When we did hear about it (Jack being in the only thing we had to do with the trouble at the explosion) I rang Maura, Jack’s daughter, and time. Then we were told it was the Red Hand she said that they were very confused that night Commandos 2 that planted the bomb. We were because Jack was to take Maisie, his wife, to the never really told much about it. The Guards Christmas draw; they won a turkey that year never came to me and Maura was saying that but they didn’t get going. They hadn’t a clue nobody went to her either or the mother after because he should have been home after six it. The government said they would pay for o’clock and didn’t come home. They were funeral expenses and anything that was round everywhere; Maura’s husband was incurred but they didn’t pay for anything. Like round everywhere and they didn’t find him and nobody even came near us, even nuns or priests. I just then they went to the hospital and he was there. The only one that came was Fr Hackett and it was that day that I went to town to get me couldn’t It was a terrible Christmas because he was shopping. He was waiting at the door when I buried on Christmas Eve; that was the Friday got home to take me to the hospital. My mother understand before Christmas he died and he was buried on didn’t go to the hospital at all; the nuns it; a woman Christmas Eve. The weather was very bad and wouldn’t let her go up there to see him and then my mother was in terrible shock over it. She they didn’t want her to go to the funeral so she that was wasn’t able to go to the funeral. It took a terrible didn’t get going at all. It was just as well too left like that lot out of the whole of us. My mother kept because he was in Quinn’s Funeral Parlour and asking where was Jack, where was Jack; she I went in to see him. I was in and out at with a bomb couldn’t get over that he hadn’t gone to see her different times with him but I remember the day explosion for Christmas. She just went senile. It was such before he was buried. I was there and I lifted up a terrible shock on the family; the whole lot of the sleeve of the shroud on his left arm where and to say us. he had got all the thing (shrapnel) and, Lord have mercy on him, his arm was all decaying that the Jack was walking past the town hall (when the where the shrapnel was in it and they hadn’t priests bomb went off) and Hugh Waters (also killed been able to get it out. He couldn’t have lived, in the explosion) was coming out of the pub. just couldn’t. wouldn’t go He was a tailor and he was after taking in to her or trousers for the man in the pub, Mulligan. He Nobody went near them (Jack’s family). Even had just left the trousers into the pub and got the priest didn’t go to Maisie, his wife, or the Guards paid for them and got on his bicycle to go home anything. I was telling Maisie about the priest when the bomb went off. He was at the door of coming here to me every first Friday. At the either. the pub and Jack was walking past at the town time she had been living there in Cox’s hall; just past the doors of the town hall it Demesne and she said that no priest had been happened. When the car blew up most of it going to her. Even when she moved over the went over the road and into Jack’s side; all bridge to one of them little houses, they never down his left side and what didn’t go into his went there to her either. I just couldn’t body went up on top of the town hall. understand it; a woman that was left like that with a bomb explosion and to say that the When Jack was in the army he used to drive priests wouldn’t go to her or the Guards either. Captain Stack up and down to Northern I was amazed that the Guards didn’t come here

2 Loyalist paramilitary organisation. INTERVIEWS to me being who I was like, Bridie Rooney. I they were good. They all came to the funeral know I was O’Byrne (married name), but still and the bosses were there; they sent a wreath. you would have thought they would have come The army were there. They all came to Jacks’ because I was the only sister he had here. house and that, you know, and they went to the People in knew more about it – Molly funeral. There was nothing really thought about (other sister), the O’Flaherty’s (Molly’s what happened to Jack; they didn’t really think husband’s family) - they knew more about it about him after losing his life through no fault than I did here in Dundalk. Terrible time. of his own and his wife and children left without him. It’s a terrible thing that the It seemed to be all covered up; they didn’t want government wouldn’t look into it or consider it. to talk about it as far as I could see. I went on They just didn’t bother looking into who killed once or twice on LMFM 3 about it but nobody him at all, or who didn’t; there was no real big There was seemed to want to know anything about it. investigation into it. They offered Maisie a nothing Bertie O’Hearn 4 did nothing about it and you measly amount of money in settlement but she would have thought with him being in never took it; no amount of money they would really government so long he’d of done something. offer her would compensate for the loss of him. thought There’s a plaque there now, where it happened; the left hand side of the door of the town hall. That just seems to be the way of it now unless about what The bomb had taken a piece out of the wall there’s something coming up at Christmas. I where they have the plaque now. A couple of don’t know whether they’ll have something happened years after it happened they put it up. (ceremony) again or not at the town hall. They to Jack ... have a thing (sculpture) there beside the Jack had great brains; Jack and Tom went to the courthouse. They have a plaque for him at the It’s a Christian Brothers School. I always remember town hall and then just over from that, well the terrible my mother had a little clock on the man was a tailor (Harry Watters, killed in the mantelpiece, she’d had it for years, he’d won it. explosion) and they have a big needle for that thing that He used to get first prize in everything. and for Jack from the fire brigade they have a Everything at school he’d win; a fountain pen, small ladder and I think it’s doves they have too. the he’d a gold fainne for Irish, the clock. He had It’s just beside the court house. The Council government great brains Jack. It was an awful pity. He was gave tea and sandwiches that evening (at the 61 when he died and he had intended on taking unveiling of the sculpture). They arranged to wouldn’t early retirement. His son was an engineer on have it outside, I got an invitation and I went to look into it the boats and he was going to go with him for it. I’m the last one left of that Rooney family at a year on the boats just to relax himself out 90 years of age, a lifetime gone. I had a good or consider from work. The Christmas before he was due life and that big tragedy was the biggest tragedy it. to take retirement he was killed. He had two in my life, Jack my brother. children; Liam the engineer who’s in England, and Maura, who’s married to Brian McKeever. We were always a close family; we always pulled together. Jack would have been the There’s a picture on the mantelpiece and it was oldest of us all and he would of looked after us, taken the day that Jack was married. John Tom, Molly, and myself when we were O’Byrne was his best man that I was going with children. That’s the way we lived. Like when and eventually married. I had forgotten for we were living out there in Castletown Cross years where it was taken and I used to be there were no bicycles or cars at that time we saying, “I wonder where that photograph was would have walked into school, winter and taken?” and my husband says, “It was taken at summer. When I started I would have only Jack’s wedding. Do you not remember, we were been four or five years old but we still did it. It in for Jack’s wedding and I was his best never did me any harm. man?” When I got married there was no such thing as The people in the Echo, where I was working, washing machines. There was a washboard and

3 A local radio station. 4 Former Taoiseach. INTERVIEWS a tub and work hard with your hands on it. My (son) Pat was ten when I began to work at Things have improved greatly now for the When I look the Echo. Mrs Hoy next door, she was in it young people have loads. Everything’s before. We had planned to go into it together automatic now for them but then it wasn’t. back on my but I got cold feet when she was going into it Wages were small when we got married. You young life it and I didn’t go in for a few years after. I waited were very badly paid even though John had a until Pat was ten and then Mary was old good job; he was a cleaner, an engine driver, a was a great enough to look after him for me and that let me fireman, but nowadays the engine drivers get go in. I went in on the early shift, which was great money and the trains are automatic. life seven until three. I would stay on that for a When he was on (the trains) it wasn’t; it was compared to while and then I would get tired because I was very hard work. after rearing five children. I would go on the nowadays; second shift from three until eleven and Jim He died eight years ago and it has left me now we had O’Connor was my foreman and he was very the old widow. I just have to keep going on as good to me. At the time I hadn’t taken a drink long as God will keep me here and do the best nothing and until Pat was ten years of age. When I would I can for my children; five of them, Liam, still we had go into the Echo on a Monday morning the Mary, Seán, Gerard and Pat. They are great women would all ask me where I was at the children I have to tell you that. The boys are everything. weekend and I would say I wasn’t anywhere, four great boys. They’re all vegetarians. They that I was in the house and had plenty to do. don’t drink and they don’t smoke which is a They used to say to me, “Why do you not go wonderful thing for them. I don’t have to worry out with your husband?” I used to say, “Sure about them being drunk and driving. I know it’s bad enough that he takes a drink, I don’t that they’re safe when they’re driving and want to start.” And they used to say, “Well sure they’re very, very good to me. if you can’t beat them, join them.” And that’s just what I did. I started going out and taking a I did (have a drink) when I was younger. They drink. Jim O’Connor, my foreman, was very were great times when I look back on it. You good. If I wanted to get out early at night he were safe when you went out to have a drink would say, “Now Bridie if you’re wanting to long ago. People would look after you. It’s not get out early get your work done and just go. like that nowadays. It’s so changed from long Don’t be coming back and asking me for people ago. I used to walk up the town and go to the would all be looking to get out; you go when bingo and then walk up the street to meet my you have your work done.” Which I used to do friends. You were quite safe. You could walk at ten o’clock instead of eleven. That was a up the town and nobody would knock you great part of my life as well. down or go near you or take your handbag or anything but nowadays you can’t even walk up The only thing I minded about working in the town at night. It’s very sad that things have Echo was that whatever money I earned the changed and they’re not like they used to be. government took the half of it off me for tax. I Life was so good long ago even though we had don’t know how this government are looking nothing. Wages were very small. We didn’t for money off me and people that’s old. I have a car. You were lucky to have a bike long worked for eight years I didn’t even get money ago. Dances were cheap; they were only four out of it because for the eight years I was in it and happence (half pence) for a session of they took half of my wages in tax. I couldn’t dancing which was wonderful; the Hibs Hall understand it how the government could be so and the Plaza. When I look back on my young greedy. I went to work because I needed the life it was a great life compared to nowadays; money and in the end I just got fed up giving we had nothing and still we had everything. We them the money. I couldn’t afford to take a were very happy. Young people these days drink or go on holiday. I hadn’t enough money don’t seem to be happy and yet they have because the government were taking so much everything so you don’t need to have everything off me. It wasn’t fair. I just left it then after eight to make you happy. years and didn’t work any more and I got me INTERVIEWS pension. was paying it then too and tax. The money I’m getting back now off them (pension) is the tax It was a big thing with five children to go into they took off me. If you begrudge even that it (work in Echo). I found it very hard to go in. given that I’m 90 years of age; I think it’s a My husband at that time, even though he had a disgrace. As I said all along it’s time that good job, his wages were small. I never seemed government left and let somebody else in that to have anything until I started in the Echo and can run the country properly and look after the then as I said to you the government were elderly properly, the unemployed, the sick and taking half of it in tax which is terrible. If you children too. I don’t see why they have to cut have to go out to work the government classes in schools and do away with teachers. shouldn’t deprive you of what you’re earning. That should never happen; that’s a child’s prime They should take a small amount off you. You time in their lives when they should be getting go to work to help your family. Every Thursday their lessons taught to them properly. Children when I would get my wages I thought, “God who can’t learn should have private tuition in ... it’s time again, they were taking half my wages off me the school where they go to whether it be and I thought they were only going to do it for national or whatever. They should be taught that the first few weeks.” All the time they were and taught well. It’s the beginning of their life government taking if off me; half my wages. in school but the government doesn’t look at it that way. They are only it in for themselves and left and let Yeah, 30 years, the Christmas bonuses 5 (special they couldn’t care less about me or the children; somebody payments to pensioners) were there for us, then they don’t care. this Christmas (2009) they said they haven’t the else in that money now to give to us. The pensioners are I always have great faith in God and still have. not going to get it this year, Brian Cowan said. I always say it’s him has me here at this age and can run the I was in the Dáil some years ago and I went to has kept me going with everything. I always say country Brian Cowan; he was the Minister for money there are five things you can’t buy. You can’t (Finance) at that time; he wasn’t Taoiseach. I buy your healing, your health, your strength, properly and went to him and I said who I was and that all your senses, or your faculties; you have to ask look after the women with me were pensioners from the Him for them and if you don’t ask him you club. I said that the weather’s never good in won’t get them. You just have to ask Him and the elderly May and could you not leave us the ‘cold he’ll give them to you. I have great faith in Him properly, the money’ (Christmas bonus) until the end of May because I say that he looks after myself and my and he said he would look into it for me, “I home and the children always for me. It’s unemployed, won’t forget now Bridie. I’ll look it into it and wonderful to be able to turn to God. I think get back to you.” He never got back to me and more people should turn to him. the sick and that’s all them years ago. This year they are children too. looking for us to say ‘yes’ to the Lisbon Treaty My father was dead before Jack was killed. My so they gave us the cold money two weeks early father died when he was 84 and my mother this year. That’s all, this year; that’s all after me died when she was 93. Tom, the other brother, asking him years ago. he died about ten years ago. Molly, my sister in Belfast, Molly O’Flaherty, she only died two I think it’s a disgrace because after all I was years ago, she was 91. I’m the last left surviving working from I was 16 or 17. I was paying at 90. How long I’ll live I don’t know but God stamps and everything at that time. We had to has been so good to me. I’m in two clubs now work for very small wages, I am going back and the club I was in the other day they gave years, a couple of pound a week. You worked me a cake. The man that was playing the music, from eight in the morning to six at night at that Patsy Breen, said, “I’ve been singing for you all time and I would have had to pay stamps, these years. Now you’re 90 and I hope I’ll be insurance, whatever you had to pay, even on the singing it again for you when you’re 100.” I small amount of money I would have had. said, “That would be great and it’s only next Then later when I went to work in the Echo I year.” I forgot, I’d all those years to go between

5 Christmas bonus for pensioners to pay for fuel costs. INTERVIEWS

90 and 100. (laughs) take you down and up again to the door. It’s I used to great. I used to do a bit of singing myself. I sing a song do a bit up in the club, just for the women there. There (Cheeping sound) That’s one of the wee birds of singing used to be a woman there, she died, she used to from outside the window cheeping in at me. I be with Annie Cahill, she moved down from feed them every day. I always say that’s God. myself. I Belfast. She used to get us to do exercises with You remember the five things I told you about, our hands and our feet and then she used to try your health, your strength, your healing, your sing a to get us to sing a bit of a song for your vocal senses and your faculties, well for years I didn’t song up chords and that you know. I try now to do that realise that you had to get them off God, you just to keep the people involved. I would just do know, and when I did I just turned to him and in the that old thing, the Hooley in the Kitchen, you asked him for them. I’m telling everyone, the club, just want me to do (sing) it? women in the clubs too. I even told the priest there when he was saying mass. I said, “Father for the The clubs I go to are the Redemptorist on a you know there are five things you can’t buy.” Monday from 3pm to 5.30pm and the “Oh there is yeah.” And he mentioned other women Muirhevnamore on a Wednesday from 3pm to ones - love and compassion. I said, “No, none there. 4.30pm and they are very good, both of the of them ones are the ones I had.” He said, clubs. We enjoy being in them; both clubs have “What are your five?” And I said to him, “Your a few games of bingo, bit of a singsong, anyone health, your strength, your healing, your senses who wants to sing can sing a song. If you want and your faculties.” He said, “Well that’s ten to sing a song that they can all join in with it is things now that God has to give you.” I said, “I better. I know I can’t sing myself but I do my never looked at it that way and there you are. I best but there are people that just can’t but they probably won’t remember what you’re after will join in, which is a good thing. I think it telling me so I’ll just keep saying my own.” keeps you alive; old people being in clubs to talk “That’s very good,” he said. “It’s a good thing,” to people and sing, play bingo. It keeps your he said, “that you do talk to God.” And I said, brain alert, you know? They are very good; they “Well who else will I talk to? He’s the only one always have tea and sandwiches. We have a that will listen to me and won’t answer back.” minibus that takes us and it’s only five Euro to (laughs) INTERVIEWS

I knew nothing of that at the time; it was more ‘Uncle Seamus’. All I knew of him was his easy-going attitude. He would get his few Jimmy pound, he’d have his few drinks, he smoked his cigarettes and that was it. He was a single man who lived with his mother who was in her Fox seventies at the time he was killed. Every week when he’d get his money he would hand it over boRn co LoUTH, ???? to the mother. That was the way of doing it and I asked she’d probably end up handing him more back, her what but anyway. had y name is Seamus was the type of character who was happened Jimmy uncontroversial. He lived in Epistle Cross in Fox and I Mount Pleasant, about three and half miles and she outside Dundalk and about a mile and half was very was a from the border. He had worked all his life on nephew different farms and he ended up in the saw-mill distrought we were working in. I remember him talking to of MSeamus Ludlow who was me and telling me he had been hired out to the saying killed on the 2nd May 1976. I farms for most of his working life and it was that her was working with Seamus at fascinating for me just listening to him. He seemed a brave age to me but he was only 47 brother the time of his death up in at the time he was killed. It was an absolutely had been the forest in Ravensdale and devastating time for the family. It was obviously a major shock for the entire community but for killed; had got to know Seamus the family in particular. Seamus really well, not just as a nephew but as a workmate My particular memory of it, as I say I was had been working with him, but that weekend myself killed. and I was very fond of him. and another chap headed away to Galway for He was a very kind, easy the weekend. We went on the Friday morning and the last time I seen Seamus was on the going sort of a person. I Friday. This was in May; Seamus was killed on would have to say that if he the 2nd May 1976. We came back on the had any political persuasion Monday and Seamus had been killed on the Saturday night/Sunday morning so we had, it would have been towards thankfully, heard nothing about it until we the Fine Gael party. arrived home on the Monday morning. We arrived back up at our house; my family home and Seamus’s family home were next door to each other so we all sort of lived in that one wee circle. When I arrived back up at the house there was a checkpoint outside the door and a Guard standing there. I asked him what was wrong and he said there was an accident down the road. I’ll never forget walking into the house and I met my mother who was in tears. I asked her what had happened and she was very distraught saying that her brother had been killed; Seamus had been killed. I couldn’t INTERVIEWS

believe it; it was so weird. one of the Paul Quinn 1 events in Crossmaglen recently and relayed the story of Seamus Myself and Dermot Philips, the chap that was because the same logic was getting played there with me in Galway, went into the morgue to see “because the IRA was the biggest grouping in him and I saw him laid out in the morgue. At the area they obviously had to be involved” and that stage I didn’t know what had happened. I I stood up and said that it took us 22 years to found out later that they had found him down find out what happened to Seamus and that it the road. The road I live on is sort of beside the wasn’t the IRA and the damage that was done main /Dundalk Road and sort of beside in the meantime. So I saw it happening there the main Ballymascanlon Hotel. It’s about a (Cullyhanna) as well. mile and half to the Ballymascanlon Hotel and about a mile down the road Seamus had been Our family, like many other families, half found in a little lane, threw up in a ditch. He would have been republican. We were had been shot three times. They reckoned it had republican and my cousins who lived in happened on Saturday night and he hadn’t been Drumintee 2 would have been republican but found until Sunday afternoon. He hadn’t come the rest of the family, I don’t know what politics home on the Sunday morning and my father they would have had but it wasn’t republican and my uncles went out looking for him and anyhow. And what you had was the Guards they were still looking for him at three o’clock. saying to all of the family that it was the IRA They had tried everywhere that he normally but you had two out of the six siblings saying, was and they couldn’t find him. They were still “Well we don’t believe it was the IRA.” The looking for him at 3.00 p.m. and they were Guards actually got very hostile about that and coming back up the road. There was a their questioning was really rough. My mother checkpoint and they (Guards) said that they’d had a couple of run-ins with the Guards over found a body. So they went and identified him. it, you know, and she was saying, “Well what evidence do you have?” They were actually The whole craic around the country then was, quite dismissive and they were accusing her and Our family, well how did he die? We got interviewed by the asking why did she differ on their view of it and like many Guards, as everybody did, and the Guards were what did she know that they didn’t know about saying straight away, and they were very clear it. other about it, that it was the IRA that had killed him. families, And I suppose most people would have thought They insisted on questioning my grandmother at that time that the IRA would have had at the time and she was bed-ridden. Seamus half would something to do with it. My father, who was a was her pet I suppose; he was a single man. So republican, went and spoke to a local the family had taken the decision just to tell her have been republican and put it straight to him, you know, that he had been killed in the road. They felt it republican what was the story? He got assurances that the would have been detrimental to her health to IRA had absolutely nothing to do with it. From tell her that he had been murdered. The Guards that point on we knew that the IRA had were insisting on talking to her and that caused absolutely nothing to do with it but the Guards a lot of hostility in the family and my mother kept persisting that it was the IRA and in particular was vociferous about it so there newspapers kept on insisting that it was the was that hostility growing between my mother IRA. The whole line of enquiry that the and the Guards. Guards were taking was, “What republicans did you see about the area?” and had blocked On the other side of the border, Kevin Donegan out any other line of enquiry. Their logic was senior (my uncle) actually went to find out what the IRA had to be involved because nothing like the story was in Forkhill Barracks 3, to find out that was going to happen in the area without if there had been any news. He was actually the IRA knowing. arrested and taken to and the whole line of questioning was around the IRA killing Ironically I have to say, I got up and spoke at Seamus. So that was the line that was put out

1 Paul Quinn from Cullyhanna in South Armagh was killed on the 20 October 2007 and the media and some sections of the community blamed the IRA for his death. 2 In South Armagh. 3 In South Armagh. INTERVIEWS at the time very much. That persisted for years Brendan Ludlow who was in the Free State and years and it caused serious difficulties in Army so that’s almost civil war politics coming I ended up our family. I think it’s fair to say that it tore our into play. family apart completely. going to I ended up going to jail in 1987 and none of the Later I joined the IRA, not as a result of what other members of the family came to visit or jail in happened to Seamus; our family had been anything like that. It was the same with Kevin 1987 and republican anyway and for me it was a natural in the north and Jim in the south. I remember step. I ended up in jail later. I have two cousins Jim had sent out looking for a memory card of none of who joined the IRA and both were in jail also, Seamus to put on a cross 4 in the jail. I the other Jim and Kevin Donegan junior. I have another remember asking my aunt (in the south) if she cousin, Brendan Ludlow, who joined the Free would have a spare memory card of Seamus. members State Army at the time so there were very clear She asked me why and I said, “Jim wants to put differences in the family politically. There was it on one of those Celtic crosses for him,” and of the hostility; you tried to get on as best you could she was very angry and said, “Well I will not. family but it was always there and the Guards kept There’s no picture of my brother going on one feeding it all the time, over the twenty years not of those things. The bastards killed him.” So came to just initially. that was the type of anger that was there down visit or through the years. There’s an uncle of mine, Kevin Ludlow, who anything would have went at least twice a year into the When it eventually became public - I actually like that ... Guards barracks to see if there was any update wasn’t in the country I was away - but the and continuously was told over those years, whole events around Seamus’s killing unfolded “Well you know who did it. It was the IRA and through investigative journalism. A team of they’re never going to tell you or never going to them arrived at my aunt’s house to say that new admit it.” That did persist for all those years. information had come to light and that one of There were weddings on both sides which the the people who had actually been involved in other side wouldn’t go to and even to this day, the killing of Seamus had told the whole story it’s ok for the young ones because we can get of it; a fellow called Hoskings. It ended up that on with them, but my aunt who lives in two members of the were Drumintee over the border and my other aunt involved in the killing of Seamus; Hoskings, a who lives in Epistles Cross on this side of the guy called Samuel ‘Mambo’ Carroll, who was border just don’t talk. It all comes back to questioned about the killing of Sinn Féin Vice- Seamus’s death. My own mother would tell President Máire Drumm (1976) as well. This about the hardship she went through with it has been well documented; BBC and UTV have and the bitterness that was there but I can all done documentaries about it. It was these understand that. These were people who were three boys, four ended up in it, who left Comber being told by people who they respected as the in County Down and travelled into Newry and law and order about who they thought killed across the border to and came into Seamus. But the Guards weren’t only saying Dundalk apparently looking to kill a particular that it was the IRA that had done it they were republican but couldn’t find him. They were actually saying that it was members of the drinking and apparently Mambo Carroll had family who were in the IRA who killed Seamus said that he was ‘looking for a Catholic’; that’s and you can imagine the sort of turmoil that exactly what they got. Seamus Ludlow, as he caused. always did, was thumbing a lift home as he didn’t have a car. They pulled up, he got into Jim Donegan and Kevin Donegan were the car, and they took him out the road. He told arrested in 1981, the day that was them where he lived and they drove on down buried; they were arrested on the border. Kevin the road and found that lane and apparently was arrested in the north and Jim was arrested Mambo Carroll just turned around and shot in the south. Part of the arresting team was him. Just dumped the body and drove off.

4 Celtic crosses that political prisoners made in the . INTERVIEWS

Our family believe that there was a total cover member of Fine Gael had been shot. Four days The up. I always say that there were two wrongs later (in May 1976) there were eight SAS done. Seamus being killed, which was a wrong, (Special Air Service 6) men arrested south of the campaign but there was a total cover up in the south. We border - four days after Seamus had been killed came up now know that the Guards actually knew – they were arrested for carrying various within a very short space of time the names of weaponry. The Gardaí didn’t know who they against the people who killed him. Within months of were. They weren’t dressed in army uniform. his death they knew the names of these people They had sawn-off shot guns and all sorts of brick walls. and they knew 100% that it was nothing to do gear and they were arrested and there was sort The with the IRA, that the IRA had nothing to do of a very high profile case about it. So Garret with it and yet they persisted with that. Since Fitzgerald never spoke about Seamus Ludlow Guards then, and I have to say that it’s been good being killed but he spoke of his embarrassment, denied because it’s pulled our family together, since four days later, of having to explain to the then a number of our family have pursued it. British authorities how members of his security everything They’ve got a good campaign up and running forces had arrested members of their security there; Jimmy Sharkey, Mick Donegan and forces. This spoke volumes to me of where they Kevin Ludlow. I was away for a few years but (the Dublin Government) were at. when I came back I took a conscious decision that I wouldn’t get involved with it (the Apparently it wasn’t the first time that campaign) because of my IRA membership; I something like this had happened. There was a was concerned that others could have used it fellow killed down in Kildare in similar against us and damaged it (the campaign). I circumstances and his family were told it was talked that out with them and they were happy the IRA without seeing any of the evidence. I enough with it. think that Seamus’s death was used by the authorities in the south as a stick to beat the The campaign came up against brick walls. The IRA with as well. Guards denied everything. When you look at it, the bullets that were used to kill Seamus were This was only about five months after the sent north for forensic examination and ‘were bombing in Dundalk 7 but it never seemed to be lost’. The enquiry that happened within months a line of enquiry for the Guards (that loyalists of Seamus being killed, there wasn’t one were operating across the border) at all. The member of the family at it. There wasn’t one other strange thing about it was that the enquiry member of the family even knew that it was went on for about five or six weeks and then going on. They (Guards) said that they absolutely died. We believe the Guards knew contacted Kevin Ludlow, who was working in exactly who killed him and there was no profit, Newry at the time, an hour before the inquest as far as they were concerned, in pursuing it. was due to begin and he never got to it. None They then carried on with the myth of who of the family was at the inquest. None of killed him. Seamus’s clothes were ever returned to the family. They just totally, in my view, treated the I was arrested once in 2000 and even at that family disgracefully and persistently lied. stage, and this was after it became public knowledge (of who had killed Seamus), even at I have a clear memory of while I was in jail of that stage when the Branch (Special Branch) in reading Garret Fitzgerald’s 5 autobiography and the south were questioning me they still threw naturally I went to the 2nd May 1976 (part in in about the IRA killing my uncle (Seamus) and the book) and he never spoke about it. I said at about republicans in the family being actually the start (of this interview) that if Seamus had involved in the killing. Stuff like, “That’s the any sort of political leanings it was towards type of clients that we have here that they killed Fine Gael. I think he was actually a member of their own family members.” They still persisted the party but there wasn’t one mention of this with it. Irish civilian who had been killed or that a

5 Former Taoiseach and leader of the Fine Gael political party. 6 Elite regiment of the British Army usually involved in undercover operations behind enemy lines. 7 A no-warning bomb exploded in Dundalk on the 19th December 1975 killing two men. INTERVIEWS

I remember distinctly through the years, ever come out and said, “Well yes, we knew different times. I remember one time down in who Seamus Ludlow’s killers were but this is the Ballymascanlon Hotel I was having a drink the reason that we said it was somebody else.” and this aul neighbour talking away and in the They’ve never said that; they’ve never really middle of it all he said, “That was terrible, well apologised. I suppose if he had of kept his mouth shut he wouldn’t have been shot.” They (some Our family met John O’Donoghue, who was members of the public) thought that because he the justice minister at the time, in the (Seamus) worked in the forest he must have Ballymascanlon Hotel. They’d been waiting a came across an (IRA) arms dump and that’s long time for the meeting with him. When they why he was shot. They were trying times. met him the minute they started to talk about a public enquiry he walked to the window and The whole thing came out I think because this turned his back and said there would be no boy Hoskings had a conscience about it (the public enquiry into this. He was extremely killing) and I think he went to the cops. The arrogant and dismissive and the meeting only cops arrested them all and interviewed them all, lasted a few minutes. My family came out of your man Carroll included, but there was no the meeting extremely annoyed and frustrated prosecution forthcoming out if. Hoskings was over it and that’s the way they’ve been treated one of the ones in the car. I think that he was over it. It’s almost as if they have done one of the innocent (people) in it; he was in the something wrong. I think a bar drinking (in Comber, County Down) and went with them in the car for a bit of craic. Two The other thing is there’s never been one public of them were UDR 8 and apparently at least shilling has ever passed hands. Seamus was a enquiry one of them (Mambo Carroll) was a British victim but they continuously smeared his name, agent and they were part of the loyalist Red smeared the family ‘willy-nilly’, and they never needs to Hand Commandos 9 as well. cared about that. I think my mother and my be put in aunts will go to their graves without ever seeing One good thing, we get on rightly with the any justice out of this or seeing the family name place family now. We all talk together now but I brought back. I’m a republican but not spoke with Brendan Ludlow recently and he everybody in this area is, but for me to have because feels like he was particularly let down because people saying that Seamus was an informer was this can this was the State that he adhered to and he a huge smear. To hear that the organisation that feels particularly let down. I don’t. I always had I belonged to and was proud to be a part of, to happen that bit of distrust of them (the State). The hear people say that they killed Seamus, even again ... main thing of it is that the family has never got though I never believed it, that has never been any justice out of this. addressed.

The demands of the family are for a I think a public enquiry needs to be put in place public enquiry because we feel that’s the only because this can happen again. I’ve seen it with way that any truth can come out of it. the Paul Quinn stuff; it’s exactly what they did Personally I don’t think we are going to get it. with Seamus. I was interviewed over the Paul I would be extremely surprised if that changes Quinn case, everybody was, and there were all in the future because there’s no profit for sorts of aspersions over it and all sorts of the Guards coming out of a public enquiry. allegations against different people and I see it The Guards will investigate it and there have all happening again. So there’s no lessons been a number of reports already; the learned here. It’s the Guards who are carrying Barron report 10 referred to it and there have out that investigation but there’s no lessons been a number of different investigations into learned in any of this. I think a public enquiry it but, in truth, nothing came out of it. would go a long way to doing something about They’ve said that it should have been handled that but it’s going to be resisted to the high better but, in truth, there’s not one Guard has heavens.

8 , a regiment in the British Army but recruited solely from the North of Ireland. 9 An illegal loyalist paramilitary group. 10 Lord Justice Barron’s report was finished in 2004 and published on 5 November 2005. INTERVIEWS

There’s been a watery apology in my view. a couple of years before that as well; We’re not saying that mistakes weren’t made Castleblaney bombing. A lot of stuff going on; but given the time and all the difficulties with a lot of fear. the security services and all of this it doesn’t address it, in any shape or fashion, the fact that, The finger of suspicion was never pointed at the and it is a fact, they knew who killed him Brits and I want to know why. My family wants within a very short space of time but yet they to know why the people who are supposed to persisted in saying that it was somebody else uphold law and order in this country The who killed him. Not only did they persist in deliberately lied to our family, deliberately finger of saying that it was somebody else who killed didn’t pursue the people who they knew killed him they never did anything about bringing our uncle. Why that was and what special suspicion those people to justice who actually did it licence do they have to go around killing people because it was too much of a political hot and get away with it. Mambo Carroll was potato at the time. At that time there were a lot apparently was involved in killing quite a few never of different things that happened. There was people. He’s living in England now because Kay’s Tavern 11 ; the bombings in there. there was a documentary about this; there’s pointed There was a man abducted from Kay’s Tavern been several documentaries, good at the not too long before that, Sean Collins, he was documentaries on it but nothing came out of abducted and taken across the border. There that either. Brits and was a lot of that sort of stuff that went on at I want to that time; there was a lot of fear in the area. Seamus was a totally innocent person but I 12 was murdered just a mile away think I have actually more anger for the way know from here, just across the fields here. He was that the Guards treated our family, and treated just on the border and it was the SAS (Special Seamus’s name, and felt quite justified in why ... Air Service) came in and shot him. That was sullying his name around the country, which only about a month before Seamus was killed they did. To date, they have not apologised so there was a lot of fear. Sean McKenna was about it or done anything about it, I keep using taken across the border by British soldiers and this term apology but in all honesty it doesn’t imprisoned; the Miami killings and all of that matter about an apology. I want to know why sort of stuff was going on in that short period this was done and I want to know that it can’t of time. The Dublin bombings only happened happen again to any other family.

11 A pub in Dundalk that was bombed by loyalists. 12 Peter Cleary, 25 years of age, was an IRA volunteer from . He was arrested by undercover British soldiers on the border on 15 April, 1976 while vis - iting his girl friend near Forkhill, South Armagh. He was then beaten and shot dead by the soldiers. INTERVIEWS

I never knew much about my own (family) background. I never regarded myself as a re - publican. I’d never even heard of the IRA. It Paddy was only in later years when I was at St Col - man’s College that I found out that my mother’s two uncles were involved in the old Quinn IRA 2, the Fourth Northern Division. I wasn’t really interested in republicanism. I never really ... you boRn soUTH ARmAgH, 1951 knew anything about republicanism, just prob - ably lived a sort of sheltered life. When I went could see to that school we had an Irish teacher called Gerry O’Neill. He is actually an older brother the he name’s Paddy of Martin O’Neill who’s now the manager of smoke Quinn. I was Aston Villa. He used to talk about Derry and born a mile the Protestants and the Catholics and about the rising out great O’Neill family in country Tyrone. He was of Belfast outside the teaching us Irish but we weren’t that interested village of in Irish at the time so somebody would men - on a tion something about the O’Neill clan, about TBelleeks 1 , between the clear day. Derry, he’d go off on it again and we’d have an - villages of and other free class. Whitecross on a small farm Around this time when I was in St Colman’s of 30 acres of land. My the riots started in Derry, in 1968. That was the father died when I was nine first time that I started to realise that there was something wrong with this country I was living and my mother had to rear in. I would have been about 15 or 16; around eight of us on her own. I about that age. Probably what was more edu - went to the local primary cational to me, we only got the TV in 1967, and seeing all the images of the rioting in Derry in school and then my mother 1968 was probably the thing that most opened wasn’t satisfied with the my eyes. In 1968 you had the Pogroms in Belfast and I started to wonder what was really teacher that was there at wrong. Then I started to think about the people the time because he wasn’t in the RUC. You could see the images on the teaching us anything so she TV, you heard of people being shot and then you saw the society in which you were living in moved me up to a whole different light. I became very interested Carrickavaddy School. I in what was going on. I began to identify with these people. spent a couple of years there and I went from there I can remember I used to work during the sum - to the secondary school in mer time with a local farmer who lived about a mile from where I lived but it was up on very Newry, St Joseph’s, and high ground. On a summer’s day when you then I went from there to St were up there working and making hay and stuff like that, usually working with hay for a Colman’s College (Newry). pound a day, sometimes you got the pound and sometimes you didn’t, you could see the smoke rising out of Belfast on a clear day. Then that evening when you saw the news you could see

1 South Armagh. 2 From after the Easter Rising of 1916 INTERVIEWS

the buses burning, you could see the rioting. time I was lifted (arrested). I remember the He was You began to wonder what sort of a hell hole Paras (Paratroopers), they just came out of these people were living in and you could iden - nowhere, coming out of the garden and point - just tify more and more with them. ing this and pointing that, coming in and out of getting the house. They raided the house first. They Things progressed to 1971. I think it was when didn’t stay for long and then they took my thicker Billy Reid 3 was shot dead; the shooting hap - brother Seamus and I; they took us away. We pened and I started to hear more and more were probably the first people; there was a and about the IRA. You were just sort of wondering whole raid around the country but we were thicker what these people were going through that probably the first arrested. When they were would make a man go out with a gun, you coming in different roads to lift people one of all the know, and face the British Army and get shot the Land Rovers was hit by a land mine and time and dead. You began to just feel more and more for there was two of them killed. We were probably these people and you felt you had to do some - in Newry at the time. I remember sitting in the he thing about it. Then in 1972 was Bloody Sun - Land Rover and I remember sitting and listen - day in Derry. When you saw all that happened ing to the football results come through (on warned there and you could see the sort of terror that their radio). I think it was the FA Cup final and be not to was on people’s faces you just got more and Sunderland beating Man United. I remember more angy and angrier about the situation you the result coming in; you could hear it over the say ‘no’ were living in. radio. They took us out to the UDR 5 Centre on or ‘don’t the Belfast Road. They didn’t know where to I went to the first Civil Rights (march) in take us and then they eventually found the po - know’ Newry and it was probably things like that (im - lice station in Newry and that was my first in - anymore. ages on the TV) that made me start going to terrogation. Civil Rights marches. I went to the one where He kept the police tenders 4 were burning. I remember I can remember it rightly. It was mostly doing going down to the Albert Basin and people exercises, spread-eagled against the wall; it was sticking were pushing the police tender into the water. press-ups against the wall. I can remember his fist Looking back they (RUC) probably let them these Special Branch, I think it was Special take the police tender for propaganda purposes, Branch at the time, questioning and every ques - into my you know, just to try to discredit the Civil tion he would ask me I’d say, “I don’t know,” mouth Rights Movement. I remember going home that or, “No.” He was just getting thicker and night and my mother saying “Well youse done thicker all the time and he warned me not to and a good job today; youse disgraced yourselves say ‘no’ or ‘don’t know’ anymore. He kept stick - today.” (laughs) She seen what was happening ing his fist into my mouth and around my lip. around on the TV and she could understand what they He had my lips all cut and the blood was run - my lip. were playing at. I didn’t understand it. I was too ning out of me. “You make sure you don’t say naïve. that.” Then he asked me another question and I would say, “I don’t know,” and so this went It was probably just a natural progression (join - on. ing the IRA), the way it escalated and what was happening to other people. It wasn’t difficult Yeah, you laughed at it when you came out, way back then (to get in to the IRA) because you know, but when you were inside there was there was a couple of boys pushing people they something inside you, you knew by instinct, knew, not pushing, you were asked and you just you weren’t going to admit anything to these said, “Yes, no problem.” Well you wouldn’t people, you know. Particularly the way they have said ‘no problem’ because that’s a Belfast were questioning you; the aggressive way they saying. You would have said the South Armagh were doing it. They were trying to break you version of it. down and you start to realise just what sort of people they were and you were just going to say 1973 I can remember vividly; it was the first ‘no’ or ‘don’t know’. Well that was the way I

3 On 15 May 1971 a foot patrol of the British Army was ambushed in Academy Street in the centre of Belfast by the IRA. Billy Reid, aged 32, was killed in the ensuing gunfight. 4 Police vehicles. 5 Ulster Defence Regiment of the British Army. INTERVIEWS was going to handle it, you know. several times and questioned. They were threat - ening you with internment and even one time Two days I was held. I was sleeping on a chair; they had said, “You’re being interned and we’ll a hard chair. There was no cell for me. I was in be taking you to the camp in a few hours time.” this room just sleeping on this chair and so after Two hours later they let me go. I did a few about two days I was let out. Then I found out ‘three-day interrogations’ after that in Bess - what happened to everybody else; the rest of brook Barracks. At that time in South Armagh the lads. There was a couple of them in the hos - it was just Bessbrook Barracks; later, Gough pital. There was a fellow younger than me, Barracks 8 became the main barracks in South Mickey Hearty, lived up the road from me, he Armagh. was in the hospital. Mickey had got a bad kick - ing, actually they took him down to my house. In 1975 the ceasefire came. Sectarianism in They had him in the back of a Land Rover and Belfast rose particularly, almost ten-fold, but it they reversed into the wall but they had his was something that never really happened in head out the back of it and he says he just got South Armagh, even though I lived in a mixed his head in on time. I went in to (the hospital) area. Even there, while Belleeks and White - see him and Mickey says, “You better not stay cross would have been a mixed area, Belleeks about.” I says, “What are you on about?” and would have been majority Catholics, although he said, “They say when they get you they’re Whitecross would have been mostly Protestant. going to kill you.” I said that they probably said I sort of lived on the border line, you know. that about everybody. Things like that you just didn’t pass many remarks on, you know, partic - In late 1975 in particular I can remember the ularly when you were young first time that Donnelly’s Bar was done (bombed). It was the first time that real sectar - I remember another funny incident with Peter ian stuff happened in South Armagh. You had “They say Cleary 6. There was a crowd of them (people ar - the Dublin bombings before that and the Mon - rested) in the back of a ‘pig’ (armoured car) and aghan and Dundalk bombings in 1974. I re - when Peter was away up at the very back of it and this member coming from and I they get Brit decided to be smart and ask everybody in - remember walking home that night Donnelly’s dividually, “Are you in the IRA mate?” (mocks Bar was attacked. It was a real bright moonlit you a cockney accent) and went around them all. night with maybe a bit of frost and it was they’re Peter never heard the question and he said, maybe late autumn (19th December 1975). I “Yes, yes, aye,” and the next thing they took was walking a good bit from Belleeks and there going to Peter out and they beat the so and so’s out of wasn’t many cars on the road. Usually when a him; they gave him a bit of a kicking before car came you could see it coming and if you kill you.” they put him back in. That was 1973. thought it was the cops or the Brits you would have maybe jumped the ditch. I was walking In the early 1970s in South Armagh there was along and I remember saying to myself, “This only one incident; I think there was a couple of is awful quiet,” because South Armagh was a cops blew up, maybe a booby trapped car in hive of activity then. There was always a heli - Crossmaglen away back very early. Maybe it copter out with the ‘spotter’ (spot light) on; the was 1971. But after Harry Thornton was shot bright light and the spot looking out over the dead in Belfast - Harry was a local man from country. There were always patrols on the road the Silverbridge area - he was shot dead by the and you were bound to meet them somewhere. Brits. He was just driving an aul car, maybe it There seemed to be nothing on the road that was the car back-firing or something, but they night. I remember saying to myself, “Jesus riddled the car anyway. He was shot dead and maybe they’ve withdrawn!” that caused an awful lot of anger around the area, particularly around the Silverbridge area. I was coming walking up and there’s a wee con - necting road, Newtown Road to Crossmaglen Later on internment 7 was going on. I was lifted Road, and I could see two cars coming at

6 Peter Cleary, 25 years of age, was an IRA volunteer from County Armagh. He was arrested by undercover British soldiers on the border on 15 April, 1976 while vis - iting his girl friend near Forkhill, South Armagh. He was then beaten and shot dead by the soldiers. 7 Internment without trial which started in August 1972 and ended in December 1975. 8 In Armagh city. INTERVIEWS

speed. I said to myself, “That’s the cops”. I was that happened the night the remains of the going to jump the hedge and they turned left Reavey’s were coming home. These are the going towards Newtownhamilton I just ran up things that stick in my memory, you know. the road to see where they were going and they turned right onto what we called the Kesh The night after that the country was saturated Road. It took you down sort of into Protestant in British soldiers. It wasn’t saturated in British country. I says, “That’s definitely the cops,” two soldiers after Donnelly’s Bar was done; it wasn’t cars close together driving at speed. saturated after the Reavey’s were shot but it was saturated after Kingsmill. The Brits just came I’d never heard the explosion in Donnelly’s Bar out of everywhere; there were hundreds of because there were mountains in between. I got them all over the country. home and later on I heard on the news about Donnelly’s bar; a bomb and bullet attack on it. Around that time I can remember being lifted “Nobody I didn’t connect it straight away but after a one night. It was probably February 1976, com - while I just started thinking about how quiet it ing out of the house and seeing these three bush go down was. I just realised that was why the area was hats and three rifles. They weren’t wearing their that so quiet and this had nothing to do with the helmets these three boys. They looked at me UVF 9. This was a security force job and I sort and told me to get against the wall. The Paras road, of connected it like that. I knew there was came out of everywhere and the house was something very wrong the way that night went. raided again and we were messed about. It was nobody Donnelly’s Bar and seeing the two cars, it was getting near dark and next thing a helicopter go down probably the two get-a-way cars that I had seen. landed. “Right,” they said, “you’re coming I’m nearly 100% that was what I seen. with us,” and the helicopter was away out in the that field. It was almost dark and I remember my road, the Then the Reavey’s 10 happened and it was the mother saying, “Jesus they are going to shoot exact same thing. The Reavey’s were shot just him.” They took me out across the fields and road’s after Christmas in early 1976, the 1st of Janu - there was a helicopter there and they didn’t covered ary or around about that. I remember Eugene shoot me; they put me into the helicopter. It Reavey telling me that on that night a spotter was a small one, a five-seater, and they’d no in came out, a spotter helicopter. He says they doors on it and I remember the cold of it on a stayed for half an hour and that was it. Nobody February night (laughs) going to Bessbrook bodies” else came, no security, no Brits came to gather Barracks. at the house or nothing; no cops came out, nothing. There wasn’t a thing. I remember They came back and they took my brother and thinking the same thing; “This is the cops or took him in too, that’s my next brother, and the Brits that’s doing this”. other brother they had him in the air and then they got word to leave him back home again. I remember the remains coming home that Actually that night I don’t think they were too night, a very dark night. The wake was going bad in the ‘mill’ 12 . It was the military base we to be at the brother’s house in the Village of were going into. We would have been in there Whitecross. Where the three lads were shot was brave and often, maybe lifted in the morning, just outside the village, about half a mile away. you’d maybe waken up at six in the morning I remember waiting there outside the house with the rifle poking you. You would go into with a crowd of people. You could hear them the mill for a couple of hours and they would talking and I remember somebody saying, “It’s be battering batons around your head, not hit - very quiet; there’s something else going to hap - ting you, but hitting the partition beside you, pen”. The next thing a car came up the road stuff like that. That happened a few mornings. and a boy shouted out, I don’t know who it was, I’d be late for work then. They’d lift you at six he shouted, “Nobody go down that road, no - o’clock, keep you there, and then I would get a body go down that road, the road’s covered in taxi and go into Newry and go to my work. I’d bodies.” Well of course that was Kingsmill 11 get into work about ten o’clock and that was

9 , an illegal loyalist paramilitary organisation. 10 The Reavey and O'Dowd killings took place on 4 January 1976 in County Armagh, . The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group, shot dead six Irish Catholic civilians – three from the Reavy family and three from the O'Dowd family. At around 6pm, UVF gunmen broke into a house in Whitecross, aware that it was owned by a Catholic family. Once inside they shot dead brothers John (24), Brian (22) and Anthony (17) Reavy. After searching the house and finding no-one else, the gunmen left. INTERVIEWS happening about every three weeks or so. I was there for a couple of minutes and onto the next, working as a draftsman, I was working in a civil and then back and back. He kept doing that for engineers office, Nicolas & O’Dywer Partners maybe about a half an hour. My mother came you called them. walking up along with my sister. She walked up past them and back down again and then they One other morning they had dragged us out of let us go. I remember we got into the car; it was bed and they had us up against the gable wall paradise. Both arms were frozen and stiff. All of the house in the early morning. My mother of us could move the right hand a wee bit. I sat came out of the house shouting and the next in beside the brother, he was driving, so he thing she collapsed. They tried to stop us from started the car and he steered it and I changed taking her into the house but we took her into the gears with my right hand because he could - the house anyway. Then they went and took us n’t change them (laughs) with his left arm. Your with them into the helicopter. They took me left arm was completely paralysed, you couldn’t and the other brother, Seamus; it was a regular get the feeling into it for maybe about 15 min - thing around then. utes or so. That was one of the things.

For us it was more just searching and messing The only other thing I remember, I was with about. I remember there was one search in par - two mates around the same period and we were ticular, they came in and they were all over the stopped (by the British Army) and I think it was house. They started searching and messing Nairac again. We were headed for Dundalk about and they took me into one of the rooms and taken out and spread eagled against the car. I was and searched me. There was a woman soldier That was the usual thing. Then they took me going there as well and she was taking my mother and away across this waste ground. There was a bit my sister in but she wanted to strip search them of a shough (drain) there and they put me sit - from one in the room and there was a racket over that. In ting against the shough. Then this boy came the end she was satisfied just looking through over and I just looked up at him and he just room to handbags but that’s what she was heading for said, “Turn your head around.” He had a mask the other at the start. on and he had an SLR and he had it to the back of my neck and he started questioning me. I and one I remember one of them raids in 1976 and sol - don’t know what he was questioning me about, Brit diers in the house. I was going from one room I can’t remember. I just remember the end of it. to the other and one Brit putting the SLR 13 to He was saying to me, “Do you know what a putting my belly and saying, “I’m going to blow it tight rope walker is?” And I said, “Yes.” And the SLR through you, blow you apart if you move.” I he says, “What happens if he slips?” And I just pushed it to one side and walked on past says, “He probably falls.” And he cocked the to my him; things like that. rifle and he says, “Watch you don’t fall.” (laughs) belly and There was one time in particular there were saying, three Brits killed in the area and we couldn’t get There was another night too we were heading out of the house; we couldn’t get out of the for Dundalk again. We decided to go by Newry “I’m area. They had the roads blocked off. We were because we thought there was a better chance going to going out at the weekend for a pint to the pub you wouldn’t get stopped but sure we got and they stopped us, me and my two brothers. stopped outside Belleeks, about a mile outside blow it They put us with our hands behind our heads it. They came round and I was sitting in the and it was very cold. They put us up at the cor - front and they said, “What’s your name?” and through ner with the wind blowing into us but this boy, I said, “Paddy Quinn,” and he said, “Wait you, blow who I later think was Nairac 14 that was out mate” (mocks a cockney accent) and he came then, he was standing in front of you with the back and he says, “How many Paddy Quinn’s you apart rifle pointed into your head about a couple of do you think are in Ireland?” I says, “Quite a if you inches from your face for about a minute. Then few”. And he says, “Go on.” We got into he would move onto the next brother and stand Newry, out by the Dublin Road and stopped by move.”

11 The Kingsmill massacre took place on 5 January 1976 near the village of Kingsmill in south County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Ten Protestant men were taken from a minibus and shot dead by Irish republicans.[1] This was in revenge for the killing of six Catholic men on 4 January by loyalists. (www.wikipedia.org) 12 Bessbrook Barracks. 13 Rifle. 14 Captain Robert Laurence Nairac GC (31 August 1948–15 May 1977) was a British Army officer who was abducted and killed by the Provisional (PIRA). He was posthumously awarded the George Cross. (www.wikipedia.org) INTERVIEWS

the Paras. “What’s your name?” “Paddy where did you come from? Where did you get Quinn.” “Out to fuck.” (laughs) I said, “Oh the car? Where did you get weapons? And such Jesus not again.” and such. Dan (McGuinness who was arrested with Paddy and Raymond) was speaking to me I can remember that night well. The others with through the pipes in the cell wall, he was in the me were Seamy McCaffrey and his brother next cell to me. He says, “I told them we got the Francis who took epileptic fits. I was up against guns in a car at Allenduff Chapel, that we the wall and Francie was beside me spread-ea - picked up the car there.” I says, “Good man gled. I was watching Francie and I knew he was Dan. Sure that’ll do rightly.” (laughs) I went up going to go 15 . I could see the arms starting to and told them the same story then and they sort shake and shake and then the next thing down of got the idea, “We broke this boy here.” he went kicking and screaming and then Seamy (laughs) This English boy (British soldier), he went down to help Francie. He always carried just kept whacking me, you know, across where a spoon with him in case he (Francie) swal - the heart is. It was black and blue; it came out lowed his tongue. The next thing a Brit came in black and blue blotches. You’d have thought down with his boot and he connected with one it was painted on, you know. Basically that was of them. I went to go down too but he stuck the it. We ended up in the Crumlin Road Jail. That They put gun in me and said, “Don’t you move.” They was June (1976). Political status had been done a tim held us for about a half an hour and then the away with the 1st of March before that. This ambulance came and took Francie. We got into was about June 24th we were caught. That was bucket the car and they escorted us back to Daisy Hill when the very long, hot summer started. I was over his Hospital in Newry so that was another night up wondering what it was going to be like. in the air. That was the sort of situation we head and lived in. The first thing I found strange (about prison), then was particularly the Short Strand fellows; they Shortly after that it was getting that much that were very hard to understand. I couldn’t make battered I stayed a wee bit in Cullyhanna and maybe got them out at all. The people I’m talking about a break for an odd weekend. It was around that was ‘Pidgie’, Hughie Rooney and Sammy it and time that the house was wrecked. They came Dynes. I had no experience of prison. It was they and did another raid and they pulled down the completely new to me. I had never even visited ceilings and we had to move. We had to get a a jail; it was just completely new. To begin with busted his house in Camlough. Around that time too my it was the Crumlin Road and then from that it nose and younger brother, I think he would have been was the H-Blocks on remand and then sen - about 15, Laurence you called him, they got tenced and then back to the H-Blocks this time his mouth him over at an outhouse. They put a tin bucket ‘on the Blanket’ 16 . over his head and then battered it and they and stuff busted his nose and his mouth and stuff and Funny thing about going on the blanket was and only only that a neighbour came on and seen it. that morning as we were heading to the H- They gave him a brave doing that time. Blocks we met the Provo Navy 17 as the Belfast that a boys nicknamed them; Paddy Agnew, Brad and neighbour As I say we moved to Camlough and that’s the all that squad. We were just shouting that time I met Raymie (Raymond) McCreesh. I across at them. When we got sentenced we came on didn’t know Raymie that well. I just knew him were waiting on B Wing and they were coming and seen to see. I knew he was involved. We were then in to B Wing. They were just caught. We hadn’t caught during an operation that we couldn’t get heard about them because we were at the trial. it. out of. We were caught red-handed, you know. (laughs) Well that was a new experience for me In terms of jail you just got on with it. You going into Bessbrook. (laughs) You wouldn’t do knew what you believed in; you knew what you the press-ups or anything by that stage because were in for. You just believed what you were you had more experience. But they were trying doing was right and whatever came your way to question you and where you got, you know, you were just going to have to take it and that

15 Take an epileptic fit. 16 The (1976-1981) by republican prisoners for the return of political prisoner status. 17 IRA volunteers captured in a boat in Carlingford Lough following a gun battle with the British Army. 18 Prison uniform. 19 Tunnel which connects the Crumlin Road Courthouse with the prison on the opposite side of the road. INTERVIEWS was it. When I heard about the blanket protest After that we were either all shifted to H5, or that was it; you never entertained any other H5 was opened for all the blanket men. I think choice. You were not going to wear the monkey maybe that was the way it was. I just can’t re - suit 18 ; it was straight onto the blanket. member, but I think that was the way it was. H5 became the blanket Block, then as the numbers I got sentenced in March 1977 and I was sen - increased H4 opened again. tenced to 14 years. Actually at the time (of sen - tencing) we couldn’t hear the judge; he was I remember 22 . I was down away back. We thought it was 29 years. We the wing from him. Brendan came to the were going down the tunnel 19 and the screw 20 wing and Bobby Sands was in it. I remember says, “You got a brave long sentence.” I says, he (Brendan) was only in the wing about two “Aye, 29 years.” He says, “14 years you got.” or three weeks and he was at the door and We were We thought it was 29. (laughs) I says, “That’s he says, “Well what are youse going to do great.” He says, “I’ve never seen people as here?” We were sitting there, we had our beds, going happy about getting 14 years in all my life.” we were slopping out, we were getting down the (laughs) our shower once a week and that was it. The screws weren’t giving us much hassle. It tunnel and We landed at the jail, they took us into the re - started increasing a wee bit you know, telling the screw ception, took us into the cubicle and they just you to take your towel off coming back from threw the (prison) suit into us. They came into the shower, shave or whatever coming back to says, “You the cubicle and told us to change and to the cell, but you were still locked up 24 hours a got a “Put that on,” you know. Of course we refused day. We were still losing remission and any to do this, they came back in, “Put that on,” protest outside was really badly attended and brave long “No, I’m not putting it on,” “Well come with more or less Brendan Hughes was saying, me and take that with you.” We went our sep - “We’re going to have to up the ante. We need sentence.” arate ways then. I went into, I think it was H4. to think of ways in which we can do this and Raymie and Dan went to H5. I went into the these screws are messing about. What do we do Block and on in to the wing and there was about this?” about half a dozen screws there. They told me to put the monkey suit on again and I says, People came up with good ideas but the “No, no way.” They never touched me. They first idea we agreed upon was that we wouldn’t just all stood around me while I stripped and leave the cell because of this searching then they gave me this wee skimpy white towel and messing about when we were coming back to put around me. I was sent down to the cell from the toilets or that we wouldn’t ‘slop out’. and that was that. We made them (screws) come round with large bins for us to slop out. But then of course At that time they were messing about with the you know what happened then, they PO 21 of that Block, like you weren’t allowed to started kicking the pots over and all around sit on the beds during the day. If you sat on the the cells and the whole thing escalated from bed or lay on the bed they’d take the mattress that. Around the same time we were also out. You had to sit on the chair during the day asked to take visits 23 , particularly from different and well there were people lying on the bed but areas. People needed to get word outside eventually we caught ourselves on. Everybody about what was happening, which we then sat on the beds or lay on the beds and all agreed to do. Well most, not all, some eventually they took all the beds out. The Gov - people didn’t; Raymond McCreesh never ernor came in and he tried to get down the took a visit. He just wouldn’t put the (prison) wing. Hhe couldn’t get down the wing because suit on, that was it, for a monthly visit. But of all the beds and stuff and he says, “Put them you had to have contact with the outside to let beds back in.” And that ended that, you know. them know what was happening. So after that That was probably one wee battle we won then; the support started to increase outside; they got that was the first one. behind us.

20 Prison guard. 21 Principal Officer in charge of the Block. 22 Brendan Hughes became Officer Commanding (OC) of the republican prisoners on protest. Brendan had been OC in the Cages of Long Kesh where he had politi - cal status but lost that status and was moved to the H-Blocks in 1977. 23 Up until that point, March 1978, the prisoners on protest had been refusing visits as it meant wearing the prison uniform for the visit. INTERVIEWS

As you know, after that it kept going on and ple of hours. They were opening the door and going on. The beatings increased. I went to H4 throwing these buckets of water and Jeyes then. I went into a wing with just new blanket Fluid 27 around your back. men coming up. Brendan MacFarlane 24 , ‘Bik’, was across from me. You could shout over to Jake Jackson never took the blanket off him but them and John Anthony McCouey (from they poured it down his neck and he came out South Armagh). People would wonder how in a big blister all around his neck. you passed the time. People would ask me how was the Secretary of State at the time and when in the name of God did you pass the time word got out about it (on the media) he said locked up 24 hours a day for four to five years? that we’d burnt ourselves on the (heating) pipes. Well you did Irish classes, you did sing songs, (laughs) That’s what was said when he came somebody did MC 25 and called everybody up out (with his statement); all the prisoners on to do a song at night particularly after a wing this wing deliberately burned themselves on the shift was over, stuff like that there to raise pipes. You know yourself you could not burn morale again. yourself on the pipes.

People have said about the harassment of what Later on that year they came in with the blue the screws done but we just stuck together. disinfectant. All the food and dirt was in the Probably because of what they did, the more corner (of the cells) and they poured the disin - You sort they tried to break us the more resistance they fectant all over that. Pure (undiluted) stuff it got. It gelled us together more, made us more was and it just cut the eyes out of you. We got of run a tighter and more determined not to give in to everybody to ‘put the windows out’ 28 at that bit of a them because you knew what they were trying time but that, funny enough, was the time when to do. They were trying to break us. it was a very cold winter. In H4 when the big gauntlet snow fall came after Christmas in 1978 they and there The first big incident I remember was when we (screws) would be throwing snow balls into the moved into that wing. I could see the other cells. The snowball would be coming across the was wing and Bik MacFarlane and now and again cell and hitting the door and sticking on the they’d put that cold hose 26 on him in the cell. door and stuff like that. The next morning the drink in Every now and again they’d open the door and snow balls were still there. That’s how cold it H4, stuck the hose on them and stuff like that. This was. The water gallon you had, it would be ice; day I heard a door opening at the top of the it would be frozen. You were putting the blan - brought wing. Me, and a fellow now dead, Mark Han - ket over the top of the pipes (and getting in in for the nigan, were at the very bottom of the wing. I under it) to make a tent to try and keep warm. remember I heard the door open at the top of That’s how you kept warm at that time; you prison the wing and I heard this scream. They swung wrapped the blanket out over the pipe and tied open the door and it banged again and I was the end down round the mattress and put the guards. wondering what happened. I thought I heard mattress over. It was the only way you could someone saying something to Bik about steam keep warm, you know, or get some sleep. It was coming out the window. I shouted across, either that or walk up and down the cell all day “What’s that Bik?” He says, “There’s steam or run up and down it all day. (laughs) coming out the window; I think they’re using hot water.” I heard another door opening and The wing shifts; it probably wasn’t as bad for another roar and they just kept moving down us, the wing shifts. You sort of run a bit of a the wing. They opened our door and I threw gauntlet and there was drink in H4, brought in the blanket down (that I had been wearing over for the prison guards. Most of them would have my shoulders) to try to keep it dry and they got been half drunk going onto the wing shifts for me in the back. Actually what they done, they them to do it. And also the big cell 29 , you know filled the bath full of water and put Jeyes Fluid the mirror search 30 and all that craic they were into it so when they done you (threw the water at. Probably the drunker they were, the more over you) you got a burning sensation for a cou - drink they had in them, the worse wing shift

24 Like Brendan Hughes, Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane also had political status in the Cages of Long Kesh but lost it after an escape attempt in 1978. He became OC of the republican prisoners in the H-Blocks in 1981 when he took over from Bobby Sands who began his then. 25 Master of Ceremonies. 26 An emergency fire hose. 27 Disinfectant. 28 Break the windows. INTERVIEWS you got. dragged by my feet along the ground) and hit the door jam. The arm wasn’t broke but it Funny And yet I don’t think the wing shifts in H4 were swelled away up and it was just one of them anything compared to the wing shifts in H3. things. You had a load of marks. (laughs) enough Funny enough the boy in charge over there, the PO, was a Catholic and it was definitely the It (the protest) just kept going on and on and the boy in worst Block. you couldn’t see any end to it the way you were charge going. I think people realised there’s going to The only other thing about H4 was waiting on have to be something else here, like a hunger over the forced wash and haircut. They done the strike. Bobby Sands and Brendan Hughes were there, the other two wings and there was our wing left. talking about it and at that time Cardinal O’Fi - They kept our wing sitting and sitting and sit - aich came in. Hi did us a big favour when he PO, was a ting. You were expecting it and after a week went out and described the Blocks as like “the they still hadn’t done the forced wash and every black hole of Calcutta,” that he had never seen Catholic morning you were waiting on them to do it. anything worse. That brought attention to it. and it We’d the order to fight with the screws when But he had asked us that time, I think it was for they came in, no, it had changed at that stage, six months or so, not to go on hunger strike to was because they kept us waiting that long. All we see what he could do. definitely were told was, “Don’t go voluntarily. Let them carry you out.” We were told all the other hor - As time went past, six months, we realised the worst ror stories 31 , particularly from H3, and funny there was nothing coming of it so I think that’s Block. enough across from me in the same wing as when the first hunger strike was called. I can re - Bik, was ‘Big Doc’ 32 . Theirs was the first wing member that time, I was on the wing with Bren - to be force washed and the first cell they done dan Hughes, the time of the first hunger strike was Big Doc’s. They rushed his cell first before and Bobby Sands was on the same wing. I re - anybody knew about the forced washings going member Brendan Hughes going up to the door to happen. They got him out, he was the first and asking for volunteers for the hunger strike. man to go, and he wasn’t even in the top cell, I remember him describing it; he said he had he was in the middle, half ways down the wing. been on hunger strike before and that he didn’t They went to him first, tip toeing down and want anybody to take this decision lightly. He opening the cell door because they were afraid said a hunger strike is a long and terrifying jour - of Big Doc. ney and nobody should be under any illusion that it’s anything else because it’s not. He asked Some of us got moved to H6 in January 1979. us to think about that before we put our name There was so many of us, 32, picked out and down for hunger strike. I can remember him we went to H6; Bobby Sands, Bik MacFarlane, saying that now. You know how the first hunger and others. I remember that Block well. The strike went. I volunteered for the first hunger only incident was, well apart from the food, strike and I remember we all went on a three- they used to give you a spoonful of milk or else day hunger strike 33 in support of the seven (who they gave you water and milk, you know in were on hunger strike for 50 days at that stage). your cornflakes, the rations were cut down. We I can remember us all getting these salt tablets. all lost a lot of weight down there. The PO was You put them in the water and I found it very an Australian boy. I can remember him. They hard drinking that water, you know. The taste didn’t give you the beatings down there; they of it sort of made you sick. After three days you just starved you. Davey Long was the PO at the could take a drink of ordinary water and drink - start for a short while and that’s the time they ing that was ah, you know. Putting the tablets dragged us out (to the circle to see the governor) into the water was bad. by the heels. We wouldn’t go out and they were taking us out one at a time. That’s the time I got I can remember when the (1980) hunger strike the whack on the arm. I was in the cell with ended and the craic there was about this docu - Séanna Walsh. I went sideways (when being ment coming in and then it started to filter

29 Cell 26, a double cell, at the top of each wing where the prison uniforms were kept and where prisoners were given a ‘mirror search’ before and after visits. 30 Prisoners were made to stand over a mirror which was set in a square of foam. They were then forcibly pushed down on to the mirror and prison guards would ex - amine their anus. 31 From the other Blocks who had already experienced the forced washes. 32 Kieran Doherty who later died on hunger strike on 2 August, 1981 having been elected a TD – member of the Irish Parliament - during his fast. 33 30 prisoners joined the hunger strike 50 days after the original 7 had begun their fast. The hunger strike lasted 53 days in total. INTERVIEWS

through that the Brits were reneging on it. Tom was time to say I was on hunger strike and to McElwee 34 was in the next cell to me and he tell the family. They didn’t say much, just, was jumping up to the pipes and was shouting “God no,” but I remember just telling them I out the window “Up the IRA, fuck them.” You was going onto the hunger strike and I wanted could hear the emotion in his voice. I think them to support me. Tom was crying. I was in the cell with Phil Rooney and a short while after that Bobby I went on hunger strike and I was put into a Sands was at the door and he said, “Lads I’m cell on my own and it seemed different this not letting this go. There’s going to be another time than the three-day hunger strike. hunger strike and I’m asking for names and vol - It didn’t seem to be that hard at all; maybe it unteers.” was because you had salt beside you and you weren’t putting them tablets into the water. So that was it. My attitude to it was well, this is The water at the start was very easy drunk just another part; just another operation, and and I didn’t feel the hunger that much. that’s the way it goes. And I said to myself, “I As usual they (screws) put the breakfast in just can’t sit here and let everybody else do it. I with you (left it in the cell), they took it out at have to get involved,” and that was my reason dinnertime and put the dinner in with you, for getting involved in the hunger strike; more took it out at suppertime and put the supper in or less. You’re in it; you’re in it, that’s it and with you and left that in overnight. whatever comes your way. You could smell the bread, the cornflakes; you could smell the dinner particularly you know. Raymie who was arrested with me was the Your sense of smell increased dramatically. I fourth person on the hunger strike; him and don’t remember that much about (being on the Patsy O’Hara were in the first four along with hunger strike in) the Blocks; just sitting there. Bobby Sands and Francie Hughes. Raymie died You could see yourself losing weight a bit. I after 61 days, on the same day as Patsy O’Hara. hadn’t that much weight on me. I was only I hadn’t had much contact with him when we about ten and a half stone but everybody was were on the blanket. The only time I saw well down in weight because of the blanket Raymie was when he came into our Block after protest; everybody was in the same boat. The he had started (the hunger strike). I seen him at governor would come in everyday and he’d mass, I was shaking hands with him and that have somebody with him and they’d be making was the only time I seen him from we were sen - smart remarks like, “He’ll eat,” or, “He hasn’t tenced. We were always on a different Block; touched anything yet but he’ll not be long,” this I just our paths never seemed to cross. sort of shit. can’t sit I was hoping that Bobby Sands wouldn’t die. I I was moved to the prison hospital. The first was in a cell with Phil Rooney when he died thing I remember about the hospital was Joe here and and I thought they couldn’t let him die espe - McDonnell 36 coming in in a wheelchair and let cially after winning the election for Fermanagh how thin he was and how small his head was. and South Tyrone. 35 The euphoria after that He could hardly hold it (his head) up and his everybody and how people felt then. Then Frank Hughes head was all over the place. He says, “Who’s died. At the same time it made you more deter - that?” And he said, “Ah Paddy how are you else do it. mined. The bastards let Bobby die and then mucker?” Shaking hands with me, looking up, I have to Frank, then Raymond. I remember someone he was full of life and yet he looked to be dead. coming telling me that Raymond was dead. I The other person I remember was Martin Hur - get was in the shower and I was fucking crying and son 37 . He was taking a drink of water at the involved. I was glad I was in the shower so the screws table and it was coming (back) up. The water couldn’t see anything. just didn’t stay down with Martin once he took the sickness you know. The water never stayed After that then it was Joe McDonnell replaced down with Martin. He never got over that stage. Bobby and then it eventually came my turn. It He was just sick all the time.

34 Thomas McElwee later died on the 1981 hunger strike, on the 8th August. 35 Bobby Sands was elected a Member of the Westminster Parliament during his hunger strike. 36 Joe McDonnell died on hunger strike on 8th July 1081 after 61 days. 37 died on hunger strike on the 13th July after 46 days. INTERVIEWS

I remember the Irish Commission for Justice shifting (moving cell).” I says, “Where?” And and Peace (ICJP) coming in to us. Charlie they says, “In next door.” So they put me in Haughey was probably behind them. He was next door into Martin’s cell and I says, “I won - the Taoiseach at the time and that sort of got der why they are doing this?” They took me in him off the hook that he was doing something. there, moved me in there. I remember walking They came in and they would raise your hopes across the cell to the window. I remember see - a wee bit. Then when they still had nothing, I ing a plastic spoon there. It wasn’t a clear remember the last meeting; they had Fr. Crilly coloured one and I remember seeing it looked in it, he was related to Tom McElwee, a cousin, all red. It looked to be blood on it or medicine I remember that. I can remember them coming and I looked at it and said, “It can’t be medi - in and at the same time the screws were saying cine. They wouldn’t give him medicine.” I says to us to end the hunger strike and save Joe Mc - to myself, “That must be blood.” And then I Donnell’s life; putting the onus on us. These says to myself, “That’s why they brought me in were the same screws who were nicking (steal - here; to see that.” I put it back down on the ing) our (hunger strikers’) cigarettes and fucking window. That was it. you about even when you were on hunger strike. The last time they (ICJP) came in and Another of the things I remember about the “If you they said to us, “Come off the hunger strike and hunger strike was Dr. Ross. Dr. Ross used to we’ll get something for you. We’ll see what we come in every now and again. He came in to come off can do.” And we said, “No. That happened be - me and he started to talk about the hunger this fore. We want what’s on offer here on the table strike. This was the time I started to get the sick - in black and white and we’re not coming off it ness and I was very sick. I couldn’t keep the hunger (until then).” They couldn’t do anymore. The water down at all and you talk about the sense strike only other person I remember was somebody of smell, you could smell everything so clearly. from the NIO and he says, “If you come off You could smell the bread, you could smell youse are this hunger strike youse are not getting any - everything, but at this stage I could also smell thing.” So that was it. the water. Believe me, water doesn’t smell too not good. At least it didn’t then to me. It smelt hor - getting I was in the hospital when Joe (McDonnell) rible. Dr Ross used to come down and he used and Martin (Hurson) died. I can remember Joe to be talking about Italy. He maybe worked in anything.” dying. I can remember the moaning; it just Italy, and he was talking about fishing and his seemed to go for ever. I can remember not being work and then he started talking about the able to sleep listening to Joe. He was across the hunger strike. He started describing it and he wing from me and I could just hear the light says, “I see it like one of them you know big tall moaning and then it stopped for 20 minutes to brick chimneys.” I says, “Aye.” He says, “You a half an hour. Then I heard the screaming and chip a brick out of the bottom of it and then an - commotion and Joe was dead and they were other one and another one and another one and taking his remains out. Approximately a week you keep going, working away. Then you come later the same thing happened to Martin Hur - to this brick and you take it out and the whole son. I was in the next cell to Martin Hurson. I thing just comes down like that there with a could hear what he was saying. I could hear crash.” I says, “Aye.” He says, “That’s the way him shouting. I can remember him saying, I see the hunger strike. That’s the way it works. “The lights are out. The lights are out. Some - That’s the way you’ll go. You’ll go on and on body put the lights on.” I could hear his brother and on and then the next thing, bang, you’ll go Brendan shouting, “Martin, Martin,” and that like that.” I says, “This boy’s trying it on here; seemed to go on forever. And then again it be - trying to get to me.” came quiet and about half an hour or so later I heard the commotion and Martin was dead. The next day he started the same thing or maybe it was the day after. I was still very sick Next morning, it wasn’t too long after that, they and of course in the meantime he was telling came into me and says, “Right Paddy you’re me that I had to keep the water down that I was INTERVIEWS

going to have to try to keep it down otherwise the back of my neck at the same time. I pre - the poison was just going to go to my brain. I tended (to them) I was asleep and I remember would die very quickly unless I got the water in one of them saying, “He must prefer to sleep and poison 38 washed out of my body. Then he on the floor to the bed.” And one got me by the started talking about this train; he started de - shoulders and the other got me by the feet and scribing it like this train coming along, this train they me threw me into the bed. I went to sleep. coming along this hill going slower and slower and slower until it got to the very top. He says, The next morning Dr. Ross came in and he “Once you go over the top you just go zuumph, says, “I heard you had a wee bit of a turn last down like that. That’s hunger strike to me.” I night.” I says, “I’ve good news for you Dr. Ross says, “This boy’s definitely at it here.” the water’s staying down.” And him saying, “Well Patrick, that’s not a good thing. The The next night, no actually it was that evening, train’s at the top of the hill.” And I remember I remember there was this pie. The evening saying to myself, “Fuck there’s no pleasing meal was in (the cell) and you could smell this you.” (laughs) pie thing like anything and I was as sick as a pig. My mouth was all dry. My tongue was After that I was going out in the wheelchair and stuck to the roof of my head but you still had the head was going; you could hardly control that yearning for food even though the sickness. it; it was going all over the place. It was just like I was I remember going over to this pie and sticking Joe McDonnell; you could hardly keep it up. I my finger in it and lifting it out and the pastry remember the meeting with 39 . I brave all being stuck to my finger and saying to remember going out in the wheel chair. I don’t and weak myself that if I ate this thing I would be letting know who else was there; maybe all those boys down on the blanket protest. I re - was there; maybe Seamus Ruddy. I remember at that member getting into my bed and water sitting Gerry Adams, I couldn’t really see him, I could time but (beside it) and I reached over and I said to my - see the beard and the white of his teeth when self, “Well fuck you, I’m going to keep you he smiled. I remember talking about the hunger I never down tonight.” I drank the whole glass, lay strike and the pressure was coming on the fam - back in the bed and I must have gone to sleep. ilies from Fr. Faul and the pressure was on Sinn felt Fein. I can remember Gerry Adams saying the happier At that time there was nothing to your body at outside wants youse to come off it, end it, we all; you were just a skeleton. There was a bump want youse to come off it, either individually in my there where the water was. I remember waking or the whole lot of youse. I remember Tom life. up and the bump was away and my mouth was McElwee standing at the top of the table, I was no longer dry and an oily taste in my mouth. I here and Tom was standing there next to me. remember getting out of bed the next day and He says to me, “Paddy you’re the worst here.” the room was floating and moving about. The Kieran (Doherty) and Kevin Lynch 40 were al - only way I can describe it, if you were showing ready confined to their cells. They weren’t fit to somebody, was that it was like you were on come out at all and they had been on hunger drugs. The room was just moving about. You strike a lot longer at this stage, and he (Tom) couldn’t see too well. I remember standing on says, “I’m asking you first.” And I said, “No.” this mat and my back was near enough to the And he asked everybody else and they all said wall and everything started to go black. I came no. They weren’t coming off the hunger strike. round again and it happened again and I can I was taken back to the cell. I was brave and remember saying, “Is this it? Is this the end?” I weak at that time but I never felt happier in my came round and I remember the back of my life. It was just like crossing a bridge. From that neck was sore. I heard the flap (of the door – journey as Brendan Hughes described it, a ter - spyhole) opening and I remember the screws rifying journey, the whole way through it; pres - coming in and I was lying out. What actually sure, psychological terror as well as the ravages happened was everything blacked out; I slid of the hunger strike but I remember feeling like down the wall and probably hit the wall with a whole weight was lifted off me. It was just like

38 Toxins produced from the body consuming its own flesh. 39 Gerry Adams along with Owen Carron (Bobby Sands’s election agent) and Seamus Ruddy of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) were allowed to visit the hunger strikers at one point. 40 Kevin Lynch died on hunger strike on the 1st August 1981 after 71 day. INTERVIEWS crossing a bridge. I remember feeling really re - my brother, putting pressure on me to come off laxed and maybe it was that feeling that I was the hunger strike. At that time, trying to talk to out of here. (laughs) I don’t know. That’s the them, when you were aware of the screws best way for me describing it. I just remember there. You were that weak you couldn’t get the that feeling when I came back (from the meet - words out and they would keep talking. I re - ing). member giving out to them and I says to them, “You either back me or back Maggie Thatcher.” The only other feeling I can remember about it I remember saying to them, “It’s either me or (hunger strike) was they (the authorities) tried Maggie Thatcher, who do you back?” And I the same thing (on me as they did with Ray - can’t remember much more. I remember them mond 41 ). Fr. Murphy came in and said, “Paddy leaving on that note. did you ask for milk?” I was going in and out of semi-consciousness then and I says, “No, I The only other thing I remember about, I was didn’t.” He says, “I thought you didn’t.” They really unwell (at the time), I remember being did this with Raymie as well. Raymie was said unconscious and I sort of came out of it a wee to have asked for milk. Why ask for milk? Why bit and I was sort of hyper-ventilating. There not ask for a steak, or beans and toast or some - was nothing to my body anyway and your man thing? You’re not going to ask for milk if you’re Paul Lennon 42 explained to me after. He was a I going to come off the hunger strike. trained nurse, the only decent one who looked remember after the hunger strikers. He had known what The only other thing was Fr. Murphy again, he was going on (hyper-ventilating). I was taking giving out was in (my cell). I don’t remember him being in in oxygen and my heart was going that fast that but he says (told me after the hunger strike had they couldn’t monitor the heart it was going to them ended) I was talking away to him. He says I that fast. He says that it was driving the blood and I says kept pointing away to him, “Do you see the really fast around my body. He explained it like light on the wall?” He said, “What light?” And it was an express train driving the blood into the to them, I said, “Do you not see that light on the wall?” back of my brain. I can remember the pain. It “You And he said, “I’m going now.” And I said, was like somebody scraping the base of my “Well I want you to pray that I get to that light brain with a wire brush. I could see this big either soon.” Fr. Murphy said, “No,” that he was (brown paper) bag coming down over me (my going to pray that I lived. He says that I kept in - face). I can remember somebody putting a bag back me sisting that he pray that I die soon. I kept point - over me and it was Paul Lennon. He was cut - or back ing to this light on the wall. He says it was a ting off the oxygen and putting this bag over me great religious experience for him. He said he to try to slow the heart down. I don’t know if it Maggie went away and came back about two hours could be described as treatment or not. He was Thatcher.” later and walked into the cell and what I didn’t doing this and I could see this boy (Paul call him wasn’t worth calling him. He said the Lennon) and he seemed to be in slow motion language that came out of me; he’d never heard and I was choking. I could hear the choking in the likes of it. He said I kept calling him a my throat and I was hallucinating that it was ‘screw bastard’. There was a screw sitting in the screws’ wives trying to strangle me, trying to cell during that time anyway. I could just see choke me in revenge for what was going on. the outline of him. I had a feeling looking at the This is what was going through my head when outline that it was a screw that we called ‘hate this was happening. Fr. Murphy says it took the world’ and I had the feeling in my head that about six of them to hold me down. I was try - was who it was. I said to him, “You’re not Fr. ing to gouge my eyes out with the pain; it must Murphy; you’re that fucking screw, ‘hate the have been the pain in the base of the brain. It world.’” He (Fr Murphy) says, “The difference was also down here (points to his groin) proba - in the two experiences!” (laughs) bly because of all the water that was down there. There was pain down there too and I re - I remember my mother coming in to visit and member trying to grab myself. He (Fr. Murphy) them putting pressure, my mother and probably says that’s why they had to hold me down be -

41 The prison authorities had claimed that Raymond McCreesh had asked for milk shortly before he died on hunger strike but his family, who were with him in the prison hospital, denied it. 42 Prison Service nurse. INTERVIEWS

cause I was going to gouge my eyes out. They away up and it was then I realised how the brought my mother. I must have been making blood came to be on the spoon. Martin was ob - a shocking racket at the same time. They viously suffering something similar. That was brought my mother within ear shot into the about it. hospital Block down a couple of cells from me and she could hear it. She could hear every - Then it was back to the H-Blocks. It was hard thing that was going on. It was then she made going back to the Blocks with the hunger strike the decision that enough is enough. They had still going on. Kevin Lynch and Big Doc had the form 43 in front of her and she signed it. just died. I was in Musgrave a day or two when they died. Then Tom (McElwee) and then I can remember the first treatment. I can re - Mickey Devine. Tom died of a heart attack. The was member this pain in the thigh or something. I When I went back to the Blocks it was tough. I can remember this feeling going all over me, remember going into the cell and the door is over sort of this relaxed feeling going all over me; it slamming behind me. It was tough but the lads and what was the booster 44 injection they must have gave were brilliant; they were great. me. The next thing I remember, it must have are these been the Royal 45 (hospital) and I was still hal - The situation is completely different (now), par - people lucinating out there. I could imagine seeing this ticularly some of them people (those republi - door, this gun coming around the door and cans opposed to the at? then somebody shooting at me; stuff like that. and Sinn Féin’s peace strategy) I see them in a You could see aul stupid things like that. I sort time warp. Even the campaign (they are at); of came out of that a wee bit because I had they started off with bombings like it was the been blind and I can remember a nurse with 1970’s campaign. The war is over. Just like that blonde hair. I could see her teeth when she woman said in Strabane there, (her) two sons smiled or she must have been talking or saying shot by the SAS in Strabane. She said it; the war something to me. Even then I remember them is over and what are these people at? I don’t giving me something to drink and me saying, think these people know what they are at. They “What’s that?” Asking them is that water you have no strategy or support. know. Mick McVerry got shot dead at Keady Barracks They took me to Musgrave 46 (hospital). The in November 1973. Mick McVerry went into first visit from my mother I was supposed to jail in 1972 and escaped with a couple of others give her a lot of abuse for taking me off the from South Armagh. He wasn’t out too long hunger strike but I can’t remember that. I can when he lost his hand in an explosion but he only remember the next visit and they said to didn’t quit the IRA. He kept on. But he made a me not to be as hard on my mother this time. I very important statement to a friend of his, said, “What do you mean?” And they said, Peter John Carragher over in Cullyhanna. He “Well the last time she was here.” And I said, said to him, “Now is the time for war but in the “But this is the first time she’s been here.” I future,” and it just goes to show the far sighted - couldn’t remember the first time. The other ness the man had, he said, “Sinn Fein will have thing I noticed, apart from here (points to his to have a strong party, fit to negotiate a peace groin) the foreskin and like a tube (inserted), the with the Brits because this war cannot last.” He damage I had done there. My mouth, the lips was one of the important people we lost, but had all swelled up; they were about ten times we lost him at that time because there was noth - their normal size and they were all chapped up ing, only war then. where I was eating them. Then I thought back to the spoon in Martin Hurson’s cell and where The time had come for the war to stop. It prob - the blood came from. I couldn’t understand ably should have stopped even before the cease - where the blood came from (at the time) and fire in 1994 because it was fizzling out for a then I realised what it was. My own lips were couple of years before that. The only thing chapped where I was eating them and swelled brought the Brits to the negotiating table was

43 Authorising medical intervention. 44 Vitamins, glucose etc. 45 The Royal Victoria Hospital on the Falls Road, Belfast. 46 Musgrave Park Hospital, Belfast which had a military/secure ward for prisoners. INTERVIEWS the big bombs in London. John Major tried to Sinn Fein seems to be the target; try and get rid back track and delay things but the big bombs of the Good Friday Agreement and what are The only got the political process up and running. So that they going to do when they get rid of that? was it and it became a political struggle from Fight a war? They’re yesterday’s men and yes - thing then on. If the armed struggle hadn’t devel - terday’s men are not going to solve anything. oped, if a political party (Sinn Fein) hadn’t been brought developed, then the sacrifice of all volunteers, I’ll just mention coming out of jail in 1985. I the Brits including those on hunger strike, would have got out (of prison) Christmas, 1985. When I been for nothing. If we had not capitalised first came out of jail the first thing that hit me to the upon those sacrifices it would all have been a was the colour. There’s only one colour in jail negotiating waste. and that’s grey. The other thing that really hit me was people; young people had changed and table was Then you had these dissident groups that didn’t grown up and the amount of people that had agree with it. A lot of them weren’t involved in changed. Also the change in the atmosphere. the big action with the IRA at that time but once the Even though there was (still) a war going on it bombs in IRA called a ceasefire they all came to the fore. was completely different in the area than when They all came out of the woodwork and as I had went in (to prison). I was probably lost for London. somebody said there for about ten years there a while and then I met my future wife and now wasn’t a shot fired in anger. What were they I am married with three children. She sort of doing? So, ok they killed a couple of Brits 47 this kept me on the straight and narrow. (laughs) year but what are they proving? The only thing Her name’s Deirdre. Now I’m married seven - I see them doing is giving the unionists an ex - teen or eighteen years with three children. She cuse for not moving forward. That’s all they’ve definitely has kept me on the straight and nar - done all along, given the unionists an excuse. row. (laughs)

47 Two British soldiers killed outside the British Army camp at Masserene, Antrrim, County Antrim on the 7th March 2009. INTERVIEWS

As it turned out, just over a year later on the 19th December, 1975, my father was killed in a Alan gun and bomb attack on Donnelly’s bar in Sil - verbridge in South Armagh. M work today with the Pat Finucane Centre (Newry) relates to the Brecknell events around my father’s death. I suppose until I was in my late 20s I got on boRn beLfAsT, 1968 with my life. I went to university in Liverpool and came back home again and worked for a while. Then with the advent of the ceasefires I started asking questions. It came from my eld - ’m Alan Brecknell and I live in est son asking why he didn’t have a grandfather South Armagh. I was born in when his cousins all had. I of was able to say Belfast in 1968 and lived to him, as a four year old, “Bad men killed him” and that’s as far as it went. It then started there until the summer of me asking questions to what had actually hap - 1974. We lived in Stranmillis, pened because no one had ever been charged or Iin St Ives Gardens, and there were convicted of the killing. There had always been a feeling in South Armagh that something just I was at that stage about two or three wasn’t right about it, that it hadn’t just been a able to catholic families living in the area loyalist attack. There was always whisperings and rumours and stuff like that. I suppose peo - say to when we were ‘politely asked to ple don’t always talk to you; people who were him, as a leave’. Everyone seems a bit in the bar that night they don’t necessarily like surprised when I say that we were to talk to you about it. I should say that two four year other people were killed that night; the fourteen old, “Bad asked to leave Stranmillis 1 but we year old son of the people who owned the bar, were and I suppose you could say, Michael Donnelly, and another young man men who had stopped to get petrol outside, Patsy in light of what happened later, Donnelly. killed unfortunately, but then you never him” and The story from my family’s point of view is that know what’s ahead of you anyway. on the 17th December my sister was born. that’s as We moved to South Armagh to Daddy had been in and out to the hospital (in where my mother was originally Newry) those couple of days. He worked in a far as it factory in Silverbridge making aluminium went. from; my father was from England. doors and windows. On the 19th December, the At that stage mummy wanted to go last Friday before Christmas, they were having their Christmas get together in the local pub, to England, to Birmingham, where Donnelly’s, cashing their pay cheques as people daddy was from and he wanted to did in local pubs at that time. My aunt, my go to South Armagh so he won out mother’s sister, who had been up from Belfast to look after us while mummy was in hospital, in the end which was strange in had been up at the hospital with my daddy that itself that someone from England night. They had stopped on the way home to have a drink. Her husband had driven the wanted to go to live in South whole way from Belfast and arrived just at the Armagh but that’s the case. same time as the people who had come to at - tack the bar. As I say Patsy Donnelly was killed outside; he was shot while he was trying to get

1 Stranmillis is regarded as a quiet, middle class area. INTERVIEWS petrol. Michael Donnelly who had been serving happen to us? But then you start looking at the petrol to him, he ran back in through the pub bigger picture. You still think why did it happen door and shouted, “There’s people shooting at that bar but then you think about the other outside.” As he came in to the pub the door 20 odd people who were in the bar and it prob - opened behind him and the place was sprayed ably takes you out to wider society as well. with gun fire. Daddy was probably killed in - stantly. He was standing just opposite the door At the time the attack was claimed by the Red and he was shot in the head. They then threw Hand Commandos (RHC) which I suppose in a bomb and shouted, “Happy Christmas, you would have been seen as a cover name for the Fenian bastards,” and left. My uncle was shot Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), but a cover outside and survived. There were six or seven name for the UVF that would have been more “There’s people seriously injured that night and subse - used in Belfast, North Down and South Antrim quently three people died. A couple of hours as opposed to South Armagh. Even that in it - people beforehand in Dundalk Kay’s Tavern was at - self; you start to ask questions as to why the shooting tacked. One man died instantly from that attack RHC would have been claiming something like and another man died a couple of days later. So this but it was, I suppose, and still is a loyalist outside.” it was a pretty horrendous couple of hours in attack. South Armagh and North Louth. I suppose everyone has their notion of South It’s funny you meet people now, and I suppose Armagh, about what it is and has been. I per - it’s because in this last few years I have been a sonally tend to subscribe to a different version bit more open and spoken more about the of South Armagh having lived there and known events of that night. Ihave been prepared to the people. I’m probably digressing slightly but look into it in a bit more detail and people have that was something that was a great topic of been prepared to talk about it whereas in the conversation when I was at university. I remem - past they didn’t. They just skirted around it and ber people asking about South Armagh and, sort of said things like, “I remember your “How can you live there?” But it’s the same as daddy. He was a great man. He was the local living anywhere else to be honest and everyone youth leader and I remember him playing in - that I ever took home loved the place, got on door soccer with us up in the local youth club.” well in the local pub, “Ah, you’re a friend of That sort of thing but didn’t get into the sort of Alan's.” They were taken into the community thing like, “I was in the bar that night and this the same as everyone else does whoever comes is what I remember.” In more recent years you to see the place. Yes, it would have been strange tend to get people who are prepared to have to think that loyalists were running about the that conversation with you probably because place in 1972, ‘73, ‘74, ‘’75 but in the work they know that you are prepared to listen. we’ve subsequently done through the Pat Finu - Whereas a few years ago you may not have cane Centre and through different other organ - been. Probably for those people as well it’s a isations and different other reports that have cathartic thing about being able to talk about been put into the public domain in recent years, what happened that night. When you think of loyalists weren’t working on their own. There - it and look at it, it was a traumatic event in fore it was easy for them to get in and out of someone’s life and they’ve survived it and three South Armagh and to attack pubs in South Ar - other people are dead. A number of other peo - magh. ple were seriously injured and took those in - juries through the rest of their lives. Obviously Donnelly’s bar wasn’t the only bar attacked in it affected the rest of their lives in not being able that area. McArdles bar in Crossmaglen was to work to their fullest capacity or not being blown up and from that attack another man able to work at all and having to be cared for. subsequently died, Thomas McNamee. Tully’s That’s the thing that I never really thought Bar in Belleek again in South Armagh was also about. I only ever really thought about our fam - attacked, thank God no-one was killed that ily’s grief and what happened to us. Why did it night but it was a similar attack to Donnelly’s; INTERVIEWS

shots through the window, bomb left outside. It the time. What initially got me more interested could have had the same consequences. in this was an ex-RUC man who had served time for the murder of Willian Strathearn - a When I say that loyalists weren’t working on man called - had given an affidavit their own it subsequently transpires that mem - to Sean McPhilemy who wrote the book ‘The bers of the RUC, (Royal Ulster Constabulary) Committee’. Basically Weir was supporting and members of the UDR (Ulster Defence Reg - some of the things McPhilemy was saying but iment), the locally recruited regiment of the went further. He said in his affidavit that he was British Army, were involved with these loyalist aware that members of the security forces were paramilitaries. It would seem that most of the involved with loyalist paramilitaries at all sorts loyalist paramilitaries were from Portadown. of different levels, some of them actually phys - The Lord These other people were from South Armagh ically being there when attacks took place and and not necessarily Crossmaglen or Cully - taking part, and others turning a blind eye to Chief Justice hanna, that sort of area, but more out round what was happening. I suppose that’s when I at the time Glenanne, Markethill, and that area. Newtown - started to get some sort of a sense that there hamilton to a certain extent as well and Tully - was maybe more to what happened in Don - said that he vallen. I suppose it makes it an awful lot easier nelly’s Bar that night and subsequently to all the could to be able to drive in and out of the area. In at other incidents in South Armagh and as it turns least one particular incident - an attack on the out, East Tyrone and North Armagh. That’s ‘understand Rock Bar in Granemore - it’s known, without a when I first got involved with the Pat Finucane their shadow of a doubt, that they used a police car Centre; by going to them and asking if they as the getaway car. Therefore if you have a po - could help and then actually physically begin - frustrations’. lice car and a radio it’s easy to know where your ning to work with them as an employee. law enforcement officers (sic) actually are. Four policemen were actually convicted in relation We initially looked at what John Weir said and to that particular attack, one of them, who was took it with a pinch of salt and sort of said, already serving a life sentence for murder, re - “Right if this is what he’s saying can we find ceived seven years for maliciously wounding a other information that backs up what he is say - man who was leaving the bar. The three others ing?” So as you’re not taking the word of an ex- received suspended sentences for shooting RUC man who was convicted who then people through the window of the bar and placing a can turn around and say, “Well he’s a murderer, bomb outside of it. The Lord Chief Justice at what else would you expect him to say? He’s the time said that he could “Understand their not trustworthy,” which is everything that’s ever frustrations.’ The guy serving the life sentence been said about him since. We worked away was William ‘Billy’ McCaughey. He’d already very quietly in the background and pulled to - been convicted of William Strathern’s murder gether other bits of information - what people in Ahoghill (Co Antrim) and the other three in - were saying - until you could actually start to dividuals were Ian Mitchell, Lawrence Mc - back up some of what John Weir was saying. Clure, Davey Wilson and they all received Some of what he was saying was a bit ‘pie in suspended sentences. the sky’ but a lot of it has now been corrobo - rated by other people - Justice Barron in his re - I suppose growing up in South Armagh. it was - ports into the Dublin and Monaghan n’t really a surprise in that there was always that bombings, the Castleblaney bombing, the suspicion in the background that something like bombing at Kay’s Tavern in Dundalk - so this couldn’t really have happened in the area there’s lots of other information out there now without some sort of security force involve - that backs up where Weir’s coming from. ment. I knew the rumours round the time when I was growing up that the roads were kept open In more recent times the Pat Finucane Centre (by the security forces) so that there was a has worked with the Historical Enquiries Team straight run through (for loyalists) from Porta - (HET) here in the north and they are now start - down. That would have been the suspicion at ing to come back and sort of say, “Well he INTERVIEWS

(Weir) may not be 100% credible but he defi - funny because it’s one of those things that I can nitely knows what he’s talking about,” which is vividly remember. I had got up early and the good in itself. We have other information that neighbours were in the house and you know even if John Weir wasn’t there (on the scene of you say to yourself, “That’s a bit strange, why’s the killings) there is information to back up the neighbours here?” There was some of them what we’re saying about what actually hap - staying with us the previous night until daddy pened. Our own case has gone to the European and my auntie would come home so I wasn’t Court of Human Rights as have a number of surprised to see them but when you seen the Our own the other cases. They have basically found that rest of them there? A short while after that I can case has John Weir is a credible witness as well, even remember the local parish priest coming in, Fa - though they didn’t interview him, but from ther Duggan, a wee small bald man. I always gone to what he has said. And they (European Court) remember him coming in the front door. He sat found that the British government broke Article the two of us down on the bottom of the stairs the 2 of the European Convention 2, the right to life, and he said that he had some really, really bad European in those cases so there’s definitely enough in - news for us and me and my brother looking at formation out there that says it wasn’t just loy - each and sort of saying, “I wonder what it is?” Court of alists. And then him saying, “Your daddy has been Human killed.” I don’t remember an awful lot after that. Why Donnelly’s Bar? I don’t know. It’s one of I know that we went to stay with friends in Rights as those things that from my own personal point Crossmaglen. My mummy got out of the hos - have a of view that daddy was just in the wrong place pital the next day but she had to stay in bed. I at the wrong time, or you could say, he was in can remember going in to see her in her bed - number the right place at the right time. That’s where room upstairs. I can vaguely remember the fu - daddy intended to be that night to celebrate neral. I can remember people pushing of other with his workmates the birth of his first daugh - photographers out of the way and I don’t think cases. ter. Somebody, somewhere, obviously made the there’s any photographs of our family in any of decision that Donnelly’s was to be attacked that the papers. I think that was a conscious deci - night. Why? I don’t know. It probably just sion by local people to ‘leave these people comes down to the fact that it was a pub in alone; they are grieving enough’. I have been South Armagh and that there was easy access told since that my brother and myself were ac - in and out of the area. They knew the weekend tually taken to Donnelly’s the next day by before Christmas that it was going to be full. neighbours. I don’t remember that at all but my They knew the clientele were going to be brother does. He remembers it vividly. He re - Catholic. People have tried to say that an RUC members seeing where daddy’s car was parked. man who had been abducted a few weeks be - I would personally like to remember but I can’t. fore was taken there and was tortured there and I have tried and tried and tried but I can’t and stuff like that. The man who owned the bar said it’s a memory that for whatever reason is not definitely not. The Historical Enquiries Team going to come forward. has done a report into it and has said definitely not. There’s no intelligence to suggest that any - It was fairly extensively covered in the media. I thing like that ever happened. I think, to be suppose because there were the two attacks in honest, that it was just an easy target. There the one night so close together. The southern was a good road in and a good road out. Gerry press covered it well. A lot of coverage in the Donnelly, the man who owned the bar, was not ‘Irish Independent’ which wouldn’t have been involved in local politics in any way. He was a great in covering stuff in the north at that time. businessman. He had a shop. He had a pub and There’s a lot of coverage in all the southern he owned the petrol pumps; just the hub of the press. A lot of coverage in the northern press as wee village. well and it was covered in the likes of the ‘Daily Mirror’ (Britain) as well. I was seven and my brother was six. I didn’t hear about it until the next morning and it’s My father was English. He was born and

2 Article 2 – Right to life - 1. Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law. 2. Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary: a. in defence of any person from unlawful violence; b. in order to effect a lawful ar - rest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained; c. in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection. INTERVIEWS

brought up in England all his life until 1966 Christmas saying, “There’s a few pound for when he met mummy and they married and you.” That’s not what the Green Cross was for moved to Belfast. His family was badly treated but they always did it. Mummy at the time my father was killed. His father, my grandfather, was told by the shop steward in the Mummy would tell you that for two years she would tell place that he worked that his son had been didn’t know what was going on. She was on you that killed. West Midlands police had come to that much medication and that much drugs and where he’d worked and I suppose the shop she had enough to keep her going with a young for two steward was probably trying to do the right daughter and two young boys; I was seven and years she thing in saying the bad news might be better my brother was six. She also had to look after coming from a friend rather than from the po - her sister who was shot in the head that night didn’t lice type. But what was relayed to them (my and her brother-in-law who was shot in the face, grandparents) was that they wouldn’t be safe shoulder, and the chest. Both of them spent a know coming to the funeral and therefore they long time in hospital afterwards and then came what was weren’t at the funeral. I know that affected my to live with us. My aunt actually had to be grandfather greatly. He came to Ireland after taught to read and write all over again and we going on. that nearly every year. He would have been in did that. I can remember my brother and Belfast before that but he’d never been to South myself teaching her to read and everything. A Armagh. My granny would have been back and seven year old teaching a woman to read but forward to Belfast but she had never been to Ar - that’s the level that she was at. They had lived magh. She died in 1978 and my grandfather in the Cliftonville area of Belfast and they would tell you that she died of a broken heart. ended up having to move because they needed He came back and was completely accepted a certain amount of care. within the area, you know, “Trevor Brecknell’s father, great man this man.” I think that hurt I suppose mummy saying that she doesn’t re - him even more when he saw the reception that member is probably because everything was he got, that he hadn’t been allowed to come at such a blur. She had a young child to look after, the time of the funeral. Whoever sent that mes - she had her sister who was basically a young sage, and I have to assume that it was sent from child again, the two of us and then her brother- the police here, I can’t imagine the West Mid - in-law. She always kept the lot of us going. One lands police made that decision to say that thing she did say was, and it’s something I al - South Armagh isn’t going to be safe enough for ways remember, she would say that she didn’t you to go to. want any of us getting involved in anything, “I don’t want you doing this to anyone else. I don’t It’s funny, that’s the sort of thing that hurts want to lose a son. I’ve lost a husband and more than anything. Granda has since died and that’s enough.” There was a certain bribery in dad’s younger brother has since died as wel. At it. It’s only natural that once you got to 16, 17, least, before both of them died, they knew what 18 years of age there would have been a certain happened and they knew that it wasn’t just loy - vengeance in your thinking especially because alists and they knew that someone, somewhere at that age I had just got my driving test.You here, had made the decision that they weren’t were out and about, two or three o’clock in the to come to the funeral. At least they have gone morning coming home from disco’s or what - knowing that he was more than just a statistic ever, and the police and the army weren’t the in in the north of Ireland. It’s how best to you; I suppose is the way to put it. people react and there’s such a difference to how local people react. People come behind I can remember the girl that I am now married you; they were just brilliant. The whole way to lived about two and half miles away from when I was growing up, people couldn’t have where I lived. There’s about five different roads done enough for you. I can always remember, I could take to get to home and no matter what at different times, people coming from the road I took to get home I got stopped in the Green Cross 3 to mummy in the run up to middle of the night (by the British army or

3 Irish Republican welfare organisation for the families of those interned without trial or imprisoned. INTERVIEWS

RUC) and had to sit on the side of the road for Dundalk, that they are not happy with how an hour, an hour and a half, two hours. They’d they were treated afterwards. I am sure they take your licence and not give it back and there (Irish government) condemned the killings. I was always the fear that if you drove off you’d am sure if I was to read through the press clip - get shot and they could say, “Well he was pings again they would have condemned the stopped at the checkpoint because I have his li - killings but it was nothing more than that. cence,” sort of thing. I can remember one night There was never any emotional or physical sup - pulling the car to the side of the road, getting port from them; let’s put it like that. out and locking it and just walking home be - cause you’d just be sitting there for that length The local Church would have been very good. of time. I don’t know whether they had this no - The local priests would have been very good. tion that Alan Brecknell’s father was killed Fr. Duggan was the parish priest in Cullyhanna therefore he was bound to get involved (with re - and he was a rock (of support for us) and the publican politics). curate in Cullyhanna would have been a guy called Fr Rice who was a very close friend of Mummy was tortured by them for years after - daddy’s and I suppose that helped as well. I wards. The marines were brought into South couldn’t say anything negative about the Armagh probably about six months after Don - Church; the Church was like family. I suppose nelly’s Bar was attacked and the paras (para - that’s the way I would see it. chute regiment) were there as well at that stage. Shortly after that the SAS (Special Air Service) My grandmother died in 1978; my own mother were sent into South Armagh so it was a not a is still alive, thank God. My mummy dealt with nice time to be living in South Armagh. The it but it’s there; we know it’s there. She didn’t marines would have come to mummy’s door on want to make a big thing of it because if she did a regular basis and asked for Trevor Brecknell she thought there was a possibility that Mark (my father who had been killed) and that was (my brother) and I would go a different way (get hard on her. It’s hard to listen to your mother involved in republican politics). I suppose it re - Why are tell that story; I don’t get emotional about these ally was with the advent of the ceasefires and things normally but that does hurt me, that re - the subsequent peace agreement and all that there ally hurt me. It hurts to hear people portray the sort of stuff that the atmosphere changed. Part these marines and the paras as the elite of the British of it is that the space is now there. I suppose army because to me they were a shower of bas - from our point of view it would have been rumours tards, excuse my language, but that’s what they something that we, as the Brecknell family, have going were. To a certain extent, as I grew older, you some sort of interest in. The Donnelly family, would have got the, “Well sure he got what he who owned the bar, reopened the bar and they around deserved. What was he doing there? What was would have always been of the view that they that the an English man doing there?” You know, that didn’t want something like this revisited again. sort of thing. “We’re the only English men who We were always conscious of that as well so security should be here,” and that was an awful thing to therefore we didn’t want to rock the boat to a have to take especially when they were standing certain extent. With the ceasefires and stuff like forces there with a gun in someone else’s country. that there was a certain, what’s the word, en - were couragement maybe. There was space; there There was never any support from the southern was the opportunity to be a bit more reflective involved? (Dublin) government. I think if you talked to as to what did happen that night. Why are there Is it a the families of the people who were killed in these rumours going around that the security Dundalk they’d be scathing of the southern forces were involved? Is it a rumour or is it true? rumour government’s response to the bombing there. From our point of view I can’t remember the That was 1994 and I started to look into it a or is it Southern government saying or doing anything wee bit but not in any great detail and then in true? at the time but I do know, having talked to the 1999 when John Weir made his statements that two families of the men who were killed in started to make us think, ‘well hold on, there is INTERVIEWS

something here’. From my personal point of that he should go and take a look at ‘Lost Lives’ view, and I think I could speak for the family, (book) and take a look at some of the things it’s not out of a sense of wanting to see some - that happened. I think, no disrespect to him, one behind bars at this stage. I don’t believe but that’s ten years ago and I don’t think he’s “There are that’s going to help society or for me personally changed one bit. Maybe I shouldn’t personalise to see an 80 year old man up in the dock and things but it’s a statement that’s stuck with me. no guilty everyone’s looking at him and saying, “Look at It’s a statement that I think he needs to be chal - relatives.” him, poor old man, Jesus Christ, what are these lenged on because he needs to be able to say people doing to him?” So from a humanity that there were victims on all sides here and point of view I can’t see any merit in having there were wrongs on all sides and until he can mass numbers of trials and loads of people in get to there he can’t bring his people with him. their seventies and eighties being put in jail for something that they did in the 1970s. From my You could argue, if you want to get into this no - point of view, having a knowledge of what hap - tion of a ‘hierarchy of victims’, that if the state pened is more important so that I can tell my has been involved in killing its citizens, and they children so that it doesn’t perpetuate the prob - claim that my father was a citizen of the state, lems. That’s what’s more important; that the and agents of the state were involved in killing truth of the incident is told but is told as in the him that’s an awful lot worse than, as they por - truth of the conflict. That it’s not told as in this tray, a terrorist organisation going out and was a one-off incident, a random sectarian at - killing someone. I don’t want that to sound cal - tack on a bar in the run up to Christmas in lous in that’s it’s right for one person to kill 1975. There’s more to it than that; it wasn’t just someone and it’s not right for someone else to. a nationalist, republican struggle against loyal - My personal opinion is that, having gone ists and unionists. We have to destroy that through that, having suffered it, that there’s myth. I think and I hope that this will be part other ways of getting around our difficulties of the legacy of what we do here, that we tell and our problems. To me I think that’s an argu - the story of the conflict as it was, not as the ment that needs to be knocked on the head Irish government wants it told, the British gov - straight away because, and it’s something that ernment wants it told, or republicans, unionists, Paul O’Connor (Pat Finucane Centre) has al - nationalists and loyalists want it told. That it’s ways said, “There are no guilty relatives,” and told as it happened. I think that’s what’s more I think that is the way we should actually look important than seeing people behind bars at at it. My mother is the same as an RUC man’s this stage. mother; same position and the same grief. This notion of a hierarchy of victims and I think I know personally that I have come a long way that, unfortunately, this whole Libyan 4 carry on and I know, from our family’s point of view, we is going to create an even bigger problem, be - have a better understanding of the events of cause if we go from what Willy Frazier 5 and that night. I think as a society we have a long Nigel Dodds 6 and Jeffrey Donaldson 7 are say - way to go to before people will be able to accept ing and, if anything ever comes from Libya, I that what I say about what happened that night don’t think it will, but if it does, Libya is going is true and that they will listen to it. They may to want it to be some sort of reconciliation listen now but are they hearing and talking fund. But the notion that Jeffrey Donaldson, about it? Unionist politicians are the ones who Nigel Dodds and people like that can decide have to encourage the unionist population to who gets the money is a bad place to be, to be accept that it wasn’t a random sectarian attack; honest. You cannot compensate someone for a that there was more to it than that. I can re - loss and I don’t think that financial loss is the member sitting with a unionist politician one way that we should be going. We should be try - day, doing an interview with him, where he ba - ing to tell the story of what happened and sically told me that the only people killed in telling it from that point of view and bring peo - South Armagh were British soldiers and RUC ple to that stage where you can say that I may men. I was there as an academic and I told him not agree with you and I may not agree with

4 An attempt by FAIR – Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (of IRA killings) to take legal action to try and persuade Colonel Gaddaffi of Libya to pay compensation because of his supply of semtex and other weaponry to the IRA. 5 Founder of FAIR 6 Democratic Unionist Party MP. 7 Democratic Unionist Party MP. INTERVIEWS your politics but I know where you’re coming be people who joined the RUC, the RUC re - from. I think that’s a more important place for serve and the UDR for the right reasons but us all to be rather than every victim having a there’s large numbers who didn’t and it’s not a million pounds in their back pocket - which few bad apples; it’s large numbers. The number isn’t going to happen to anyone for a start. of people who have been convicted as loyalists Apart from anything else that’ll just cause even who were members of the UDR or the RUC up greater problems within families. Who gets the until the day and hour they were arrested, I The way the money? That £12,000 that was in the Eames think we’ll find in the next few years that that’s vast majority Bradley 8 proposals, who actually gets that an awful lot higher than people think it is. How money? Who’s the next of kin? What happens else do you describe it other than collusion; it of loyalist if someone has since remarried? They’re not is collusion. It may not be structured in any paramilitaries next of kin anymore but they were the person’s way. It may just be in conversations between next of kin at that time. There are all sorts of family members; but it’s collusion in the deaths got their guns difficulties when you bring money into things of people. and I think we should try and stay away from and got their that. What you can do is try and make people’s I run into Willie Frazier (FAIR) at conferences training was lives better, especially, and it’s something that and he sits on the Victims Forum and so do I has come to my notice in the last six months, but to say that we have ever had any conversa - by joining the the number of people who were injured, who tions would be a complete lie. I know Reatha RUC and the have been left in limbo basically and they are Hassan from Saver/Naver (South/North Ar - not talked about. Everyone talks about the peo - magh Victims Encouraging Recognition) very RUC reserve ple who died but there’s an awful lot of people well and I think personally that they are a more who were injured. What people would think positive organisation. I think FAIR are about was a large sum of money (compensation paid keeping people in the one place as opposed to at the time) is now gone; it’s not there but they moving them on. I think that’s unfortunate be - still have to live with the injuries and impaired cause I think we all need to start to move on life so that’s where we need to be starting. and as I say personally I am in a completely dif - ferent place than in 1994 whenever I started If I was to say to people like Jeffrey Donaldson, asking these questions and more especially in if I was to bring up the issue of my father’s 1999. Maybe that’s because you’ve learned so killing, they would say he was completely inno - much and you’ve learned that you are not the cent, but, and there’s always a but, there is this only person. No matter who you go and see notion that some people are more innocent their story is always worse than yours. It’s than others. If you think about ‘1984’ 9 and amazing, getting involved in the Victims George Orwell, that some people are more in - Forum. I have run into a lot of people who nocent than others, I think that’s where it all were injured during the Troubles. Even though comes down to. If I was to challenge them it my aunt and uncle were injured you just sort of would be, “Yeah, he was completely innocent, never even thought along those lines and that killed by terrorists,” and if I was to say that has, thank God, opened my eyes, to say that, there were members of the security forces in - well look, we do need to sort this out, we don’t volved they would say, “No, no, no, they were need to keep people on the 19th December rogues, bad apples.” This notion of bad apples 1975. I should be at the 9th November 2009 is complete rubbish. In my opinion, you can’t (date the interview was recorded). That’s where have half of the Armagh Special Patrol Group unfortunately some of the victims groups play (RUC) in a loyalist paramilitary organisation on this ‘victimhood’ whereas the Pat Finucane and say that it’s a few bad apples. You have to Centre doesn’t see itself as a victims group. It be realistic about this and say that the way the sees itself more in relation to victims’ issues; as vast majority of loyalist paramilitaries got their an advocate on behalf of victims. We’ve done guns and got their training was by joining the the research and this is what we think. You’re RUC and the RUC reserve and just take your going to meetings with people as a source of head out of the sand and look at it. There will support. We don’t do the counselling, airy-fairy,

8 Consultative Group on the Past. 9 A book written by George Orwell. INTERVIEWS

feely-feely therapies. We know people who do liefs and to be able to sort of stand there and and if that’s what people want we can put them say, “This is what I think and this is why I think in that direction. What we do is try and help it.” If someone came back to me with a proper people through and get this notion of the truth; argument then we’ll have a discussion about it just what does the truth mean. At least some and I think that’s fair enough. sense of knowledge of what actually happened in individual cases. Another thing is this notion The first time I stood in front of a camera was that you are actually helping someone. I believe nerve racking; it really was. But I think now be - that we are helping people, maybe not from a cause I have the knowledge and I know what I therapy or counselling point of view but I think am talking about I can get up there and make if someone can walk away after being involved my point and it makes it that much more easier. with the Pat Finucane Centre and say, “Well It’s an awful lot easier if you are talking from a look, we know more now and that puts us in a position of experience and knowledge whereas better place,” I think that’s important. From my I suppose I had only a little bit of knowledge point of view I think if there were more groups back then and you could be easily challenged doing that sort of work it actually would benefit on different things. You get to the stage that if people more than trying to keep people where you are not prepared to do it who is going to do you want them to be. it. That’s where I have got to, although when - ever we have press conferences and different ... for society There’s this notion that there is a sector there things like that I would far rather they see (victims’ sector) and I don’t like that. I person - someone else’s face there than mine (laughs). to start to ally think that if I were out of work because I There are people there who I feel are much had done what I had set out to do that would more worthy to tell their story and that’s what heal in any be a great place to be. If the victims’ sector dis - I mean by that. You know that their story is way appeared tomorrow that would be a great place more worthwhile because my story has been to be because it means that people are getting told. I know that not everyone may know it but everyone’s the help that they need through the main - lots of people know Alan Brecknell and they story has to stream, where they should be getting it, and have a vague idea of my story whereas there’s that is far more important in terms of making so many other stories that haven’t been told. be heard and this a more normal society. Again I come back to this notion for society to acknowledged. start to heal in any way everyone’s story has to I am in a far different place today emotionally; be heard and acknowledged. definitely. I couldn’t have sat here in 1994 and had this conversation without the tears tripping It helps us to know that people know our story. me. Knowledge is empowering and I think that There are four of us in the family, my mother, has been a big thing from my point of view in my brother and sister, and we all deal with it that I’m now fairly sure of what actually hap - differently but I think we all are in a better place pened on that particular night and subse - for knowing what we know. My brother, he quently. It leaves me in the position that I can doesn’t say he’s shy, but he would be shy at this talk about it openly and frankly. No one can sort of thing. He’ll be more outgoing in other contradict me when I turn round and say there ways but he’ll not talk about stuff and then were three people from Portadown; loyalists. every six months or so he’ll say, “Are you going There was a UDR man and there was an RUC for a pint?” and then ask, “So what’s been hap - man involved in the shootings and bombing of pening?” That’s just who he is. Whereas any - Donnelly’s Bar. I defy anyone to sit across from time I talk to my mother or my sister they’ll ask me and challenge me on that. I know I am right what’s been happening. I talk to my mother so that’s a good place to be. That’s a positive every day. That’s just the way it is. I think it has place to be. Positive out of the negative and the been good for us but there are people who don’t negativity being what happened with the event. want to (talk about such incidents in their lives) It’s given me the confidence to challenge differ - and have said that it’s in their past and that’s ent other beliefs and other people’s different be - where they want it to stay and you have to say INTERVIEWS that’s ok and that’s a legitimate way of dealing about the ‘murder triangle’ 10 . The murder trian - with what happened. gle is probably not the right word, you know, but the work that we’ve been doing in that area I feel I have a responsibility to other’s who don’t and tell that story. I think from my point of have the power to articulate. I think what helps view that would be it done once that story’s told to drive me now is that I don’t think I’m going because it means then that if someone in 100 to find out much more about what happened years time comes to write the history of the on the 19th December 1975, or subsequently. Troubles, the definitive history of the Troubles, But what I do feel is that there are still people or the conflict, well at least they’ll have to pay out there who don’t know and have a wish to some sort of attention to that book and that know what happened in relation to their own story and I think that’s important. individual cases and their own individual in - stances. If I can help and contribute in any way I personally think it’s the justice system that has then good. Working with the Pat Finucane failed an awful lot of people. I am not saying Centre you put yourself out there as in, this is that from a political point of view. In 1978 what we do. If you want help in that sort of whenever those policemen were arrested one of way then you can come to us and we’ll do them made admissions to driving a police car everything that we can. We don’t go looking for away from Donnelly’s Bar and was never con - people; people come to us. That’s how we victed in relation to that so how could I have work. And if someone comes to the Pat Finu - confidence in a system like that? That to a cer - cane Centre, no matter who they are, where tain extent colours my opinion. I don’t think the they’re from or what their incident is or what justice system has been transformed to the same I suppose I their story is, if they’ve come to us there’s obvi - extent as maybe the police service has. never ously some sort of truth and justice issue and I think it has a way to go yet. Again this maybe that’s why they are coming. They’re not com - sounds like me making a political statement, grew up ing, as I said earlier, for counselling and thera - but the PPS (Public Prosecution Service) as it pies and that sort of stuff. I suppose because I is now, it’s the same people who were there dur - with a have learned a certain amount of skills in this ing the Troubles so that needs to be reformed confidence field that I do now feel that if you can help from my point of view. Therefore having a con - someone else then that’s what you should be fidence in going through that sort of process in the doing. If by doing that you then bring someone and again whether it actually helps, justice to a better place where they can maybe help I don’t think it does. I think at this stage we someone else that’s where I feel we need to be. need to be doing things that bring people to - system. Where I can positively affect someone who can gether as opposed to splitting them apart. From positively affect someone else then you’ve that our family’s point of view, if the story’s told and ripple effect. it’s told right, that’s what’s important but that’s not the same for everyone. I suppose I never From my point of view I don’t see the merits in grew up with a confidence in the justice system. someone going through the judicial process Why should I put my confidence in it now here. I’m happy enough. We recently received whenever I don’t think that even if I did have a report from the Historical Enquiries Team the confidence in it it’s going to serve any useful which needs a wee bit of tweaking but it’s put - purpose? If someone gets convicted they’ll ting the event of December 1975 into the bigger serve two years (as legislated for in the Good picture and saying this is what was happening Friday Agreement of 1998). They’ll probably in that area at that time. Part of that is also already have been on remand if they go being able to put right the wrong that was done through the system anyway so it doesn’t light to the South Armagh community and this no - my fire so to speak. Getting this notion of a tion of ‘bandit country’ and that sort of thing; semblance of the truth; I know you’re not going so if we can put that out in some sort of a pub - to get the complete truth unless the people who lic way. The intention from the work we’re were involved in each individual incident sud - doing here is to get some sort of a book written denly come forward and say, “This is what hap -

10 An area comprising East Tyrone, North and South Armagh that witnessed many sectarian killings carried out by loyalists. INTERVIEWS

pened and this is why we did it.” est in recently was the Eames/Bradley (Eames/Bradley Consultative Group on the I know the names of the people from the secu - Past) process. You listen to Denis Bradley and rity forces who were involved. It’s probably Robin Eames and I know a couple of the other more important to me them knowing that I people who were on that panel and they talk know. I know exactly who they are and two of about the journey they were on, I do honestly I know them were subsequently charged but were never believe that’s a journey we all have to go on be - the convicted and I know that they have been ar - cause people do need to be challenged. You rested in recent years and have been asked need to be challenged about your beliefs but if names of about it again so there must be a certain uneasi - you can stand by your beliefs and someone else the ness from their point of view. So that’s just a can then understand where you are coming nice wee chuckle you can have to yourself every from that’s important. Being involved in the people now and again. As I say, that wouldn’t have (Victims) Forum I’m starting to get that oppor - been the main motivation behind this. I sup - tunity. There’s people there I don’t agree with. from the pose knowing who they are - it’s a name to a There’s people there who don’t agree with me. security face to the individual who came through the But we can have that conversation in a safe en - door that night. ‘Would you ever go and see vironment. It’s getting that safe environment to forces them?’ is a question I have been asked and I do it in and not everyone is going to have that who were have said that if they would be prepared to sit opportunity unfortunately. across the table from me then I would, yes, but involved. not in a Bishop Tutu way that was done on the I think there’s too much control within the BBC. unionist community and within the unionist victims community that doesn’t want people to Reconciliation and forgiveness are two very big get to that place. It doesn’t suit politically be - words. I don’t think you can force anyone to be cause their thinking is that there are ‘terrorists’ reconciled. I also think it’s a journey that peo - and ‘murderers’ and we have to get them out of ple go on. You know you don’t just wake up power (government). I think there is too much one morning and say, ‘I’m all reconciled with of that going on so therefore whether or not my neighbour down the road.’ It’s a journey they would accept anything that I would say? that people have to go on and I think it has to I’m sure I’m looked on as a republican mouth - happen through some sort of a dialogue. For - piece who goes in and pedals this agenda that giveness is an even bigger one. I always find it there was collusion between members of the se - very dubious when I hear people saying they curity forces and loyalists. Until you can get to forgive the people who did this to them. I think the stage when you can say, ‘Look it’s not just I would find that very difficult. I listened on the the few bad apples, it was systemic’, until you radio the other day to the father of the young get over that barrier I think you’re barking up lad who was knocked down in Derry over the the wrong tree, unfortunately. However, that weekend. He said that it would probably sound doesn’t mean that you don’t keep trying. There very hard but he didn’t think he would ever be are some people and they absolutely amaze able to forgive that person. I think that’s an hon - you. Alan McBride is an absolute inspiration. I est answer but it’s an honest answer in the emo - have an awful lot of time for Alan because he’s tion of the time. I think if you ask the question open and he’s frank. He did pursue Gerry in six months time he may not be as open and Adams and picket every event that Gerry as honest. It’s 34 years later and I don’t think Adams went to and tried to bat Gerry over the that I could physically forgive the people. If head with placards and all sorts of stuff but he there was an opportunity there and they were has since come to a better place; he’s in a better sitting across the table from me and they were place and he would tell you that himself. explaining their rationale, I may understand it better but forgiveness is a different thing. I think Unfortunately there’s a section of the unionist that, going back to reconciliation, as I said that community that won’t understand Alan’s posi - is a journey and something I took a lot of inter - tion; they just will not see anyone’s point of

11 Alan McBride’s wife, Sharon, was killed in the IRA bombing of the in 1993. INTERVIEWS view. That’s my frustration; there doesn’t seem information and there’s lots of different to be a way forward in that section of the com - people have gone through there; Paul munity. O’Connor, Joanna Keenan, Adrian Kerr, people who have done an awful lot of the early It’s funny I don’t like the word victim and I’m even begin - research and an awful lot of the early work. I’d the ning to dislike the word survivor because now have to say that the Pat Finucane Centre it is becoming victim and survivor and it’s all and my family have been the main people emotional said together. I know you have to use some sort supporting me through this but for instance support of a term but I wouldn’t class myself as a vic - there’s a couple of guys coming here in the next tim; I would class myself more as a survivor. fifteen minutes from San Francisco that I you get Victim is just such a negative word. It has such met a couple of years ago and it’s that sort of negative connotations here and it gets worse support. I have done a couple of speaking tours from day by day. around America and the support I got there people. was unbelievable. Maybe only 30 people in the There are lots of different people and organisa - room out of a city the size of San Francisco but tions who have supported me since I decided to the actual physical support that’s there. enter into this process. My family, to a big ex - It’s funny the emotional support you get from tent, has been a massive support. My wife has people like that; if they are over in Ireland on a been a huge support in that whenever I wasn’t holiday and they call in and see you. There’s earning a salary and was working voluntarily lots of different people. It’s not something that for the Pat Finucane Centre and basically there you can do on your own. You do need the sup - was no money coming in, she was there. Even port of all sorts of different people. I now you’re basically getting less money than suppose the wider community in Cullyhanna when you were a sixteen year old, so she’s al - has always been a great support, even South ways been there and been very supportive the Armagh. And, as I said, once I did start to ask whole way through the process as have my questions people did start to come forward; “I mother, brother and sister. The Pat Finucane was in the bar that night and this is what I re - Centre itself has been a huge support. member,” and that’s all helpful because it helps They have put a lot of time and resources, to put the whole story together of that particu - obviously not financial, personnel resources lar night. It’s a community effort; I’ll put it like into looking at this story and getting the that. INTERVIEWS

We then went to live in sheltered accommoda - tion in Andersonstown - that ended up to be Silver City - at the big barracks. We ended up Andrea there for a few years and then we got a flat in Divis Flats and mummy didn’t like it so we ended up getting a house in Corrib Avenue in Connolly Lenadoon. At this stage my mother and father had six children and this was about 1971. John boRn beLfAsT, 1962 We were put out of Lenadoon (again by loyal - went the ists) and ended up in the monastery in Gor - manstown (Co Meath) and then onto Tralee next day y name is Andrea (Co Kerry) army barracks where we were and I Connolly and I known as refugees. We later went back home am originally and come on a few years and I met this fellow didn’t see called John and we were going out together him for a from West and things developed and we were getting mar - Belfast. I was ried. He’d been in jail (republican political pris - week. He 1 bMorn in 1962 and lived just off the oner) for five years. He’d been on the Blanket phoned (protest) and he was out about a year and a half Falls Road in a street called Beverly and we got married on Friday 16th March and said: Street, facing St Comgall’s school, 1984. The following day, a Saturday, it was St Patrick’s Day, we got up and John put the Tele - “You are but in 1969 we were burnt out by text on and it said that a man had been arrested going to loyalists. At that stage my mother and John said he was going to have to go 2. We have to and father had three children so we were married one day. come went to live with relatives in John went the next day and I didn’t see him Andersonstown who were taking for a week. He phoned and said, “You down to are going to have to come down to Dundalk.” Dundalk.” people in, my mummy’s cousin, I was never in Dundalk in my life. I got and when we got there there was the train and came down to Dundalk and John just said that we were going to have to stay lots of other cousins who had got there, that we were maybe going to have to burnt out of other places as well. move and live there. At that stage they had been raiding John’s mother’s (house) and that for him and John had just had enough and so we made the decision that we would move to Dundalk.

We came to Dundalk in March 1984 so we’ve been here 26 years. At the start a friend put us up; Celine put us up. I’d never been in Dundalk in my life. So, as I say, we came down and Ce - line put us up and she put our name on the council list for a house. In the meantime Ce - line’s house just kept getting more and more packed; there were more and more people ar - riving and she never once said no you can’t stay. She would have made beds on floors for people and that.

1 The ‘blanket protest’ by republican prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh/Maze Prison 1976-1981 who demanded the return of political ‘special category’ status. 2 Leave the North. INTERVIEWS

Then I found out I was pregnant and we de - word. At that stage there was a man used to cided we would rent a wee house up the street come out, Doctor Dolan, a very abrupt man from Celine in Mary Street North. It was grand and he wanted to know why we had come there but it was very damp and we went to rent a flat to live, like why? If it was to happen now you in Castle Road. The landlord didn’t want to would query all his credentials but at that stage give anyone a flat who was pregnant because it it was just Doctor Dolan coming to interview might have helped your case to be re-housed so you for a house. God knows who he was or we had to let on that I wasn’t pregnant when what he was. Very arrogant and, “Why don’t we were in the flat. The flat was ok. At that you go back home? Why are you here?” “Well, stage then another fellow from Belfast came because we want to be.” down, Jim McKernan, and he was living in the We had to flat with us. We had to keep hiding everything Eventually we got a council house in Muirhev - belonging to the (expected) baby because the namore. I’d say we’re in the house about 23 keep hiding fellow up the stairs told us that the landlord had years. We moved in there and we had very, very everything given the keys to Special Branch and that when good neighbours; people who have been born we were out they had been in noseying around. and reared in Dundalk that I have never had a belonging to We asked the landlord about that and he said cross word with in 26 years. Again the house in no but that he thought that I was pregnant and Muirhevnamore would have been raided by the he would rather we went. Special Branch and all the rest of it but anyway (expected) when you are from the North it’s just part of So we then got another wee house to rent in your daily life. They’d just come in and search baby Green Acres. By this stage there was another your house, who’s here and who’s not here, and because the girl and fellow down (from Belfast) so there was then you’d see them outside your door or if you five of us and I was pregnant. We were only in are walking past you’d see them looking to see fellow up the house a few weeks when the Special Branch who you were talking to. Just all the usual shit raided it for no reason and of course that that they would be up to. It’s kind of like when the stairs started the neighbours talking, “What are you people say, “But why did they raid your told us that at that Special Branch is raiding your house?” house?” And your answer is that they just do It was hard to explain that they were just doing and they are looking at you like, “Well they’re the landlord it because we were republican and that they had not doing it for nothing.” But they are doing it had given to update their database or whatever. for nothing; well because you were a republi - can. It’s hard to explain that and then also in the keys to The funny thing is that John had only just got the 1980s things were a bit like what they are Special out of jail on one of the super-grass 3 cases. now with the recession; money wise there was - There was a protest on (in the Crumlin Road n’t a lot. And there wasn’t a lot of work and Branch and Prison) and usually people that were arrested people, particularly the area we were housed in, were remanded to the Crum (Crumlin Road) and I don’t know if it was deliberate, you didn’t that when but because of the protest being on they were ask to be housed in any particular area, it was we were out remanded to the H Blocks. He said he thought just a house, it just seemed to have a lot of peo - he’d dreamt that he’d got out (released from his ple from the north of Ireland living in it and they had earlier detention); he woke up in the H-Blocks eventually then it became known as ‘little been in and said, “Did I dream I was out there?” Any - Belfast’. That was the local name for it. way, the super grass retracted and he (John) got noseying out. When he got out the RUC had wrote on As I say, jobs were short and money was short the wall, ‘Bigger rubber bullets now John’, im - so people were kind of, “Well if all these north - around. plying about how many people they’d killed de - erners would go home there would be more liberately with plastic and rubber bullets. work for us.” Exactly like I hear people saying now about the Africans. I can nearly say that We were in Green Acres and we were still the only difference is that they’ve changed awaiting word about a council house. Every northerner to foreign national or African or week you were going to see if there was any whatever way they want to put it. That’s very

1 The ‘blanket protest’ by republican prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh/Maze Prison 1976-1981 who demanded the return of political ‘special category’ status. 2 Leave the North. INTERVIEWS

hurtful because really and truthfully if you are fair play to you for ringing up but really it does - homesick you want to go home; you can’t go n’t annoy me that he said it but fair play to you home. anyway, you’ve a conscience.”

John’s father died; he couldn’t go up to the fu - Work was short and you were trying to get a bit neral. He’s on the phone to his mother; the state of work. 26 years ago I didn’t drive and John they were in and the state he was in and you didn’t drive and we wouldn’t have had the feel like saying to people, “Do you really think money for a car or anything. I was using the bus I want to be here? We want to go home where and the train to go up and down (to Belfast). we are loved and adored and welcomed with The homesickness is desperate and anybody open arms.” But people just don’t understand. that is homesick my heart goes out to them be - cause I would say that it has taken me 26 years One time I was at the shop when we weren’t to get over it. At that stage nobody had a phone. long housed and they were talking in the shop One woman that we knew that lived in a differ - and one woman said to the other, “Did your ent estate had a phone and God help her be - daughter get her house yet?” And she said, cause she never refused you but you were going “No. Sure how can she with all these northern - around continuously to use the phone. You per - ers.” And I just felt, “Awh God you are just so manently had no money. It’s a wonder my ignorant. Go up to the council and cause riots mother paid her mortgage because I was more Most rather than say that.” But you got on with it and oftener on the phone asking her to send some - northern most people will take you at face value. thing down, particularly when the child was born. And you think, why don’t we go home? people in Most northern people in our estate got involved Why don’t I leave John and go home? But you in community work. When you are doing that don’t. Then dynamics change as the kids come our estate I think you are building up your own respect. It along. My daughter was born and a few years got was a massively disadvantaged area regardless later my son was born and whereas before it of where you were born. So you are building was only two adults, me and John, now it’s a involved in up a relationship with people because they are child that has to go to school and you’re into community saying, “No you know what, they are doing “Well what school are we going to send them their community work in there. They are in - to?” work. volved in this and involved in that.” At other times things were happening, maybe someone Now, years later, when I go home all our ones got beat up or that. Automatically it was ‘the will say, “Here’s the two Free Staters.” And northerners’ that done it, you know. “It’s them they (the children) are as Dundalk as Dundalk northerners bringing their ways here,” and half can be and as much as they love their grannies the time it was their mates beating them up or and their aunts and uncles they don’t have the it was over drug money or something but no, same feeling for Belfast that John and I do. You automatically that would be the northerners. know we’re away 26 years and sometimes I could choke them over it. Then I have to realise When you were waiting on a house you if my son wants to buy a Louth shirt instead of couldn’t really go to many politicians here be - an Antrim one it’s none of my business. He’s cause one of the politicians in particular, Bren - 21 now although both teams, you know, there dan McGahon, got on the radio and said, “Get wouldn’t be many queuing up to buy either! an Ulsterbus, I’ll pay for it, and get them all That changes things; the kids change things. home (to Belfast).” So he was a great public But they’ll always be perceived as northerners; representative wasn’t he? You had the likes of even though they have been born here and people coming on the radio and saying that. I schooled here they’ll always be known as north - didn’t hear him on the radio. It was one of my erners. neighbours said, “Listen I’ve been phoning the radio station to say that I am living beside these I would say to John (at times) I would love to people and there’s nothing.” And I said, “Well go home because my mother is still alive. John’s INTERVIEWS mother is still alive and our brothers and sisters make sense. That is like saying to me would I are there but the two kids wouldn’t go. Never; give Fine Gael a tick, you know? It’s a big learn - never in a million years. It’s just not home to ing curve. Everything is different (here in Dun - them. This is home. I do. I think about it. dalk/the south) from what I came from in West Maybe we should go up for the last couple of Belfast. I knew what I was about there but then years of our mothers’ lives but in saying that you’re thrown into the middle and you think now the two of us drive and you have a phone that everything is going to be the same and it in whereeas 26 years ago things like that made doesn’t be. That was what he said to me, Belfast seem like it was at the other side of the “You’re not in Belfast now. We don’t do that.” world, in Australia, because it might as well And I went, “Right, ok.” But I knew that in have been, never mind an hour up the road. It’s Belfast the Sinn Fein councillors helped people 50 minutes up the road, the phone’s in, you’re with any sorts of problems. They went and easily contacted and, as I say, thank God we helped them but that was just an eye opener for both drive. Those things make it easier and it me. Ach, loads of things in the north and they (Belfast) doesn’t seem so far away. Years ago were just entirely different; not all good and not you thought something is going to happen and all bad. it’ll be days before I find out. I can’t say that everything is negative. Of course I went to the doctor here (when pregnant with there was (positive things) and it was other re - my first child) and then I just sort of took cold publicans who had come from different coun - “You’re feet and went to Belfast and had the baby. It ties, people that you’d maybe never met before, not in was the first year of living here and I remember people from County Down and republicans going to the hospital and looking at it and from too, 100%, definitely. They Belfast going, “No, oh Jesus no, I couldn’t have my would have helped us out, would have looked baby here.” That was stupid because thousands out for us, would have really tried to make you now. We of women here had their baby there. It was just feel at home and it really was republicans doing don’t do myself and homesickness and the first baby so that. I have to say that in 26 years, those that I I actually went back to Belfast and had the baby met are still my friends today. I’ve never fell out that.” and took her back down after a couple of days with anybody in 26 years. I make myself sound to John. He never seen her when she was born awful good there but I haven’t. I’ve had no rea - or anything because he couldn’t go up. son to. Even people that I don’t see as much today that I met in the early days I never forget It’s just strange what you’re used to and what them, ever, or what they did for you. you are threw into and then getting yourself kind of used to it. I remember one time John’s You kind of found yourself, at the start, only dole money not coming through and going to associating with republicans. It wasn’t because the local Sinn Fein councillor here and saying, you were suspicious; it was because you felt iso - “Listen will you come down to the dole office lated, so there was a bit of comfort in it. If any - with me because John’s dole money didn’t thing we’re the same political persuasion and come through.” And him saying, “No we don’t then as the years went on you spread out a bit do that.” And me saying, “What do you mean because then you got a bit more confident. I you don’t do it? Sure you’re a councillor. You’re think too what happened was people starting my Sinn Fein councillor. Come on down with sticking up for themselves. Before when maybe me and explain. You are better explaining than they were saying that’s ‘them northerners’ you me.” And him saying, “You’re going to have to would say, “Do you know what? Just change realise you’re not in the north now. We don’t do the record because I’m sick of it.” You kind of that.” It was deeply upsetting to me. Even in the started sticking up for yourself and you knew recent election 26 years later - maybe I’m a slow that you were a good person, “We’re doing the learner - I can’t believe that people who vote work on the ground - shut up; and what are you Fine Gael will give Sinn Fein a tick (2nd pref - doing?” You became more vocal where maybe erence vote) because that to me just doesn’t at the start you were kind of, ‘Jesus there’s only INTERVIEWS

a couple of us’ and sometimes maybe you felt I’d say maybe 25 years ago I was very dogmatic I felt like it but it wasn’t the case. As I say over 26 years but with age and that I am not as dogmatic. I you’ve built up all sorts of relationships that haven’t changed, my beliefs haven’t changed, slapping you thought you would never have. but I maybe don’t run at things the way in the faces which I did or take exception to everything they I think that local people resented the say, “Did you hear what they said about us?” of them town being called El Paso 4 and the estate where You kind of live and let live. You live and learn. I’m from being called Little Belfast. I think peo - Things change that way. Your feelings change and ple resented it. They have the right to resent it that way. The politics in the south just amaze saying, if they want. Republicans didn’t call it that. It me; totally amaze me. When I go home and I was your enemy or whatever way you want to tell my friends and try to explain that it’s en - “But why put it that gave it those names. It wasn’t us. I tirely different, it’s so different and they’re say - are you can understand why they wouldn’t like it but ing, “But how?” And you’re trying to explain, the thing that surprised me the most was just “It just is. I can’t tell you but it just is. It’s so dif - crucifying how much people were disinterested in the ferent.” It’s not what it is to us and I understand north. How do you not know? We only live up both. I understand why we are in the north the the wee the road. Newry is 20 minutes away. How do way we are. And I understand the way that peo - African you not know what’s going on? Why are you ple are here. If anything I suppose my 26 years not interested in your own country? That was has broadened my mind and broadened my per - famility more of a shock to me. They went along with spective of things and your kids are now more that’s propaganda and listened to propaganda stuff. open too. That wouldn’t annoy me but question yourself. living Why do these people not want to know what’s I think they (our children) just laugh when they facing happening 20 minutes down the road? It’s like, go home (Belfast) and our ones say, “Here’s the and I have said this 1,000 times, people giving Free Staters.” They laugh and probably when you?” out about all the Africans but yet if Nelson we’re going back home probably somebody Mandela was to come to the town in the morn - down here would say, “Here’s the northerners ing you wouldn’t get up that street (with the back.” Politics-wise they (our children) proba - crowds to see him). I felt like slapping the faces bly ask more questions because they hear it in of them and saying, “But why are you crucify - the house. Are they overly interested? Honestly ing the wee African family that’s living facing I’d say they are a bit. I’d say they are more con - you?” I suppose that’s just the human nature of scious because if something’s on the news then people and sometimes maybe your own life it’s being talked about in the house. Fionnuala makes you look at things differently than other is out living on her own now; what way she’ll people. change you don’t know because, not that we talk about politics every day in the house be - I think that now maybe people here are taking cause we do not, but at the end of the day the a bit more of an interest but I don’t find a mas - price of a carton of milk is politics, let’s get real. sive interest in what’s going on in the north. I But if something’s on the news and it’s topical really don’t. Not as much as the people in the we’re talking about it. north (nationalists) see Dublin as our capital and we’re 32 counties. It’s our country and I hope and pray they vote Sinn Fein, that’s just maybe it’s because we’ve had to fight for it being truthful. They vote; I know that because longer whereas people here are like, “Ach, it you make it (your business) that they realise the would be nice if we had 32 counties but like importance of it. The whole north/south thing you know, if it happens, it happens.” Whereas I don’t think they get it; they really don’t get it. in the north, because of everything that we’ve They’ll make fun of me and their da the way come through it’s all that we ever want. It’s our we do or say things but sure no more than you end goal. It’s our right to have it, you know. did it with your own, do you know what I When you’re living here I think you see that big mean? They are comfortable, they are happy, difference; you see a different side. they have never said, “Why do you go around 5

4 Unionist reference to Dundalk as a lawless town just over the border where IRA volunteers supposedly strolled about at will. 5 Canvassing. INTERVIEWS this estate during elections?” They have never amazed. I know that maybe in the heart of said, “Don’t do it” or, “Why do you do it?” Kerry or Dublin City you stop a republican and And at times you’ve said, “We’ve leaflets to they’ll name everything for you but in general give out; come on give us a hand.” And they’ll there’s not a big need to know (down here). do it. I’m sure sometimes they feel like saying, “Wise up to yourself,” but they do it. It (partition) had a big effect. They’ll say like, “You hate the Protestant community” and you I had said I find that with most of our kids in the estate; say, “Well they’re alright and we don’t hate the republicans’ children. You wouldn’t ram it (pol - Protestant community.” Oh it’s maddening at that we itics) down their throats and I really don’t think times. It’s the same way when I go home and I were they would let you, which is a good thing. They have been talking to my friends who have been kind of stand on their own two feet. They’ve my friends from primary school and they’ll say, burnt out come through all their schooling here. They “Well what are you doing?” And say you’re in Belfast were working; Fionnuala is still working, doing something in the community and you say Tomás isn’t working at the moment. He’s just well we’re doing this or we’re doing that, they’ll and they back to school. Their outlook is just totally dif - say, “That’s great, you have really kept fairly said, ferent from when John and me got married; good community relations, it’s not like that up their outlook is just totally different. No more here anymore.” And you say, “Of course it is” “Well why than a young girl and fellow born and reared in and they say, “No I’m telling you it isn’t; that Belfast; their outlook is totally different. closeness is gone that we all had.” I’ll say, were you “Don’t be saying that,” because it annoys me to burnt I did a (training) session one time up in a local hear it and they’ll say, “Well we’re only telling hotel and you had to tell your story and that. I you the truth.” I’m talking about wee events out?” And had said that we were burnt out in Belfast and that you would be organising and they would I said the they said, “Well why were you burnt out?” And say, “Well we don’t even do that anymore,” and I said the only reason was because we were I’ll say, “But why? You can’t say that and then only Catholics. My mother and father weren’t repub - not ask yourself why you’re not doing it and licans. They were only married; it was their first then make it happen.” That disheartened me, reason wee home. They got burnt out simply because when I heard her saying that. I find it annoying was they were Catholics. And I remember people and I said to John when I came back down, “I saying, “But why would they do that?” And think it’s awful sad,” and he said, “Well it is because you say, “Well just because of pure sectarian - sad.” we were ism.” And then you nearly end up sounding sectarian yourself because you are trying to ex - Looking back in hindsight, which is wonderful, Catholics. plain things that they have done and then I end as we all know, I probably don’t have any re - up saying, “Listen it’s history; look at the his - grets now. The time that you do have regrets is tory books. It’s written, it’s history, I’m not in death and like what could you have done to making this up, it happened.” Sometimes when stop your own father dying or John’s father you are trying to explain, and maybe I’m not dying, maybe you could have done more. I do articulate enough myself to do it, but I say I have regrets about that. Sometimes I wonder don’t know why they did it but they definitely what way we would have ended up if we still did it. had have been in West Belfast. I mean you are only surmising and guessing. In the main, we Sometimes people ask you a question and you haven’t had a bad life. Thank God that nothing go, “How can you even ask that?” It’s like one bad or terrible has happened to us. We’ve sur - time we were somewhere else and someone vived it as we do most things and we’re out the said, “Name the hunger strikers”, and they can other side of it. We were coming down from name about four and you’re saying to yourself, Belfast the other night and we got to Newry “Please, we are not talking about 1842, please.” and John says, “We’re nearly home” and I But they couldn’t (name them) and you’re say - looked at him and said, “No John we left home, ing to yourself, “This is just unbelievable.” I be we’re nearly in Dundalk.” And he went, “No INTERVIEWS

we’re nearly home,” and he meant it. I thought, back home, and I am not just talking about I could “Oh God, I don’t think I’ll ever say that.” He Belfast, I’m talking about Newry, County said it and he was laughing but he said it; 26 Down, Rostrevor, Kilkeel and wherever every - write a years later. one is from and all around, maybe when we do book and get back to Dundalk maybe do we realise what Hopefully one day our kids will grow up, well we have built for 25 years? Sometimes you go, tell the they are grown up, and meet people and we’ll “I hate it here,” and, “what have we done?” end up with grandchildren so where will they And then when you go out of it (Dundalk) - truth and be? Then the dynamic will change all over and it’s people that you love that you are going it would again. Are we going to leave them and go home to visit and like - I be raging if anybody says (to Belfast) and leave our grandchildren here? anything bad about Belfast – but when you’re be a Things are always changing and you’re always listening to them you think, “Well maybe our bestseller. going along with it and, thank God, nothing 26 years hasn’t been in vain; maybe we’re build - bad has happened. Quite honestly, of all the ing, we’re building here.” That’s people that I’ve met over the 25 years, mostly republicans, but not all, nothing really bad has I used to laugh years ago, say somebody new just life. happened to any of us. Now in saying that I (from the north) was coming down on their can’t not mention Pat McIlvenna and Sean, own and they’d be told, “Don’t be going near twenty-five years ago Sean was killed but then any of those locals,” and they’d mean us Pat stayed on living here with us for about ten, (laughs). They meant us. Like, “Don’t be going twelve years, before she went home. She’s still near them ones; they’ll be getting watched (by in contact with us. Loads of others too. I don’t the Guards),” and then after about two or three even want to say names because there have weeks of nobody going near them, or them been so many. So many good people. We’ve starving, who’d they come to? Us. I could write come through it all and sometimes it makes you a book and tell the truth and it would be a best - stronger. Maybe sometimes when we do go seller. That’s just life. INTERVIEWS

I was arrested in Banbridge: I was up shopping and looking at clothes. (laughs) Banbridge would be a non-nationalist town; still would be Eileen although I think there are more (nationalists) moving into it now. But I suppose back then two strangers about the town, and at that time in Morgan 1976 people were on the look-out and suspicious, and not really knowing the area too born newry, 1958 sort of led to us getting caught. The charge was possessing incendiary devices; one went off premature which alerted the arrest. was arrested in May I had no previous experience of getting arrested. 1976 and sentenced Banbridge Barracks was a small place and it to 14 years and wasn’t geared up for (holding) men never mind women. Obviously they (RUC) were nasty but because of the no- there was no physical abuse. There was a lot of work protest served ‘not sleeping’ but whether or not that was them I ten of the fourteen or just my nerves? They held us the whole time in Banbridge, which in retrospect was probably 1 years . I was released in a blessing; we weren’t taken to Castlereagh or 1986. I was just turned 18 Gough Barracks 2. I was arrested with another when I was arrested so I girl, Gillian. Whilst I would have been street- wise she would have been a very quiet girl and Banbridge would have been one of still is to this day; doesn’t bother with anything or anybody. Barracks the younger ones. was a I was in Banbridge Barracks for two days and on the Tuesday was up in Banbridge court and small plce then into Armagh (women’s prison). My daddy and it had asked for a visit when I was in the court but he wasn’t allowed it. The ‘Justice’ said there wasn’t wasn’t the facilities, so he wasn’t allowed. He was glad that I was all right though. geared up for We actually didn’t get to Armagh until late and I remember walking onto the wing and all the (holding) doors were closed and it was only later I realised men they (other prisoners) were all looking at me through the slits in the doors. You were acting never ‘cocky’ but really all you wanted to do was go and cry sort of thing. Me and Gillian were in mind the same cell that night. It was so dark. You women. were on A-wing and it was eight or nine (at night) but it was so dark, no lights on, just the night lights.

When I first went into jail there were only three other girls on the wing because they had already separated political prisoners from us 3. There was only us four, Mairéad Farrell 4, Angela

1 If Eileen had not participated on the protest she would have been eligible for 50% remission and released after 7 years. 2 The two main interrogation centres in the North. 3 On 1 March 1976 political category status, or as the British government referred to it, was no longer granted to new prisoners convicted for actions connected to the conflict. Those who had it prior to 1 March were allowed to retain it. Once republicans were convicted under the new law (September 1976) they refused to abide by it and refused to wear prison uniform or do prison work thus instigating an intense protest which lasted 5 years and culminated in the 1981 hunger strike in which 10 male prisoners died. 4 Mairéad Farrell, along with two other IRA volunteers, was shot dead in 1988 by the SAS in Gibraltar. INTERVIEWS

Nelson and a girl called Anne from . controversy but it was something that was never We were on a mixed remand wing. There were taken up (legally). Then you had the three some sentenced ones there too, some ODC’s young lads shot dead outside Woolworths. I (‘ordinary decent criminals’ 5), and it wasn’t don’t know if Radcliff’s was prior to the until the numbers started going up that we were shooting or after but the boys were burnt to moved onto a wing of our own. It was still death. They had set a fire at the back and were mixed but it was a remand wing. Angela coming out the front but there were grills on the Nelson, she got out on bail, when we were doors and windows. I don’t think they were finally moved. There were six of us moved to (IRA) volunteers; they were just young lads. the new wing which was up the stairs. Ones were saying that the cops let them (burn). They (RUC) said they could do nothing but Before I went into prison I knew about the there were conflicting reports that the Brits tried ending of what they called ‘special category to pull the grills up and they were stopped. So prisoners’ but I didn’t actually know what it there would have been a number of things meant until I went into jail. A cousin of mine, (influences) but that one (experience) would Marie, was in the prison and I actually expected have been an over-riding thing in my head. to see her on the wing and it wasn’t until then that I realised the prison regime had moved all Then you were watching the civil rights the ‘special category status’, as they called it, marches in Derry and then the big one in Before I onto a different wing and kept anybody that Newry but then, when I was at that age, it was was charged after the 1st March 1976 on a more like a charmful atmosphere. Marches went into separate wing where we were to be treated as used to start from Derrybeg and we had just ordinary criminals. That was in May 1976 different ones would have come up and stayed prison I and I was sentenced in December 1976. The in the house. There was one man that stayed at knew about only contact I had with my cousin Marie was our house and he was an artist and he did at mass on Sundays. There was no contact with pencil sketches of us all; the four girls in our the ending any of them; even the visits were kept separate. house. They are probably still up in the attic. of what My brother had been in the Kesh (Long Michael (husband) and I were just saying a they called Kesh/Maze Prison) and I had been down couple of weeks ago that there was ‘special seeing Marie a couple of times. Another nothing done about that (Woolworths); brother had been in the Crumlin Road prison no enquiry into what happened, or not that I category (Belfast) and the Kesh and he had special can remember and I don’t think it’s even category status but that was the only experience mentioned nowadays. That would have been prisoners’ I would have had of jail. I wouldn’t say my one (experience) that sticks in my mind. but I didn’t family would’ve been overly republican. My During the time of the hunger strikes in jail we mother was dead at the time and her family were asked to do a bio of ourselves and I actually would have been more republican than my da’s. remember putting that (incident) down because know what My da used to always say that after World War it was always something that just struck me. II, or shortly after, he wanted to join the Where the bank was Woolworths was on the it meant military police and his mother wouldn’t let him opposite side of the road and apparently the and he used to always say he could have been Brits were up on the top and they said they (the until I went one of the ones giving out the battering. young boys) were going to rob it (the bank) but into jail. (laughs) My da came from Bessbrook. It was a the person that was depositing money in the wee small enclave in those days. The majority bank said that they weren’t. He said they were would have been Protestant. just three lads having a bit of fun and they seemed a bit drunk; they were jostling each We lived in Derrybeg in Newry and I have to other coming past him. One of them was say that one memory sticks in my head and that actually a brother of Arthur Ruddy the SDLP 6 was the time that the young boys were burnt in councillor. There was a campaign to get their Radcliff’s in Hill Street. There was a lot of names cleared and that.

5 This was a phrase coined by the Northern Ireland Office to make a distinction between ordinary social prisoners who conformed to the prison system and republi - can political prisoners who the state were attempting to criminalise but who refused to conform to the system. 6 Social Democratic and Labour Party INTERVIEWS

For the first couple of weeks it (arrest and a political prisoner and I am refusing to work”. imprisonment) didn’t actually hit you. You Brenda actually appealed (her conviction) and were sort of getting used to the daily routine got off. and you just accepted it. The first family visit there were tears everywhere. My daddy and my Gillian, my co-accused, got off; she got a eldest sister and one of my mummy’s sisters, suspended sentence. I actually didn’t think that aunt Annie, came to see me. They didn’t ‘give much about the sentence I was given; you were off’ but they were very upset about the straight into the ‘no work’ (protest). Brenda had situation. My father was quite shocked when been two weeks there before me and nobody he heard of my arrest. My da, at this stage, had knew what was going to happen and it wasn’t already dealt with my older brother, Seamus until later that I thought ‘14 years’! I didn’t (‘Jap’) being arrested and jailed. He’d already actually think I would have done the ten years been sentenced at this time. Daddy was quite that I actually ended up doing. I thought I shocked because I had actually applied to be a would have done about seven years and with nurse and at that time you would have went to half remission got out in my twenties. My Craigavon to do your nursing and I must have daddy was shocked and upset; my sisters been in (prison) about three weeks and my weren’t too bad. My daddy used to say he daddy came down and he said, “This came for would be dead before I got out and I used to you the other day,” and it was a letter of joke that I would be too if he kept going on acceptance from Craigavon (Hospital) to say I’d about it. (laughs) It was been accepted and that I needed to get in touch about starting and of course that made it Daddy had been through it already. I think it never a (arrest) worse but we got through it. would have been harder on him if I had been the first one (arrested in the family) but I think question We were actually on remand on A-wing before too that it was harder in one respect because of of being it struck me that I was in jail. Maura Drumm 7 me being ‘daddy’s girl’, The last thing you (Vice-President of Sinn Féin) was in and she would have wanted to see was your daughter in hard; it used to tell some stories. Even the screws were jail. was a fond of her. They treated her with respect; don’t know if it was because of her age or who she When it sinks in it sinks in hard. Maybe it’s question was but they did treat her with respect. Remand because the protests and what was going on you period was ok; there was a lot of comings and actually didn’t see the years going in. of goings, a lot of new ones coming in. Everything was a battle; every couple of survival. months there was a different battle. You didn’t I didn’t really think about how long I would be have a period of lying back and doing nothing. there; that I could be there for this amount of It was a constant fight. It was never a question years and this is what I was going to do when I of being hard; it was a question of survival. got out. I remember Brenda Murray, she was You had to do things that you wouldn’t dream from the Short Strand, she went through the of doing. It wasn’t being hard or tough it was Castlereagh conveyer belt 8 (system) and signed just surviving and that’s the way I looked at it. a statement but was actually one of the innocent ones and she was up before the court It (the no-work protest) was all new and it was and everybody had her convinced, including a shock compared to remand where you were myself, that she was going to get off but she out of your cell all day. We were lucky that we didn’t. She got 15 years and she was the first had our own clothes 10 . We were still allowed as one to go on the protest 9. You were given a many letters as we wanted. You got one visit report sheet and asked if you wanted to work per month. You were only locked during and she used to write, “I am refusing to work working hours but you weren’t allowed to because I am innocent of my conviction”. She associate with remand prisoners. The only was the first one (on the no-work protest) and I prisoners you were allowed to associate with was the second one and I started to write, “I am were ones that had been sentenced. We were on

7 Marie Drumm was killed later that year in August – shot dead as she lay in bed in the Mater Hospital, Belfast. 8 Republicans criticised the ‘conveyor belt system’ of arrest, interrogation, trial and sentence in the Diplock no-jury courts as a very high percentage of convictions were based on forced ‘confessions’ obtained during interrogation. 9 The republican prisoners refused to do prison work. 10 Although the female prisoners in Armagh Jail came under the same policy of ‘criminalisation’ as the men in Long Kesh/Maze Prison they were not obliged to wear the prison uniform. INTERVIEWS

a mixed wing with ordinary prisoners and month or so because of the half time remission the loyalist Ogilvie murderers. Others who We didn’t and then you had either Dolores (Price) or had political status were totally different. Marion (Price) take over. So you would have They were in B-wing at the other side of the have formal had someone from the political status wing (as jail and the only contact you had with them education OC) and then you had the wing OCs. Mairéad was at Mass and our only contact with those Farrell would have been the wing OC and Síle on remand was during Mass too. We (on classes at Darragh would have been the Adjutant. I can’t protest) were kept totally on our own. Even remember which one took over of the Price during visits we all had separate places; we had that time sisters, but then of course they had their own our place, the remands had a place and so did but medical problems so it was decided that the ones with political status. We were allowed Mairéad Farrell would take over the whole jail to associate with the other (sentenced) somebody because we (those without political status) were prisoners on the wing but because we saw that knew slowly becoming the bigger group within the ourselves as being different from them, we saw prison and a lot of the focus was on us so ourselves as political prisoners, we kept Irish used Mairéad became OC. ourselves separate. to take We had our Training Officer and were able to There was only one TV room and at that stage classes. do drill. We exercised on our own so if a (IRA) we just didn’t have the numbers to go in (to it). volunteer had been killed we were able to hold As our numbers got bigger and more ones a commemoration on the first Sunday of every came down we were able to ease them (the month. Even though we only had one visit a loyalist prisoners) out the door and that was month we were allowed our own clothes so we really when the segregation battle began. I had our own black skirts (for parades); we had wouldn’t say it was a battle; it was just getting all that in. We had radios and the TV and that. too difficult for the screws. It was harder work We weren’t allowed food or nothing like that for them keeping the two sides separate. in.

The Young Offenders Centre (well it was that We didn’t have formal education classes at that by the time we left), they changed that to where time but somebody that knew Irish used to take all the political status ones went so it left the classes. We had other education too; you had main body of the building for remand and debates and discussions, sports weeks, things sentenced prisoners. They moved the remands like that. to B-wing and the protesting prisoners, as they called us, up the stairs, so that meant that we Even though the remands were upstairs they (on protest) were segregated. We had had to come down the stairs to go on visits so segregation for a couple of years although it if their visits were during the time you were was probably never officially meant to be. It locked up we would pull the flap of the spy was simply all the ones that were on the hole (on the cell door) back. We knew Mairéad protest. The same regime as when we were Farrell (who was on remand at that time) was down the stairs - locked up during working having a visit one day so we stripped off our hours and out after that and you had the TV. clothes and wrapped blankets around us and so when she came by I said to her, “Mairéad, Of course we had our command structures they’ve took our clothes” and she said, “the then. Well it was more evident by then because bastards.” We had her convinced that the there was nobody else on the wing only us. At screws had come in and taken the women’s that stage when were moved up the stairs there clothes. She wasn’t too pleased with us when was a change of staff 11 in the jail; Eileen she found out the truth. (laughs) I think it was Hickey, who’s dead now, she was the OC Brenda Murray’s idea that day. Even though (Officer Commanding). She was a lovely girl she was innocent she was still a republican and although I only met her a couple times at mass. probably would have went on the protest The status ones were getting released every anyway. She was very lucky; very few got off

11 Prisoners staff. INTERVIEWS even at appeal. We were actually with other conforming prisoners when he moved us to B-wing; he The numbers were starting to build up and the moved everybody, both protesters and other relationship with the screws was ok; I have to sentenced ones. Once we started the no wash be honest with you. They did their job and of protest though they segregated us to A-wing. I course there was the odd nasty one but on the was back onto A-wing, the wing where I was whole they didn’t bother you and let you get on when I first came into the prison. as long as there was no trouble. We were on the ‘no work’ protest for a couple of years before Even though we were locked up for 23 hours things started to escalate. I know a couple had (when we began the no-wash protest) the first left the protest and they were moved over to B- few months when we started the protest you wing. It might have just been the grind of it all were taking your life in your hands going out because if you stayed on the protest you were of your cell because at that stage you would losing remission every day. have had them (prison guards) lined up either The first side of you. You had to walk out past them, In 1979 those that had gone off the protest were including the male screws for the first couple of few months getting a hard time from the other sentenced months. You had one change of clothes which when we prisoners on their wing; mainly from the we kept for three months and then we got a loyalist ones. There was probably about four or change and there was no point in having any started the five of them (loyalists). Our ones asked for our more because the cells were that filthy and you protest you help and Mairéad decided that a couple of us maybe wouldn’t have seen one another for would go off the protest and see what was maybe six months because you were locked up were happening. ‘Bap’ (Christine) Beattie, she’s a for so long. There was only so many allowed year dead this year, Mary Doyle, and myself out at a time and then if they were cleaning taking your were chosen to go off (the protest). We were your cells you would have been out. We still life in your supposed to tell Murtagh ( the governor) that had our structures; Mairéad was still the OC we were going off the protest that Monday and our numbers would have been in the 30s. hands morning and what used to happen was that if going out you went off the protest you got moved straight We were allowed out to the yard for exercise; over to B-wing. Our plan was that the loyalists just six or seven of us at the one time so you of your cell would get a shock when they saw us coming wouldn’t have seen ones for months unless you because at onto the wing. But the Sunday beforehand we attended mass on a Sunday. If you didn’t want had a film show and one of the screws left A- to go out to the yard that day it meant that you that stage wing’s gate open to the chapel which meant didn’t get any fresh air or any exercise. I always that we went into to the chapel and a whole big did go out no matter what the weather because you would row started so of course on Monday morning you always had to take the screw out with you have had there was a lock down and nobody was allowed and they didn’t have any shelter; they were just out. Mairéad told us to go ahead with the plan like us. In the yard you basically just walked them lined anyhow. around it. Sometimes you didn’t have a choice. up either Even on the days when you said you didn’t Murtagh, I don’t know if he had ideas or not, want to go out they would have turfed you out side of you. but we were moved downstairs (instead of with especially if they were cleaning the cells. the other prisoners). At that stage downstairs would have been used for anybody that was put It was difficult with visiting because the visiting ‘on the boards’ 12 . Just the three of us were put place was changed again because they didn’t down stairs and we were there for a good lot of want us with the ordinary sentenced prisoners months. Mary Doyle got out after a few months and then you had the political status prisoners but me and Bap were there for about six, seven separate from us as well. We even had our own months, just the two of us. He (Murtagh) then search boxes for protesting prisoners. You moved everybody over onto B-wing and then weren’t allowed into anyone else’s and the from B-wing it led to the ‘no wash’ protest 13 . screws wouldn’t touch you without gloves on;

12 Solitary confinement. 13 The female prisoners, like their counterparts in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh/The Maze Prison, refused to wash. INTERVIEWS

that’s the truth. I remember I got a new pair of month after the men. I didn’t put my name ... half the shoes sent down from Belfast and my feet down for the first hunger strike 15 but I put it blistered because I had no socks and the back down for the second one and then it didn’t girls were of my heel became infected and I had to go to happen 16 . I think I had deliberated that long locked up the nurse and she asked if she could bathe my about it and couldn’t make my mind up I was foot and I said, “No, just wash the infected too late for the first. I didn’t know there was a at the time part,” (because of being on the no-wash protest) cut-off date. But the other thing was that and she said, “I don’t know if I can.” When she nobody wanted gut reactions to it. and it was was finished all you could see was this clean freezing part. (laughs) I couldn’t walk for days and When Mairéad Farrell went on hunger strike, couldn’t put shoes on it was so bad but it was Síle (Daragh) took over. She was OC and I was and they my own fault like. actually in the cell with Síle. Bap Beattie was (those on the TO (Training Officer) at the time and she Even when you had to come out for your meal had a big voice. Síle used to be prone to sore hunger they (prison guards) would have let you out just throats so she had worked out a system if two at a time so you would have collected the somebody had died or whatever Bap would strike) had meal and brought it back to your cell. I would have shouted down but because Síle couldn’t these big have collected whoever else’s I was in the cell talk at that time I had to shout down to Bap. with, say, like Anne Bateson, who I was in with parkas on for most of the time on the ‘no-wash’. The next I remember the girls (on hunger strike) going to but you day she would have done the food and I would the hospital. They were moved down to one of have run around the corridor (while the door the big cells; the three of them were in the one could was open) talking to the other prisoners. cell. They were on the route that we went on to actually Everybody else would have done the same go out and exercise and when they were leaving thing. It was a chance to communicate. We for the hospital half the girls were locked up at see their were able to pass comms 14 that way. the time and it was freezing and they (those on hunger strike) had these big parkas on but you faces The remands were in B wing and they used to could actually see their faces starting to sink in starting to shout over the news to us before we smuggled and they were only on it for so long and I the radio in. remember Mary Doyle was worried that she sink ... would die dirty 17 and I remember Mairéad In terms of the discussion on the hunger strike saying at the time that she didn’t want to die you would have about eight of us out in the with her face dirty 18 . (laughs) To be honest with yard at a time so there were discussions you, even after all those years, you still had that ongoing. It would have also filtered down from wee bit of hope that there would be something the H-Blocks, talk of this, talk of that and then (come out of the hunger strike) and then when before it (a hunger strike) was actually it didn’t morale was just zero but then the confirmed publicly we were asked to think decision to end the ‘no wash’ 19 did build morale about it and if we wanted to put our names a bit. forward. I think everybody thought it was the next step because what else could you do? I remember the first visit after the ‘no wash’ and Whether we would have been able to do it or my brother, he had a wee girl, Nicola, and she not was another thing but the general consensus had been up to see me during the ‘no wash’ and was, yes, it was the next step forward. Then the I remember Sinéad 20 saying to me before I went next stage was you were asked about your out on the visit, “You have mascara on ya,” and feelings on taking part. The day the hunger I remember saying, “And so what if I have strike was announced the names (being mascara on me!” (laughs) We were all going to gathered) were stopped; it was said that they be like, well we’re off the ‘no wash’ but we’re were accepting no more names. not going to use a drop (of make up). But I remember going in to the visit and our Nicola The women joined the hunger strike about a wouldn’t come near me and my da says, “She

14 Small, smuggled communications written on cigarette papers and wrapped in cling film. 15 The 1980 hunger strike which began in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh/Maze Prison on the 27th October and ended 53 days later on the 18th December. 16 While there were 3 female prisoners on the 1980 hunger strike there were none on the 1981 hunger strike. 17 The prisoners were still on the ‘no wash’ protest. 18 The ‘no-wash’ protest was still on at the time. 19 The ‘no-wash’ protest ended on 2nd March 1981, the day after Bobby Sands began his hunger strike. INTERVIEWS probably doesn’t know ya,” and I remember someone saying, “I think it’s extended leave for saying, “But she’s only seen me not so long some of them.” (laughs) There are ago,” and our Marion saying, “It’s probably the smell of ya!” (laughs) And when you think of I used to love sewing but I couldn’t sew; I used some it I probably did look different with my hair to have to rip out the stuff. I remember we made washed and the mascara and all on me. quilts for children’s beds and sewed sequins all weeks you down the legs of trousers but you spent more were just At times, you could nearly see the different time ripping stuff out because of bad stages of the hunger strikes. There were some workmanship. Then the education started so low and weeks you were just so low and there was taking over. there was nothing you could do about it and then at other times you would have heard something in the We didn’t really have that much of a problem nothing press and it would have lifted you a bit. And the with segregation because there was only a few time of the elections down South that would loyalists in; only about five and then they you could have been better. Mairéad (Farrell) was standing actually got released. You had the three in for do about it in the elections. She got some stick over that. the Anne Ogilvie murder and one from Then Mary’s 21 family was from down that area, Portadown and that was the only four I can and then at from Leitrim, the daddy was from the Falls remember. other times Road but the mummy was a Leitrim woman. The relationship with the screws never went you would I remember Síle Darragh had a visit from Máire back to the pre ‘no wash’ days. It was a better have heard Moore (Sinn Féin) the day after Bobby Sands relationship with them but it didn’t go back to died and Máire saying it was like the straw that what it had been before. There was a working something broke the camel’s back. relationship with them but it never went back to the good relationship. There were screws in the We were now back to the way we were before there from when I first went in and they actually press and the ‘no wash’ protest started; locked up just. We moved from Armagh Prison to Maghaberry had an extra visit a month; two visits I think at with us. There were a lot of young ones coming would have that time. There were a lot of mixed feelings up and they would expect you to do what they’d lifted you a when the hunger strike ended and I remember tell you. A lot of old ones were still there; some doing an article for someone – I think it might had married and left. bit. have been Pat McGinn - about Raymond McCreesh 24 . I can remember someone asking The next thing would have been the strip me about the families taking their relatives off searches. The strip searches didn’t really affect the hunger strike 25 and someone asking what us (sentenced prisoners); it was really those who would I have done. It was probably a cop out were on remand and going out to court. We and still is but I remember saying that I wasn’t weren’t leaving the jail; it was only when we a mother so I wouldn’t know what I would have were getting released or on compassionate done. It was an incredibly hard and brave parole that it affected us. You could actually see decision for parents to be put in that position. the physical affect it was having on people when you saw them at mass. They say that your man Jail went back to the way it was. We came off Murtagh used the excuse of the young the ‘no work’ protest then and we were sort of offenders coming in to introduce the strip working within the system. We would sew and searches. Of course it was remands and the work in the laundry. ‘Big Bap’ was the laundry younger remands coming along who were woman; cleaning, and then the education maybe more militant and unfortunately they classes and more and more was taken up during were the ones who suffered and you could the day. We were in the sewing place and we definitely say that there were ones that were were there when the escape from Long Kesh 26 picked on. That wee girl from Derry, Cathy happened and I remember Murtagh coming in Moore, she really got the brunt of it. She got the and saying “They’re only out on parole,” and most from what I can remember at the time.

20 Sinéad Moore, a prisoner. 21 Mary Doyle was on hunger strike along with Mairéad Farrell and Mairéad Nugent. 22 Dolores O’Neil, a prisoner. 23 Tom McElwee died on hunger strike on the 8th August 1981. 24 Raymond McCreesh from Camlough in South Armagh died on hunger strike in the H-Blocks on the 19th May 1981. 25 Once a hunger striker went in to a coma their relatives could give permission for the prison authorities to medically intervene. 26 A mass escape took place from H-Block 7, Long Kesh/Maze Prison on the 25th September 1983. INTERVIEWS

I had to go out to the hospital to see the ear got searched every time you left the wing and specialist and I said that if I was getting strip- then you got searched before you started your searched that I wasn’t going. There was a nurse, visit. It wasn’t every screw did it; just some of a sister from one of the hospitals, she had left them. There was a whole big kick up about it. work in the hospital and came to work in the We were trying to negotiate that there was no , and I asked her to find out and she told reason to be searched the two times; it should me that they wouldn’t tell her anything. As it be one or the other. We were with the screw the turned out I wasn’t strip-searched either going whole time so what were we going to do? I’m out to the hospital or coming back. I only ever sure it was resolved but I got released in the got strip-searched once and that was on the day middle of it so I’m not sure what way it was that I left prison. Except for ones that had went resolved. on parole, most of the ones that I grew up with 27 , so to speak, probably only got strip- I always maintained contact (while in jail) with searched the one time. Even when we moved to ones that I had known on the outside but their Maghaberry we were panicking, this was in lives changed; they were married with children. 1986. They’d been talking about moving us to When I got out I found it difficult because they Maghaberry for years and it’s not that you felt were talking about children and I wanted to talk sadness but this (Armagh Prison) had been our about military and political (issues) and what home for years, for want of a better way of was going on and it didn’t seem to interest them putting it, and we kind of thought that this was and over time I realised that I didn’t need to talk Emotionally his (Governor) only chance to really put the about this all the time. boot into us 28 and he didn’t, which was the most surprising. We had got rid of everything, even There were only two that were left behind when difficult period comms (smuggled communications) that I had I got out, Mairéad Nugent and Dolores O’Neil. got from Raymond McCreesh and that, I got They would have been in from I first went in, for me during rid of them (before the move). Dolores came in about 1976. The two of us, Dolores and I, stayed together the night before imprisonment I think the general thought about moving to I got out and then Mairéad was the next one to would have Magheraberry was good. It would give more be released and I remember me and her were opportunity for education because, classrooms meant to go up and visit Dolores but it was the been the and facility-wise, it was supposed to be better, time that 29 was killed. I was up in hunger especially the cells and that. You had your own Belfast at that time and we didn’t make the visit washing facilities and toilet. but we had rung to say we wouldn’t be coming; strikes; we were allowed back in on a later day. Our numbers were much smaller by then; when physically the we were moved there were no more than about Emotionally the most difficult period for me most difficult eight in all. It was the same ones moving; there during imprisonment would have been the was no loyalist prisoners, only ordinary hunger strikes; physically the most difficult would have prisoners and they would have done what you would have been the ‘no wash’ protest. The ‘no been the ‘no asked them to do and most of them were wash’ would have been the most physically Nationalist. It was really clean (Maghaberry). difficult but probably the most funny. It is the wash’ protest. After the initial apprehension and worry of truth because the slegging was great; anything getting strip-searched and that, we then thought went. It would have been the most funny that he’d (governor) waited until he’d got us experience maybe because everybody was in into the new prison to do something but he the same condition and you laughed and cried didn’t. over nothing; from one extreme to the other you went. We were the first ones into Maghaberry when it opened. I can’t remember what Block I was Leaving the jail I cried, I had bumped my head in but it was directly facing the gates coming in, and I cried and by the time I got to the gate and not the outer gates, the inner ones. You actually to my dad I was crying. I remember arriving

27 ‘Grew up’ in prison. 28 By using strip-searches. 29 Larry Marley, a former republican prisoners and IRA volunteer, was killed by loyalists on the 2nd April 1987. INTERVIEWS home and I had a white jacket on and there were what are you making up for when you didn’t people out in the street as if you were getting know what you had missed? When I got out a lot The married and there was a coal lorry parked and of my mates had been married and actually some some woman came running over to me and I had been separated through that time and I don’t experience went flying up against the coal lorry, white jacket mean to sound arrogant when I say that I would all covered in coal dust, and I just wanted into our have been the better person, I would have had I had in house. And it (the house) seemed so small. It was more of a life than what they had. I gained; I jail has just an ordinary council house but it just seemed experienced more. The experience I had in jail has so small. It didn’t seem to have changed, made me what I am today; more open, more made me decoration wise, but it was so small; it just didn’t willing to deal with things. I ended up married what I am seem like home. I had imagined it to be bigger in with four children. My life now was probably my head. Maybe it was because things seem what my mate’s lives were like when I was in jail. today; bigger in your head. It was the same with the cells. I am an older parent and I don’t know if maybe I know they were small and it was only when we that’s a good thing. I think I gained a lot more more open, went back into Armagh years later to visit the than what I lost at that time. I really do. I wouldn’t more place after it had closed as a prison that you recommend it for anybody, but I did gain. I made realised how small they were. I couldn’t get over friends there. I maybe hadn’t known them as long willing to how small they were. They didn’t seem that small as ones at home but they would be dearer and deal with when you were there. closer to me now. I would maybe see them once a year now but I still class them as my friends and I things. My family would have been my greatest support am still close to them. while I was in jail and then I would say the support network within the jail. You always had The idea of my children going in to prison? I somebody. I was in with Mairéad (Farrell) from would not want any of them to go through it. I day one. We were very close. I never actually put my da through it and I never fully appreciated shared a cell with Mairéad . Most of the time you what he did for us. He might not have agreed with were on your own but during the time of the ‘no us but he still supported us. I’ve two younger wash’ you were doubled up. At that time I was in sisters. I think my da was more lenient with them; with Anne Bateson and Síle Darragh but most of they did things that I don’t think I would have got the time you were on your own. Sinéad Moore away with. It’s only now that you realise what you shared a lot with Mairéad. put them through. I wouldn’t like any of mine to go through jail, definitely not. It’s not something You always had support and I think without that to be recommended it would have been very difficult. You would have had the ordinary prisoners coming in for a few Do you know what struck me after a while? It’s months and they couldn’t do it. You had that people’s concepts of what they think you are and woman whose son was killed in the New Lodge. what they think you should be. I remember a few She would have been in and out for shop lifting. years ago we were at the ‘Country House’ (Bar She was an awful nice girl. I was so sorry for her and Restaurant) and we were out at the bar and I when I heard about her son. At the time I didn’t don’t know how the conversation came around to connect the name. It wasn’t until I saw her face in it but the woman behind the bar found out that I the papers that I made the connection. But she had done time and she said she couldn’t believe it and her friends found it hard in jail. because I was so normal. But I don’t know what people expect. We were just normal people. Did I miss out on not getting married and having Maybe they think we should be hardened or children when I was in jail? No. People always something, I don’t know, but we were normal said, “You’ll make up for it,” but my view was then and we’re normal now and we’re still here. INTERVIEWS

But we got down to see him. When we first went down there was a couple of hotels we stayed in. And he came up to Belfast a couple Emmanuel of times; sneaked in (to the north). I remember people from the south brought him up and he would have been in the likes of the kitchen and Marley he’d be going, “Don’t be saying Daddy” and there’s five sons all shouting, “Daddy, daddy, born belfast, 1971 daddy,” all happy to see him. He had to go back that night; back down south. He just came up to see us. He just wanted to call in. In those days y dad, Larry Marley, that type of thing happened. I remember was arrested in He was then caught again a year later, 1976, on people from 1972 and he went the back of a motor bike on the M1 with explo - sives. He got another 14 years. He was in the the south into the Crumlin cages 1. He had political status 2. Looking back brought Road Prison. on it as a child I remember the way you were LMaurence was 5 at the time, I was 2, going on the bus to the prison (to visit him) and him up and it wasn’t too harsh, people were laughing and he would Joe was 1. My ma was four months joking and in those days they were smuggling pregnant with Seamus and Shaun. At in bacon and stuff in their coats. The next thing have been is my da tried to escape with Pat McGeown and that stage we were living in Jamaica Brendan McFarlane. That was ’78. I was 8 at in the likes Street in Ardoyne. I don't really have that stage and he was moved into the H-Blocks 3 of the too much recollection of that but the and my first visit was months later. I hadn’t seen him. I always remember this and I feel a bit kitchen and thing that stands out clearly in my guilty about it, Then I felt guilty; not now. I he’d be head after that period would be 1975 laugh about it now. But I remember walking past him, walking up and there was a room and going, when he escaped out of Newry he's sitting at the table with ….what I saw was “Don’t be courthouse and he was on the run. He a man with hair all over him, the beard and the was living in Dundalk or in and around head and all I remember is the eyes, smiling saying eyes, a mad grin. And I sort of nodded. I was 8 those areas. I remember the people in and I remember nodding at him and sort of Daddy” and Jamaica street coming out and thinking to myself, ‘I know that person’ and there’s five walked on past him. I didn't know it was him. clapping us as we were going down to And he came out (of the visiting box) and he sons all see him. The whole street came out was all choked up because I didn’t know who and they were cheering us and stuff he was and stuff like this. It went from there, in shouting, and out of the Kesh, the Blocks for the most “Daddy, like this. We were on the train down part of the next. daddy, and the IRA blew the railway track up and the train collapsed. I think it was The big thing for me would be my ma. daddy,” all When we were growing up, obviously five just outside Poyntzpass. We all got sons, the whole outlook was when he got happy to out before it hit the side. out things are going to be different, life is see him. going to improve, you’re going to be in a great position, your da’s a motor mechanic, he’ll get his wee job back and we’ll get on. And there was no more thought put into it other than that.

1 The qyassin hut, etc. of Long Kesh prison camp. 6 Those prisoners with political status, or special category status as the British government referred to it, did not wear prison uniform or do prison work and were housed together according to their own political affiliations. 3 Another part of the prison camp, renamed HMP Maze, where political status was not given to the republican prisoners who subsequently went on protest demand - ing it. INTERVIEWS

In 1983 we were all expecting my da to get out. type of attitude. That was his release date, 1983. We were expecting him to get out and we were all, There’s video tapes of us at different stages in obviously kids, we had the house decorated for our lives, coping with my da being in jail, that him getting out. We wouldn't have had a lot of were done by a Swedish television crew. Some - stuff there but we got the uncles and ma’s body from Sinn Fein organised it. They were brothers to lend a hand with it. The next thing also there when my da finally got out of jail. He is my mother met Rob Kerr’s father who told got out in November 16th, 1985; he got out a her that there was a problem with my da getting day early because it fell on a holiday or some - out, that his remission 4 had been revoked due thing. I have to be honest, it was like every to having been on the blanket protest. And Christmas that you’d missed him; he was there I remember going over with her and I remem - and it was fantastic. It was great. Our only re - ber her crying and breaking her heart over it. gret was he put us in school two days later! He The house done up and all this stuff and he sent us to school. I would say the pressures on himself, my da, just laughed. When you went him; he had five sons. The youngest twins, Sea - up to visit he just laughed about it. ‘Ah sure, mus and Shaun were 13. Joe was 14, I was 15, never mind. I’ll be out soon enough.’ And he Laurence was 17, that age group and they’re all was saying we’ll get a motorbike and we’ll be very demanding and they’re all teenagers and out on the motorbike and we’ll do all these there’s girlfriends in the house etc and of course things, because he loved motor bikes. I remem - he wants time with my ma, Kate. And I can un - I have to be ber Pat Finnucane 5 speaking to my mother at derstand that. I think he actually put a lock on the time about it and saying that my father was the door at one stage because we would burst honest, it probably going to do another 2 ½ years due to in in the morning and dive on the bed on top was like the loss of remission. And that's exactly what of them. happened. every But I actually think he coped with us fairly well. Christmas During that time we basically relied on, The one thing about him, he was totally against in terms of our house, my da’s side of the raising his hand to kids and stuff like that; it that you’d family but in 1975 my da’s brother Michael was would have been all about bringing you to a taken out of a bar in North Street in Belfast, room and sitting down and talking to you. And misssed just at the bottom of the Shankhill. I remember getting caught drinking one time him; he was Apparently somebody had recognised that and he brought me to the room and he said, he was my da’s brother and he was taken “We discussed this. I told you you could drink there it was up into the Shankhill and they (loyalists) drilled in the house. But you never listen to me and fantastic. into his hands and into his head, and threw you went out with your mates and you got darts at him. They then shot him twice in the drunk.” I was 15. And he said, “You know the head and he was on life support for anything consequences of that.” It was the summer and up to a month but pulled through anyway and he put me in the room for a week and fed me lived. But the rest of the family took a step back in through the door and he said, “You’ll under - (from supporting us) because of all of that. stand what I mean years from now. It’s not There were no hard feelings on our part. It was about brutality, it’s just about denying the basic just one of those things but it made it harder on functions of life.” You weren't allowed down - my ma I think. There were five sons. She didn't stairs. It was out to the toilet and back in. My tell people in her own family that my da was ma and him used to kill themselves laughing inside. There’s another 12 of them on her side about it. of the family and only three of them knew. She didn't tell the rest of them, she didn't want to. I’d say that period, the first three months (he I don't think it was shame but my ma is the was out), were probably the happiest I had type of person who wouldn't want hand outs. growing up as a child. It was just everything She wouldn't want somebody thinking was together. The unit was together and it was she's hard done by. ‘Let’s get on with it;’ that very….for me, I was a very happy kid at that

4 Prisoners were entitled to half remission of their sentences for good behaviour. 5 Human Rights solicitor, killed later in 1989 by loyalists. INTERVIEWS

stage. I was just delighted with him being there. put sand into the engine of his car. They poured it in through the petrol tank. Three months went by and he was then arrested for seven days (interrogation). And that's when He wouldn't go anywhere alone because he had it started. That's when basically I was getting been stopped a couple of times and he thought bigger. Joe was the same. We were involved in that he could be killed. The threats were getting local Sinn Fein stuff before he got out but it was heavy duty. He said to me one time, “Come basic, just kids involved in Ógra 6. It wasn’t Ógra with me.” and there was me, him and another But this cop then but it was Sinn Fein. There was nothing guy in the car and he was going out and the got down really exciting going on; just the normal stuff. next thing this bus was flashing us. We were up And the next thing is at 05.15 in the morning somewhere in North Belfast, Antrim Road right beside the cops were at the door to take him away and area. This bus was flashing us and we could my ma was just distraught because that's him hear this rattling but with all the talk in the car me, and gone and we all knew he was involved 7 but at we didn't know what was going on and the RUC man, the same time he’s your da and that's what he petrol tank was bouncing on the road. My da is and part of the love you have for him is be - was a mechanic so he knows his stuff and he and he said, cause of what he’s been through. lifted the petrol tank, unhooked it from the car, “Your da’s put it on my knee in the back of the car and So he got out after the seven days and basically hooked it up again and then drove back home. going to be the cops, the RUC and the British army But the thing is that all the bolts had been cut dead within hounded him day and night and when they did - underneath and I would say, (someone in - n't get him they then had us. They didn’t torture tended it to be an) accidental explosion in the the next my older brother at this stage; it was normally car or something. me and my younger brother Joe would have got two the bulk of it around 1986/87. The house was He was always fixing the car and always out months, I’m getting raided regularly. They’d have come in checking it and he’d have us down in the morn - and just wrecked the house and back out again. ings and he’d have said, “Emmanuele and Joe going to My da would have went down every week to when you open the car door don't lean on any - whack him. Pat Finnucane in the office. He had a list of thing. Check under the seat, underneath the every time he was stopped (by the RUC or car.” and we did the routine for him. Even I’m going to British Army) and he would have recorded that when Setanta was born we were down under because at that stage they were threatening to the car. get him kill him. He was stopped on the road, they took whacked.” his car apart, not just took it apart but took the Things had really got so tight at that stage in inside of the door panels off. They did stuff like terms of he knew that something was coming, that. Then it started getting a bit more. The that there was going to be an attack on him at threats are one thing but then it started getting some point. Two weeks before it they (RUC) a bit more heavy duty and my da and Pat Mc - got me in an entryway. There was me and a few Geown arrived at the house one night and I others from Sinn Fein and they got me in the wasn't there and the cops had raided. There was entry and they asked my name. I said, “Em - a bomb attempt on the front of the road and the manuel Marley.” “Is your father Laurence Mar - Brits and the cops landed in the house and they ley?” I said, “Yes.” And the next thing the rifle basically…..my ma was pregnant with Setanta was in my throat, actually inside my mouth in then and they gave her a couple of slaps and my throat on the ground, all around me sort of pushed her about the room and knocked her a few slaps, nothing too dramatic apart from about. They beat the younger brothers; they the rifle. But this cop got down right beside me, were only kids, 13 and 14, they beat them in the an RUC man, and he said, “Your da’s going to house and my da arrived home, him and Pat be dead within the next two months. I’m going and the two of them forced the Brits to put the to whack him. I’m going to get him whacked. TV back on, followed them round the rooms You tell the bastard that. That’s what he’s going and stuff like that. But the cops went down and to get.” I was shook up, not because of the

6 Ógra Sinn Féin, youth organisation. 7 A volunteer in the IRA. INTERVIEWS physical stuff because I had a few physical us out by the hair out of the car and put us on things with them before but I went back and the ground and stood on our faces on the They trailed told my da and he was just….he didn't laugh it ground and on our backs and just stood with off but he was going, “Don't be worrying about the rifles to our heads. And they were kneeling us out be it.” But I knew he was worried. down on top of him, my da, telling him they were going to kill him and they were saying, the hair out In late 1986 Jim McKernan was shot dead by “You’re fucking dead!” Every day he was of the car the Brits in West Belfast, and I’m only mention - stopped and every day I was stopped and the ing this because for me it was symbolic of the other brother was stopped and they were just and put us times. There was me, my da, Seán McGuire telling us they were going to kill him. So you on the going over to Jim’s funeral. The only reason my were starting to get worried about all of this da took me, he says, “At least if they arrest us and there were a lot of things like that going ground and you’re only 16. They can’t hold you so they’ll on. have to let you go back and you can let your ma stood on know that I've been arrested and get on to the And then on 2nd April ’87 I was at a boxing our faces solicitor.” But we arrived over to Jim McKer - competition down in the Markets 8. All the nan’s house for the funeral and I had never seen brothers were into it (the boxing) but the older on the anything like it. I went to the funerals of people brother Laurence and I got really into it when ground and who had been shot dead and stuff in Ardoyne we were young. I remember coming back (from but we arrived over and got out of the car and the competition) and it’s odd because some - on our there was like a small porch but really just like times you go, maybe it’s just madness in your backs and a concrete block above the actual door and own head, but on the way up on the bus from there was a Brit above it and there were two the city centre I had a thing in my head that just stood Brits lying in the garden with rifles. The RUC there's something just not right here. And I got were everywhere. The house was surrounded off the bus at the top of Crumlin Rd in the Ar - with the and the mourners were being harassed, doyne and Chris Doherty walked past and he rifles to our stopped, questioned, the whole thing. We went spoke to the guy that I was with and he said, in and paid our respects to the family and back “Tell him to get home. His da’s been shot.” heads. out to the car and back home. But that was, for And I said, “Is he okay?” And he said, “Oh he's me, fairly….I was going ‘Jesus I've never seen fine.” And in my head anyway my da was anything at a funeral like it.’ And my da was like….probably every son’s father’s like super - going, “It’s a disgrace what they’re doing; it’s man, but mine was superman in terms of in my just an absolute disgrace.” On the way back in head he was so confident and so strong in his the car we were followed back into Ardoyne mind that nothing could penetrate that; the will and my da let me out in the street and the next to live, sort of thing. thing he drove up Brompton Park and he was stopped by the Brits and trailed out of the car I got down to the house and there was a crowd put against the wall and searched. outside the door and my brother Seán, I saw him. He was up an alleyway hunkered down Near to his death, me, him and Joe were in the crying his eyes out and I went over and I got car. We were down seeing Billy, the uncle who him and I brought him up to a girl who lived in was done by the ones in the Shankill with the the street. I was only 16 but he was 13 or 14. I drill and shot. Billy always kept himself out of brought him up and put him in with Rita the way. He didn't like to be seen with da but Irvine. We weren't told anything but there was he was a very close brother and they’re all very a lot of blood in the hall, a heap of blood in the close, the Marleys. But we just drove out of the hall, just pure red and the cops said, “You can’t house, again in the Capri, the same car, and get in here.” And I said, “I live here. I want to there were two Brit jeeps coming up one side know what happened.” And the cop just and two down the other and the next thing they grabbed me by the throat and said, “Piss off” stopped us and trailed us - and I think this is the So I ended up getting a bit of a battering out - point where he started worrying - they trailed side the front door by the cops, a few slaps to

8 An area in South Belfast. INTERVIEWS

the head and trailed down the path. A guy up clipped him on the back of the head, just a We the street, Seán Murphy, he used to work in the small nick on the back of the head with a cou - Shamrock pub, he came over and he said, “For ple of pellets - it was nothing more than that. arrived fuck sake, this is the man’s son. Leave him But the pellets went everywhere into the living down and alone.” And they were just going, “Yeah, yeah, room. Then they opened up with a Browning, yeah. Take him away, take him away.” So Seán 11 shots and they went through the front door, my ma Murphy took me away from it anyway. I was through my da, some of them went through the hyper. All I saw was the blood and I knew it next door, went through the wall, went through was was my da’s blood. I didn't know what had hap - the stairs and hit the very back wall in the covered in pened. house. Setanta’s christening was supposed to be that week and his christening clothes were blood. We were then all brought into Rita’s. It was a all hanging from a holy Sacred Heart candle There was surreal experience because there was me, Sea - thing and they were all hit. The only thing was - mus, Seán, and Joe. Laurence wasn’t there. n’t hit was the Sacred Heart. blood on Laurence has always been the head of the fam - ily when my da wasn’t there. So I then had to So my da fell and the next thing ‘Bootser’ 10 ar - her face, step up to the mark and they said, “We’re going rived. The cops were at the door and they there was to drive you to the hospital .You need to go to couldn’t get the door opened because my da the hospital to see your da. Your ma’s down was trapped behind the door. But the whole blood on there and Laurence is down there.” We arrived thing about the cops arriving; the area was sat - her down and my ma was covered in blood. There urated with cops and Brits about 10 minutes be - was blood on her face, there was blood on her fore the shooting. They then pulled back. The clothes clothes and she was sitting shaking. And my next thing the shooting happened, the loyalists and she uncle Billy was kneeling beside her and he was took off and the only area that was saturated saying, “Larry will survive it. Look what hap - after that was our area, Ardoyne. was siting pened to me and Larry’s ten times stronger than me.” The people that were there were Seamie He was taken to hospital. I don't know the ins shaking. Finucane, Pat McGeown, Mairead Farrell 9, and outs of it. My ma told me but I just know Rob McCallum, Seán McGuire; there was a he was in a bad way. His eyes were rolling in whole team. the back of the head and stuff. We went to the hospital and we were sitting about for awhile Basically what happened was the loyalists rung waiting. Not for any minute did I think he was the bell and my da came out. It could have been going to die. It was never in my head that he my ma that went out. The two of them were was going to die, in terms of your waiting so just sitting ‘goo-gooing’ at Setanta on the floor. long to have him home, you have him and the They had him down on a wee thing and the two next thing... The doctors came in and they of them were messing about and my da was let - brought all the sons and my ma together. My ting on to make him climb. Setanta was only 2 ma thought he would be paralysed for whatever weeks old at that stage. And my ma was laugh - reason and they came in and they told us, ing and they were talking about tidying up a bit “Look we’ve something to tell you,” and my before the meeting started. And my ma was ma started screaming and she says, “Is he paral - going to get up and my da said, “No you sit ysed?” And they said, “No, your husband’s there. I’ll get up.” He went to the door and he dead. He died 90 minutes after being shot.” I looked sideways out because he never stood di - then ran, I remember running past everybody rectly in front of the door. He always went to and going into the theatre where he was and I the left side. And for us even thinking back, we remember climbing up on top of him and hug - had bullet proof material on the back door, ging him and stuff like that. That moment was what was termed bullet proof, with bolts, locks just like an offloading because I just couldn’t everything. The front door was fairly well stop. locked as well. But they saw my da anyway and they shot through with a shotgun and they The other brothers were in and I always remem -

9 Mairead Farrell, IRA volunteer, was shot dead in Gibraltar on the 6 March 1988 by the SAS. 10 Tony Hughes, friend of Larry and former prisoner. INTERVIEWS ber Rob McCallum. He had always a good time niceness to it and sort of, ‘if you need anything for my dad and I remember Rob bawling his I’m here.’ I liked the fact that he did that. But eyes out in the corner. But as I said, it was a sur - that night we got down into Gardens. real moment. It was one of them things. I re - Seamie dropped us off. I told him I was going member holding him. My ma pulled the sheet to Rita’s and I went back up into the street and completely off him and he was lying naked at this stage the hall had been cleaned. Rita with the holes in his chest and there was blood Irvine and somebody else had cleaned the hall; and I remember the blood on his arm and I re - the blood. We still weren't allowed in the house member it on his hand and it (arm) was still wet and I then had another row with the cops be - with water. And I remember hugging him and cause I wanted to get in. I broke down and was I remember somebody, not trailing me but crying and I wanted to get into the house. I somebody just saying, “Come off him.” I wanted to clean the blood and I wanted to see couldn’t believe he was dead. He looked alive. what had happened in the house and it ended up I got another couple of slaps. I then took off, My ma had took his ring off. It was my ring. He went to a friend’s, and Rob McCallum came had no wedding ring because he had lost it over looking for me and brought me back to my ma the years when he was in jail and he had taken in Brampton Park. this (one of mine) as his wedding ring. And my ma gave it back to me and said, “That's your It was very late when we got back in to the wee ring son.” And it was just….for near house and it was, I’ll be honest, it was trau - enough six weeks after it, anything from 3 to 6 matic. It was just madness. We were still finding weeks, it was still thick with blood. I never blood on the walls and stuff that hadn’t been cleaned it. I just kept it. cleaned and finding bullets that the cops hadn’t found, rounds embedded in the walls, on the That was the most traumatic period in my life. ground and different places. Then there were I remember I’d seen people dead before and stuff. I’d seen bits and pieces belonging to my da and you Trevor McKibben being shot dead in the Ar - were just there – you were numb. We went to hugging him doyne in ’78. I’d seen others injured and other bed anyway at some point during the night and and I stuff throughout ’80, ’81, plastic bullets and the the house was full of people trying to look after Brits shooting Danny Barrett. But your father. ma and stuff like that. remember I just couldn’t get it out of my head that I somebody, waited this long and the next thing he's gone. The next day my ma said, “Why don't you go And I went out the door. They told us we had for a walk?” is a republican not trailing to leave the room and needed to take the body from Ardoyne and he was the same age as me, to Forester Green 11 . And we were told to wait 16, and me and him were always getting me but outside and the cops were laughing in the hall stopped together and tortured to some extent - somebody and it was ones who had searched the house more him than me. The ginger hair gave him about two weeks before. away. So we went over to my granny’s to get just saying, something to bring back and the Brits who were “Come off One of the big comforts to me was people who normally giving my da a hard time, I think it drove us home from the hospital. We were all was the Anglicans (Regiment) - they tortured him”. I told to meet up at my granny’s in Brampton him and then there was the Marines as well - couldn’t Park, not to go back to the house. But I couldn't they got me and Eddie at the bottom of the do that and Seamie Finnucane drove me home street and gave us a tanking and just tortured believe he along with Mairead Farrell. They drove me and me about my da. “Where’s the bastard now? another brother home and my brother was in He’s fucking dead. We got him.” was dead. He the back bawling his eyes out with Mairead. looked alive. Seamie, to be honest, spoke to me a few times We were getting a fair bit of that the whole day during the funeral and I've got to be honest, he and my other brother as well, Laurence. No - was really good. He listened to me. He had body really knew Laurence. He’d been living been through loss in his own life. There was a out of my granny’s. He was 18. He was a big

11 A hospital in Belfast. INTERVIEWS

lad; he was out doing his own stuff. That all changed for him because basically the coffin I remember the first night the coffin went back came home. It was just….you had jeeps out - in the house. The IRA was giving the guard of side, and our street isn’t like a normal cul de honour in the living room and you had people sac. There’s actually steps. You can’t get in. sitting there. That night there were jeeps every - You’re not supposed to drive into the street. It’s where and they were flying past the house, basically so narrow. It’s just a play area for kids doing circuits of it. It was only four or five jeeps at the top of the steps and the cops, two jeeps at this stage but they were continually round the were down. I remember looking out, there was house. And then one came down the street and, anything up to, Brits and cops, about 150 jeeps. as I said, it’s not a street you can drive into but I couldn't believe it! I was going, ‘what the fuck? they came down it with the big searchlight they What’s this about?’ Then you’d republicans have on it and they shone it right on the front landing into the house and there were people door of the house. A guy (who’s involved in the Whatever taking me away and talking to me and telling IRA) spoke to my ma and he said, “I’m going me to keep a cool head and sort of be mindful to do something here for a bit of a laugh.” they had of your mummy and blah blah, all this type of Looking back it was probably the worst thing seen over stuff. At 16 the blood boils fairly handy and you he could have done but he dressed up as Al Jol - want to strike out because to me, it was loyalists son 13 and went out and sang ‘Mammy’ at the there they pulled the trigger but it was the RUC, it was the front step. They RUC moved away after that so Brits, who killed him and that's firmly where it it must have worked. saw that was in my head in terms of loyalists just being his killing used for their dirty deeds. We were then hearing stuff that the Brits were going to come in and take the body. The Thurs - was going Laurence was catapulted into dealing with the day he was shot, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to be a media. It was just the way it happened. He was were hard because you’re coping with a loss but the oldest son. It wasn’t that my ma couldn't you had that many people that you had no time highly cope with it but he became the head of the really to sit down. You were hearing the politi - politicised house again. My da was gone and he then cal reaction and stuff that was going on and the stepped back into the role he played all our were getting your ears opened to all the differ - event. So lives. He was like another father. At 18 he ent stuff that was happening. You’d the likes of stepped back in and he started dealing with the Danny Morrison floating about and people they got media. The Brits then were giving him a hard who were sort of like legends to me. ‘That’s him home time. your man who’s on TV! You know your man Morrison!’ as soon as When he came home in the coffin, came back possible to the house in terms of the body, we were all Mary McGuigan was a great help and had been put in the kitchen. We were wondering why we a great help to my ma over the years. She was a and they were getting put in the kitchen. The undertakers long term republican. Mary McGuigan always took his body out of the coffin and upstairs and made sure that my ma was remembered. did the it was only later we learned that they had em - Throughout the years my ma had no time to go embalming balmed him in the bath. They hadn’t trusted out and do anything (political) and I’m not Forester Green 12 to release the body. Whatever even sure that she would. She was my da’s wife upstairs in they had seen over there they saw that his and application was to him and us. But Mary the bath. killing was going to be a highly politicised always remembered her. We were often up in event. So they got him home as soon as possible Mary’s house and Mary would give us food and and they did the embalming upstairs in the stuff. bath. Nobody told my brother Joe or nobody told my ma and they both had baths later. You The ironic thing about this is a week before he were just going, ‘Jesus Christ, this is mad! Who was killed my da actually brought me and Joe in their right mind is going to embalm some - up to the back room and sat us down and he body in a bath?’ But it was what it was. asked us were we involved and we were saying

12 Hospital in Belfast where autopsies are carried out. 13 A singer. INTERVIEWS we were involved in Sinn Fein Youth, which we was in the coffin, he was in the house for a few were. And he says, “Remember in all of this it’s days with us but that was him going. We were your ma. Whatever happens in the future kids, going to lose him forever. We were never going if I get killed or anything, don't let anybody to see him again and even just that, it was huge, take any advantage of your ma. Look after your it was just…I remember actually crying on the ma. Remember she’s my girlfriend. That's who steps of the house. she is. She's my girlfriend and I love her.” He was saying that there were people didn't like You had about 1,000 people from the local him and he sat with us for about an hour telling community, people from Ardoyne because we us that he believed somewhere somebody was would have all done the boxing in the Sacred going to try and kill him. So he had covered Heart (Club). We were standing there on the that ground with us and the thing was that the steps of the house and the cops moved towards funeral and all that happened at the funeral and us. There were hundreds of them, hundreds of my ma’s stance at the funeral, whilst we all had jeeps, hundreds of Brit jeeps, cop jeeps every - a discussion amongst us all, it was primarily her where and it looked like thousands of RUC at the end of the day had to make the decisions. men and a few women. The Brits were on the She asked our opinion and she said, “You are back but the cops, there was just black helmets his sons. What do you think?” the whole way up. And there was this one cop with a thick Roman nose and grey hair and he Looking back on it we didn't do what he came up towards us. I remember standing be - wanted. We did what we wanted for him. We side my uncle Billy,my uncle, was crying and wanted to give him a republican burial and that he was holding me and the tricolour was put on was the thing for us because we knew who and the coffin and the beret and gloves were put on what he was and no idea of any significance and the cop tried to grab them and I went bal - Whatever other than that he was an IRA man, because at listic and the crowd went ballistic. What they happens in the end of the day, people keep saying your da’s were doing in the outskirts, at the back of the a great man, he's a great IRA man, and he did crowd, they were beating people with batons. the future this, that and the other but the thing for me, the They were pushing and at the back of the house greatness of him, wasn’t because he was in the they were shouting up at Laurence (brother), kids, if I IRA, that was a part of him, the greatness was because Laurence was in the bedroom and they get killed what he was like as a father and that's the big were shouting, “Where the fuck’s your da Mar - thing for me. That’s the big loss. It wasn't an ley?” or IRA man being killed, because that’s what hap - anything, pens if you’re in war, but it was the loss of a fa - We tried to take the coffin down the steps and ther and that was the thing. But for my ma it as we were going down the steps the people don’t let was she wanted him to get the right type of fu - came in from everywhere. I mean in terms of, anybody neral. She said, “This is what he believed in. you feel as if a crowd’s with you and I felt ... I This is who he was and we shouldn’t let the was never prouder of the people around me at take any cops or anybody else stand in our way in terms that stage because they didn't back off and the of how we bury him,” which meant the beret, thing is they so easily could have. What they advantage the gloves, and the tricolour on the coffin 14 . did, we were coming down the steps, very nar - of your row steps, it was like there was people just We didn't think it was going to be that much of blocking you so that the cops can’t get at you. ma, Look a thing 15 . They (the RUC) were saying they did - And the cops came in and they tried to take the after you n’t want the beret and gloves on the coffin. The coffin. That's what their goal was at that stage. tricolour was okay. That’s what they were say - The next thing was there was hand to hand ma. ing. On the Monday 16 I remember going out fighting and the cops with batons at people. We and the pang going out through that front door were all holding the coffin but as well as us was unreal in terms of I suppose anybody that's (family) holding it there was local republicans. lost someone and the next thing is they’re get - You had the likes of Rab McCallum, Seán ting taken out through the door, even though he MacGuire, wee Bernard, wee Pat, they were all

14 This is the traditional manner in which IRA volunteers were buried. 15 IRA funerals of this nature were very common at the time but in previous months the RUC and British Army presence at such funerals had become very heavy and intrusive. 16 The day of the funeral. INTERVIEWS

round and they were getting it (the coffin) back priest came in anyway and he says, “But Mr up to the house. Marley wasn’t from our parish.” My aunt Marie got up and hit him a big dig in the jaw! We got it back up into the house and it was just This was how the Church responded to his crazy stuff. You were just like, ‘What’s going on death. It was just so pitiful what they were here?’ The next thing there was a discussion, doing. The church in The Bone in fairness to ‘Should we go ahead with it?’ And in fairness, them, they said, “We’ll bury Laurence no prob - and I always give it to Danny Morrison 17 , there lem. If it’s what you want. If you want us to we was never pressure on us one way or the other. will.” And my ma said, “He's an Ardoyne man. It was up to us, what we wanted. Danny came He’s getting buried from Holy Cross. This is our in and he asked, “What do you think here? This church. We put money in that church. This is is the situation.” And we said, “They’re trying the people’s church.” to take the coffin.” And it was the fact that here’s people who basically murdered him and My da was born in Brompton Park (Ardoyne) now they’re trying to take the only thing we - he lived something like ten doors from my ma. held onto, the respect that we had for him, and The two of them were born on the same day; now they’re trying to take it, take the coffin literally they were in the next beds (in the hos - with him in it. It seemed unreal; totally just pital). They, basically just popped into the crazy stuff. world together, brought up together, ran away and eloped together, lost two children, a girl, We had got the coffin back into the house and the first born and then another son. The two of I was crying and I remember just sitting down them, it was like a match in heaven, but the two and breaking my heart over the whole thing. It of them knew what they wanted and they was very hard to get the space to do it but I re - wanted each other. There was a bit of madness member thinking, ‘This is a nightmare and in the two of them, a bit of impishness, cer - This is a you’re never getting out of this. They’re trying tainly. The two of them were born and bred in nightmare to take his body! What would they want with Ardoyne, the whole family, parents died in it. his body?’ To be honest, my ma was fairly calm. The Sinn Fein centre in Ardoyne was actually and And then the priests were coming into the my grandfather’s house, my da’s da John Mar - you’re house and the thing I’ll mention about the ley. priests, Fr Pat from Holy Cross came down and never this is the Sunday but he came down on the The first day of the funeral (Monday) when we getting Monday as well. There were a couple of priests, got back in to the house we started appealing him along with Gerry Reynolds from the Falls for help. We needed help. We started appealing out of and some guy Sam Birch from Twadell. He’s a to the church. We asked (Cardinal) O’Fiaich Protestant Reverend. would he respond to us because we couldn't get this. hold of him. There were efforts made through They’re Anyhow, the church turned round and kept say - Sinn Fein to get him and I don’t think there was ing, “But he's not from this parish.” The thing any movement on it. That night there was a trying to is where we live is between Ardoyne and the rally outside Connolly House 18 and I always re - take his Bone. It’s right in the middle. We live on the member my ma - because my ma isn’t a (public) edge of both parishes and they (Ardoyne speaker even though she’d talk the leg off a body! Church) didn't want to bury him; they did not stool but she isn’t somebody who would get up want to bury him. They didn’t want the whole publicly - I remember she was asked did she What political situation. Fr Pat came down from want to get up and she did. She got up and she would Holy Cross. He was talking about it and he actually broke down at the thing and just said, says, I actually remember it because my aunt, “I want to thank you for coming.” And she just they want her son was a civil servant in ’87 and he lost his broke down and the next thing she was away with his job after all of this, about a year later, him and again back over to Ardoyne, back to the house. a few others. He came to the funeral. Very few body? others would have but this guy did. But the We’d people the whole time basically ready to

17 Director of Publicity for Sinn Féin at the time. 18 Sinn Féin office in West Belfast. INTERVIEWS block doors in the house in case the Brits or asked a couple of members of the family to be cops came in. That was Monday. Tuesday, it present when they did it. They did it over my was probably the worst day of the actual fight - grandfather’s house, which would be the Sinn ing. I remember the beating people got and peo - Fein office, but there’s also a monument there ple responded. But because of what had to people who were killed from Ardoyne. So happened on the Monday people came from they did it and we as a family had seen it. It was everywhere. I just remember the crowds com - published in on Monday. ing. On the Tuesday we went out into the street. We got in where the steps are and the cops So the cops knew the volley of shots had been again came from everywhere. They were beat - fired and they were quoting the likes of Gerard ing the crap out of people. They were falling Logue’s funeral in Derry, they were quoting over and across the street and I remember peo - other funerals at this stage, saying that this hap - We had ple screaming. An old republican Tom Flem - pened and that happened and basically the IRA ing, I don't know what age he was but he always gave a guarantee that it wouldn't happen as the called on seemed around 70 or 80, and the blood pissing volley had already been fired. But the church the out of him and there were women beaten and wouldn't intervene at all. They just said they’d there were kids beaten and there were people do their stuff behind the scenes. Church just getting blattered for nothing. And again, it anyway was the coffin. They were intending taking the We got up on the Wednesday, we went out on coffin. So Laurence called it off. Laurence de - the Wednesday and basically we got down the to help us cided after speaking to the rest of us, my ma, steps this time. I have to be honest, I was never and the Danny Morrison and a few other republicans so sorry in my life because that was actually who we trusted and who never put any pressure him going. But once we were down onto Ar - Church on us around any of it. To some extent I would doyne Avenue, here’s me thinking, ‘there's no say I was delighted when the coffin came home turning back now.” What the cops did was they didn’t because it was him back home and I do be hon - allowed mourners on each side. In saying that, respond est about that. It was like he’s not going; he’s at the house they had backed off and as you going to be here. Tuesday was a bad day but turn into Ardoyne Avenue they had backed off there was so much going on. and then what happened was the mourners came down. There was thousands of mourners We had called on the Church anyway to help at this stage. But there was still hundreds of us and the Church didn’t respond. We were ask - jeeps; hundreds of cops. It just looked mad, all ing them to intervene in terms of telling the the helmets and Brits everywhere. While there RUC to back off, to give us room, dignity, all were people beside the hearse and around that of that type of stuff. And this is all stuff that the whole area, the coffin, the cops were on every brother (Laurence) got on the media and spoke side of it and as we turned the corner into Flax about. He says, “We’re calling off the funeral.” Street from Ardoyne Avenue they ran in and That night there was a massive rally in Ardoyne started beating people. I remember seeing and Des Wilson, the priest from West Belfast, friends getting beaten and my older brother was came over and he spoke at it. There was thou - going to me, “Just you stay here. Just stay clam sands at it but you weren't looking at any of it. and stay with the family.” And it seemed like All you wanted was your da back but this was forever but there was fighting then in Brompton so huge. Park, the whole way up it, and there were a couple of people got broken arms and a broken I forgot to say that the IRA fired a volley of leg or something like that. It just seemed to take shots, as is customary at IRA funerals, but they forever to get up the street. actually did it on the Sunday night because the cops kept saying they were waiting on a volley We got up to the church anyway and the coffin of shots and that’s what they were supposedly was carried near enough the whole way. It was trying to prevent, but the volley of shots was al - on and off; some parts of the way the coffin was ready done on the Sunday night. The IRA had in the hearse. In the chapel we were told we had INTERVIEWS

to remove the beret and gloves and the tricolour ma was going, “Yes son, don't be worrying and the coffin was brought in and the priest that about it.” So we all just got round each other got up was a priest my da knew from jail, Fr and they brought the coffin over. I think for Michael or something, and my da didn't like anyone that’s lost someone, I think leaving the him. And this guy’s doing a Mass for Laurence house and then getting put in the ground, I Marley, who’s been on the news for basically think it rips the heart of anybody in terms of the last seven days, and the priest forgot his what that is because it’s somebody who you’re name and he said let’s dedicate this Mass to the just going to miss. That’s them gone. And Mar - perpetual blah blah blah of….hold on, Lau - tin McGuinness did the oration and he told us rence Marley. It was just shocking in terms of to turn our backs on the RUC at the graveyard. how the church dealt with it. It doesn’t seem like much but for us at the time they had surrounded us and he turned round We came out of there and it was like a reprieve. and said, “These people haven’t won today. I mean that. I sat in the hearse with the coffin We’ve won. Let’s not give them the dignity of and the rest of the brothers sat with my ma in turning around and even looking at them; turn the other one and we went back down through your backs on them.” Ardoyne, some of it walked, some of it driven, and there were more fights the whole way My da was buried and I would say then began down. Got into The Bone, went through the the grief, the trauma hit home in the real sense “These Bone, down Old Park Road into Rosapenna, on when we got home. I would say for the first two down into Cliftonville, New Lodge and there days the house was slightly packed and then people was a massive crowd in the New Lodge. But bang, there was nobody. It was us and we had haven’t North Queen Street leads across the bottom of to face each other. We had to sit and be quiet. the Shankhill into Flats and we had We’re all our own type of characters. We’re all won heard that they (loyalists) were going to shoot loud amongst our own family and stuff and the today. at us at the bottom of the Shankill and making next thing we’re all just sitting there in a room that crossing over Millfield onto the Falls Road as close as this, looking at each other and no - We’ve felt like an eternity. You were just waiting on body saying a word and nothing’s mentioned. trouble. The cops were all over the place. And And to be honest, probably the hardest time won. then I saw the Falls Road. The Falls Road after that for me, we went up to the graveyard Let’s not wouldn't have meant anything to me before that every day and you had the likes of Finbar but there were thousands of people on the pave - McKenna was blew up and his funeral and he’s give them ment waiting on us just to come. I get goose buried in the same plot as my da and that for the bumps just thinking about it. I thought the us, it was just like reliving it all again. whole of West Belfast was there. That’s what it dignity of was like. We drove onto the Falls Road and My ma’s birthday and my da’s birthday came people from everywhere were out and the Brits round in July and the two of them would have turining then had to pull back more, more, more and been 42. And I think it was probably the silence around there was thousands walking up. in the house again. My da was larger than life, a character. He ‘tortured’ us. He gave us a hair - and even We got up to the graveyard eventually and at cut, stuck a bowl round our head and cut like a looking this stage I’m just in the car and I’m just watch - German helmet. Or he’d lie on the floor and ing what’s going on around me. You have all he’d torture the dog. He’d get a bit of string in at them; types of emotions. But we got up to the grave - his mouth with a biscuit on the end and go turn your yard and I couldn't believe the Brits were lying round the dog; torture the dog. He was just mad on the graves around us. and that was the nature of him. The loss of backs on him, after waiting so long, as I said, to have I never knew that IRA volunteers were actually him, was just….I would say I’m still not over them.” buried in the republican plot. I thought it was it. There’s moments, and you do get moments, like a monument and I remember asking the it could be a song, it could be….Kris Kristoffer - question, “Is he getting buried in this?” And my son, ‘Me and Bobby Magee’, things like that INTERVIEWS and it just hits you and there’s tears or whatever. he hit Laurence because he believed that Lau - But there was that and then the birthday cards rence caused the Church difficulty. Laurence And the of the likes of - my ma stopped doing it after was studying to be a priest at the time and he that year but - ‘love Emmanuel from mammy would normally go into the vestry and as he thing is, and daddy.’ That Christmas was hard. But I was going in the priest just hit him an unmerci - suppose anyone who’s lost someone goes ful dig in the chest. Laurence is a champion for me through that. boxer; he could handle himself, but he said the there was a couple of old women sitting in the I always say that whilst I have the utmost re - pews and they had seen what happened and he reason he spect for what he did and everything else that just got up and got his bag and walked out of did what he was but it was as a father, that rises above the church. That’s only one story in the middle everything because to me, that’s what stood out of all of it. he did in him. It wasn't about the escape in 1983 19 , what he did. I didn't know anything else that he But for me, that period after was I would say, (being in did. very very difficult to deal with from the point the IRA) of view of just the realisation that he was gone The big thing, you’re in a situation where your and our dream was gone. He did fulfil the wee was family sits up every night. It would have been things that he said he would do when he got because just sitting talking about him. There’s no late out. He did get a motor bike. He bought us a night television so we had a video recorder and 50cc and near killed us! There were some crazy of us. every night there would be ‘Indiana Jones and moments and we had some brilliant times for Raiders of the Lost Ark’ and it would go on those 16 months that he was with us. But me every night at about 12 and it would be played going to jail, I think for me personally, was two or three times – every night. And this went probably the best thing that ever happened to on right up until I went to jail in February 1989. me because when I got out again almost ten years later in October ’98 and went for a couple When I went to jail everybody knew him. The of drinks with my brothers, individually, there only difficulty I had was people expecting that was all types of emotions came up. Things like of me. ‘You’re going to be like him’ and there’s was my da thinking of us when he was in the nothing like it at all. But I think I got a reprieve IRA? And I’ve heard this from other people. in a large sense (going in to jail) because I re - And the thing is, for me the reason he did what member coming out and my brothers and my he did (being in the IRA) was because of us. He ma were still in the same position as when I wouldn't have been in the IRA other than that went in. I dealt with it (my da’s death) in jail he wanted to protect us and everything else. But and the thing is, you meet people who talk to every emotion comes out and every thought you, and they don’t necessarily want to talk to about it and at the end of the day it’s all about you about your da but just stories or whatever grief. But I think, whereas I was able to talk and you've dealt with it as much as you could through it in jail with outsiders, they (brothers) deal with it at that time and the next thing is ‘I weren't really able to talk about it. A lot of it need to focus. I need to get other things in my was bottled up and a lot of it is still there and life going here.’ And then I got out and it was still hanging over the family and actually that like the clock was turned back. The problem for really hurt me more than anything because I re - me was I was arrested within 18 months to two alised that they were suffering. My ma just years of my da being killed and it was another takes it on the chin. trauma for them. It wasn’t for me. But they then went through that. What she did say to me was going up to the jail to visit me, they loved coming up because they We wouldn't go back to Mass or go to the had been going up their whole life. All my church or anything like that. My brother Lau - brothers have been to the Cages, the Kesh and rence did and one of the priests hit him; an the next thing is it was like going up to visit my older priest, he had a bit of a drink problem but da. They were going through the same proce -

19 Larry Marley masterminded the mass escape of 38 republican prisoners from H-Block 7, Maze prison in 1983. INTERVIEWS

dure. It was sometimes the same crews, some - and my ma’s address on it. And then in Febru - “Your son’s body from the ‘80s who’s still there. So to some ary 2002 there was an alleged bomb in my car. extent it maybe helped but it was a fairly trying My bonnet had been busted open and there dead, period for my ma. It would have been more dif - looked like something in it. I knew a few repub - Emmanuele ficult for her than anybody. licans who had moved South because of intim - idation and stuff and what I was afraid of was is it? He’s 1st February ’89. Laurence’s 21st birthday. The somebody throwing a pipe bomb through the cops called at the house and told my ma I had window into the house. My young brother Se - dead. He blown myself up in a bomb and I was dead. I tanta, he was only two weeks old when my da blew would say this about Brits, when they used to was killed, he was there with my ma and I did - raid the house it was always functionary. I n't want to be bringing any hassle to their door. himself up would say a Brit is functionary. He’s a tool. He’s So I made a conscious decision to move South in a bomb.” just somebody who, unless you’re doing some - and obviously you move to where you know thing against him, then it’s more vicious, but people. I knew a few friends in Dundalk from the RUC have always systematically just been Ardoyne who had moved down there them - bastards. Anytime they’ve ever, from I remem - selves looking for a better quality of life, to ber the ‘70s, Jamaica St, Havana Gardens, the some extent. whole way through, every decade we’d been searched or raided or something and the RUC Moving brings all the difficulties in terms of the have always been real scumbags. When I was people that you know, trying to find work, try - arrested they came in and told her that I was ing to find some connection with people who dead, “Your son’s dead. Emmanuele is it? He’s are republican and stuff like that. When I ini - dead. He blew himself up in a bomb.” My ma tially came down there had been the odd mo - was obviously all over the place. They then ment of harassment from the likes of the started attacking my da. “Larry? Sure where (Special) Branch but nothing too heavy. Proba - the fuck is he now the big man?” And they tor - bly I would say the biggest thing about being tured her and one of the Brits actually grabbed down here is you’re not up home, and whilst the RUC man by the throat and told him to lay you can go up and visit and stuff like that, it off. And then somebody called to the house and isn’t really home. There’s also the thing that told my ma that I was alive but had been ar - your family is up and down. They’d be down to rested and she was relieved to hear that. see you every now and again. I don't know what it is but Cavehill always looked more at - I was due out of prison on March 25th 1999 but tractive to me than the Coolies! You are where I got out six months early 20 . After getting out I you’re from, in my heart anyway, and I am didn't really get any real harassment from the from that area. Having to move out of it due to cops or anything initially but what happened the nature of the threats, even in the middle of was basically I started getting death threats and the peace process, even when things were going most of them would be to my ma’s house. They well, was something I didn’t want to do but I thought I was living in my ma’s house and in just didn't want happening to me what had hap - 2001 and 2002 there were a number of pipe pened to my da and the likes of the family and bombs found in different houses in the stuff. I’ve kids of my own now and I didn’t Shankhill and Woodvale areas with my name want that to be the nature of it.

20 Under the prisoner early release scheme which was part of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998). INTERVIEWS

I remember when I was a baby my mother was in hospital. I can’t even think what age I would have been when my mother was taken into hos - Geraldine pital - or so we were led to believe for most of our lives but she was really taken into Armagh Jail (laughs). They (RUC) were trying to get my Cassidy dad and the house was constantly being raided all the time. They could never get him so they born belfast, 1979 arrested my mother and she wouldn’t give noth - ing away so she was put in Armagh jail. We were in the house and whatever neighbours ’m Geraldine Cassidy were there at the time they were very tight- ... my lipped. I remember there was a woman Jeanette and I live here in Hanson and Brenda. I can’t even remember mother Cherryvale estate Brenda’s name but they were always in the house. So they would have been there with us. was taken (Dundalk). Originally We were shipped down to Dundalk overnight. into where I am from, We were basically put in the car and brought whIere I lived as a baby, was down one night because if we hadn’t we’d have hospital - been taken into care. If my dad had of came or so we in Twinbrook in Belfast. I near the house he would have been arrested. So wouldn’t really remember it, we were stuffed in a car and dropped at my were led granny’s here in Dundalk. I would have been more so my older brother, he about three years old and to me everything was to believe would have been either eight as it was supposed to be; there was nothing for most or ten at the time. I was born strange about things. My sister was four years older than me. The older two, Mark and of our in 1979. My dad is from Tracey, would have remembered a lot. Mark lives, but Andersonstown Park West; had made his Communion up North. He was about eight or ten when we were taken down she was my mother’s from here in here. He would probably remember more about really Dundalk. He was down here that night, getting into the car and coming taken into in Dundalk for something down. and he said he seen (met) Obviously my mother got out; I don’t remem - Armagh her in a chippy or something. ber how long (she was in prison) for because at Jail. that age it didn’t mean anything to me. We were I don’t know what he was at my granny’s but my aunt was helping her down for; I kind of didn’t ask also so we were in her house being minded, too much. She moved up to backward and forward kind of thing but sure pass no remarks, you know. But then when my Belfast with my dad. I parents finally came down here they were rent - remember them telling me ing a house in Beechmount Drive. Somebody my dad knew owned the house. That was only that to get houses they had for a couple of months. I remember living on to squat 1 in them. So they Beechmount Drive here (in Dundalk). Then had it anyway; they were in they got the house in Ardmene Park in Muirhevnamore so we kind of all settled then. the house. I started at school. Mark was old enough so he went straight to the tech (Technical College). There are four of us but my sister died in a car

1 Move into them without permission. INTERVIEWS

crash in 1991 so there’s just me and the two had just got out of the car to go to a shop and boys now. I often wonder that, if we’d have my dad just jumping out of the car and running never moved would she still be alive, you know and next I looked and there were two of them the way you think about things. (Special Branch) pulling my mother’s arms in the street; you know, shopping on the bloody I always remember my dad doing odd jobs be - street like. I don’t know what was said or why cause whatever it was he couldn’t get a PPS 2 or or what happened but I remember seeing those something, so he couldn’t get dole or anything. things over the years. I remember getting really I remember him doing someone’s gardening annoyed and my mother was very teary when and someone’s tiles; he’d always be an odd job she got into the car. I don’t know what that was man because he couldn’t get money elsewhere. about. I actually forgot about that to even ask. I suppose looking back it was very annoying When we were small, I always remember when you know the cheek of them. I was at school, for years you always felt like you didn’t fit in; you were different. I don’t Under the stairs there used to be clothes and know, I don’t really know. I remember there they would pull everything out of there into the would have been a lot of friends that moved to hall, the coats, schoolbags, coal bucket; every - Dundalk around that time and when they thing was all slung out into the hall. We used would get together and when you were in that to have a cupboard in the kitchen. It was an al - I suppose circle you felt ok but it was kind of when you cove and my dad just put doors up so we could were at school you felt it; you were different. I put stuff in it. They always pulled that apart as at the suppose as you get older that all dies away but well. They wouldn’t have went in and pulled time I was you feel it at the time. your drawers apart in the (bed) room; it was just the wardrobes, the hot press, and funny enough like, “Why I remember one time I had a project at school they would have been more so my mum and can’t we and my dad has this big cardboard sheet and he dad’s bed. They never looked in drawers; it was was sticking the map of Ireland with papier- just big cupboards (laughs). be like mâché on it. He was helping me do it you know. But on the back there was a big ‘No Ex - I suppose at the time I was like, “Why can’t we other tradition’ sign and I was mortified bringing it in be like other people? This doesn’t happen in people? to school (laughs). It was Robert Russell was other people’s houses.” But I wouldn’t have being extradited over the border or something turned on them (my parents). I think I was just This and it was one of the posters they used and I angry at the cheek of them (Special Branch) doesn’t was mortified. I remember I just didn’t want to coming in. Like who did they think they were? walk in with it into school. This would have I even knew it on my dad’s face that time be - happen in been at primary school; I think I would have cause he was standing in the kitchen, and he been about ten. would have just let them get on with it, but I other could see his face and I knew that he just felt people’s The house was often raided 3. I remember one sorry for me. He said, “Do youse want to go time in particular I had a school friend in the out and play girls?” I suppose it was seeing bits houses.” kitchen and they (Special Branch) came in and of this and that. I think that was actually the started pulling things apart. It was that time I last time the house was raided and I was getting felt the embarrassment of it and she said, “Why a bit older too; I was about ten then. are they in your house?” I said, “I don’t know.” (laughs). They’d kind of come to the door and I remember my dad was a great organiser. He the knock would be a big one (makes a loud was an organiser in Belfast before we came knocking sound) and I don’t even think you’d down. He took over a tenants committee down be pushing the button on the door when they here in Aganeen Park and he was great at it. He were in on you. They looked down their noses organised a big street party with a lot of people at you and they were cheeky. I remember one and it was great and I remember thinking like, Christmas we were shopping and my mother “That’s my dad.” (laughs). Through the sum -

2 Personal Public Service number; equivalent of a National Security number.in the North of Ireland. 3 House searched by Special Branch. INTERVIEWS mer we got trips to the zoo and I think that I moved out to Aisling Park then so I was households were just giving 50p towards it but moved out of that Cumann to Worthington we got going on trips. It wasn’t until you got Waters Cumann and I was asked to stand for into that that you didn’t feel different. I think I election then in 2004. I had been co-opted onto was in secondary school though before I felt ac - the Council, in 2003, for Sean Kenna. I wasn’t cepted. Where I kind of had my friends and I pushed into politics; that was my own decision. just didn’t care and then you may have heard Yeah, just (makes a noise relating to speed and your friends’ problems and realised that we laughs). My mother was kind of saying she did - were all the same. n’t know if it was a good idea but my dad was saying, well I think it would be a great experi - I would have felt very strongly (about politics) ence for you and he knows that I would have at times. I remember when Robert Russell’s ex - been pig headed and that there’s issues that I tradition got violent 4 and I remember I had a would have been pushing strongly on and he ball of anger in my gut. I remember the next would have seen it as an opportunity for me to day and my mother coming home and she had do something on them. stitches in her head and her arm was broken. It was just all the clashes at the line. Her friends, It was a good election in 2004. I was kept busy they were all bruised and broken. My dad’s fin - but I enjoyed it because I would have been I think a gers were all swollen and I remember when I working out in Cox’s then and I would have public was just looking at them and (makes a noise been out and about and I met Maurice Mc - representing anger). And as I was getting older Conville in the Redeemer Centre and with him enquiry and looking up stuff you just kind of get that we got talking about setting up an umbrella ten - wee (makes another sound representing anger) ants committee over in Cox’s. There’d be four needs to you know (laughs). main streets there and so we got it up and run - be put in ning and it was successful for a good while. Around the time you would have heard them Oakland Park would have been a long running place saying, “Fucking foreigners,” you know in the tenants committee so they were a bit reserved because jobs, that’s what you would have heard people about coming on board with the other commit - saying years ago, “Fucking northerners stealing tees, they would have had a wee bit of money this can all the jobs.” (laughs). and stuff, but it all went well in the end. happen I hadn’t joined Sinn Fein; I kind of just ap - Standing for elections was nerve wrecking and again... peared at meetings. The meetings happened in by the time you got to the nerve wrecking bit Mickey Collins’s sitting room (laughs). Just one you were exhausted. We’d walked around the day I was at home - I had my own house at that whole area on three different occasions and I stage in Grange Drive - I think I was 19. was sick of looking at it at that stage. It was Francey Doran rapped the door. It was a Sun - very stressful but we were pleased with the re - day morning and he said, “Come on, are you sults because Sean Kenna was in at the time on coming down here? Mickey Colllins is having his own; we took two (seats), Lord have mercy a meeting.” Sure I didn’t even know what the on Anne - Anne Shields was lovely, she would meeting was like. I didn’t even ask, I kind of have been about sixty when we were up in the just went and that was me. I was in Sinn Féin elections and she died of cancer, she died a cou - soon. As time went on I was working with ple of years ago; she just weakened and that Kevin Meenan. He was working out of the was it, you know. The two of us were standing drop-in centre before the (Sinn Féin) office was in that one area and it went great because the up there in William’s Place and we were trying number (of votes) tripled between the two of us to buy stuff and sure we hadn’t a clue what we so we were delighted. Jimmy Poland was the were doing (laughs).We were listing people off election agent and he was just delighted with who were looking for houses. We were just kind himself. (laughs) of getting on our feet. The (Sinn Féin) office opened after Kevin got on the County Council. They (other councillors) were all older than me.

4 Robert Russell had escaped from the H-Blocks of Long Kesh/Maze Prison in the mass escape of 1983 but was later captured in the South and extradited to the North. There were violent scenes as he was handed over to the RUC at the border. INTERVIEWS

Mary Brennan was there but they were all kind my own with the four girls (daughters), you’re of older. Kevin Meenan was there. Eden came not allowed to rest. It’s kind of, “I don’t give a in with us on the election. When we first went shite about your problems I need my windows in it was just me and Kevin and then the other fixed,” so I was like cracking up. It was four area was brought in. That meant there were years (I had been on the council). I was co- three of us (Sinn Féin) in (the council). The oth - opted in at a November meeting (2003) and I ers would have been a couple of years older was co-opted out in November (2007), so it was than me but not that much. We were all around four years exactly. the same age which was grand because we felt we were bringing a wee bit of a kick (to Council At the moment now with me living back up in matters). I have to say I never felt, well I sup - this area I’m in the process of changing back to ... it pose Pearce O’Hanlon was in at the time and my original (Sinn Féin) Cumann. My mum and he was a bit of a fucking bollocks like, sorry dad moved here about twelve or thirteen years killed a (laughs). He was Fine Gael, real strong. He ago and they’re just around the corner in lot of his would have been knocked out (lost his seat) Cyprus Gardens and it’s grand being here, just when Ian came in on his seat but when I first around the corner from them, if I need any family went in he was a bit of a pain. The rest of them help. (laughs) They always used to joke with me ties now they were friendly enough and if there and say I’d be back you know, so we’ll wait and were any issues I was bringing up it was noth - see. because ing that they couldn’t support because they you know would have looked bad, so there was nothing We would have kept contact with my dad’s that I would have been fought against on. I ac - family (in Belfast). We would have been up and we’d only tually really did enjoy it. I loved getting out and down to Belfast but my dad was never able to about and the bigger issues that were brought go. We would kind of be seeing my granny at be able to to the (Council) chamber were good ones. weekends or they’d come down every so often visit at for a Sunday now and again. That’s just the way We used to sit around and go through the it was. I suppose when you look at circles now, certain agenda and bring up stuff even at our Cumann 5 the people I remember, the circles around my times so meetings. I didn’t like bringing up stuff that was mum and dad at the time, a lot of it has died willy nilly and not worth while, you know. I off. Pat McIlvenna is back in Belfast a lot of it killed a wouldn’t have spoke at the Council meetings; years. I suppose my mother and Celine just ones that I was submitting anything. One McGuigan would still be best mates now. I kind of a particular issue I had to fight hard on was the know now what they meant about being in hos - bond Roman Terrace one you see because that’s a pri - pital (laughs). There’d still be a certain amount vate estate. There’s private houses up the (of people) about but a certain amount has with how Castletown Road but they built houses behind drifted. My dad has always said that he much we them so the drainage was all blocked and the wouldn’t recognise Belfast, that it has changed water was going up the people’s back gardens do much and so different. He’d be up and down all know and they (the contractors) wouldn’t budge on it, to it a lot now. He always says it killed a lot of each but we won on that one. They put a road in his family ties because you know we’d only be with drainage so we were delighted but that was able to visit at certain times so it killed a kind other a struggle, you know. Just when it was being of a bond with how much we all know each done other councillors were all kind of jumping other really. I suppose polite visits are different really. on the bandwagon, “We supported this mo - from being in and out all the time. We wouldn’t tion,” (laughs) have been up when there was school; it was more seasonal holidays and stuff like that. Unfortunately in November 2007 another member of my Cumann was co-opted for me Dundalk is now our home, but Mark would as I didn’t feel I could keep it going. I was going have went up and down over the years. He still through divorce and stuff and it all became too has close friends up there. He’s still friends with much. If you’re having a bad day, and I was on Cathy and Sinead McIlvenna. He goes up a lot

5 Sinn Féin local party meetings. INTERVIEWS to them. His wife is from Belfast too, but she’s Her and Mark bought a house and she moved living here and she even thinks its home now down with him. That was in 1996 so she’s liv - too. She moved down when she was pregnant. ing here a good while now. INTERVIEWS

My grandfather lived in the old mill houses and I joined all the old men used to sit out the back on an upturned bucket. They were all fishermen and Cumann Mary a lot of them would be protestants and coming up to the 12th July they wouldn’t talk to each na mBán other. I can remember talking to my grandfa - when I Duffy ther about it and saying, “Why aren’t they talk - ing to you grandfather?” He was a great man was about born, england, 1934 too, and him saying, “Oh the 12th July they 19 or so don’t talk to you.” “Will they be alright after - ward?” “Yeah they’ll be alright afterward.” and all I Then they used to be out with their buckets and ’m 75. I was born in away fishing and all. can Hull in Yorkshire remember but was brought I used to go fishing with my grandfather and all these protestant men would sit there on the is that I home to Armagh bank with my grandfather. He’d be sitting with was because of the war. his pipe and I used to say, “Granddad give me a puff of your pipe,” and he used to give me a MIy mother was from out always puff of his pipe. (laughs) Great man; the vision going with Portadown Road (in that was there. I can remember that. Armagh) and my father parcels. My father was a catholic and my mother was a was from Millford. I protestant and I think that’s why they went remember it was a very away (to England). It wasn’t the thing to do in them days. My mother’s father was a presbyte - staunch Protestant area. I rian. I didn’t like him. He was married a second used to play with two time and I liked her but I never liked him; there other girls but on the 11th was always something there. July I would have been We went to school for a while (in Armagh) and told, “You keep away from then my father joined the (Irish) army and we came up here (to Dundalk). We’d no money, here tomorrow.” we’d never any money.

We went to school here but I spent an awful long time in Armagh. I had this pull and I was always going back to Armagh, always going back. I’d have six weeks holidays and I’d spend three weeks with my catholic grandmother and three weeks with my grandfather and his sec - ond wife. I loved being in my catholic grand - mother’s house because they were republican and all the rest of it. When you went to their (protestant grandparents’) house they had (pho - tos of) the Queen and everything up and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like my grandfather and when he died I turned my back because it was all a big protestant funeral. I remember I was minding my cousin’s children and when he was coming down I turned away. I think he gave my INTERVIEWS mother a hard time. Even to this day all I have bridge) and have a smoke, these fellows would left is protestants up in Armagh so I don’t go up have come out of nowhere and we didn’t talk there. I don’t bother with them now. Then I to them and we’d just hand over the stuff to started work in the factory and I joined them. “Mary have you got this stuff for us?” Cumann na mBán when I was about 19 or so. and we’d hand it over and never asked what was in it or whatever. We did a lot of that. In Cumann na mBán you wouldn’t be going out doing anything but you would be helping I always remember when I’d come home for the the fellows. I’d be taking them to a safe house. weekends (unexpectedly) the fellows would run Like our house was a safe house. I did a lot of out the back door and Dad would go out and meeting fellows on the run; you’d to be at such they’d be hiding and he’d say, “It’s ok, she’s in They’s be in and such a corner on the street and two fellows Cumann na mBán.” I remember Cleaky would come along. One would walk away and Clarke 1, I remember that name. I think he’s the house then the fellow who was left you would go off dead now. He’d be in the house and so would and my with. I’d have to link him like he was my whatever crowd he went about with. They’d be boyfriend. I used to walk him down the Navvy in the house and my father with the big drums father with Bank and down to our house because our (of explosives). Jesus they could have blown the house, where I lived with my mother and father, place up. They’d take them away up in the the big that was a safe house. I don’t know how many mountains or wherever they were. My dad used drums (of went through there. I’d have met them off the to open the top window and he knew what time train. They’d be stood at the station, he’d be it was meant to go off and he used to say, “The explosives). carrying a newspaper and he’d say, “Mary?” feckers wouldn’t wait.” They were supposed to Jesus thjey and I’d say, “Yes,” and I’d walk him through all wave and he’d say, “I heard it,” and, “the feck - the side streets, get him down to the Navvy ers wouldn’t wait, I’ll get them when they come could have Bank and down to our house. I’d say to them, home because of the timers. They’ll fecking “I have to link you,” and it used to worry me blow themselves up.” That’s all he was ever blown the sometimes. I used to say, “God he’s not good worried about. I can remember him telling me place up. looking,” or, “Oh he’s nice; I’ll link him.” that a lot of them would be hurt when they (laughs) No I’d link them all and take them came back and he used to take them up to down into our house, they’d maybe be there Louth (village) to the nuns. Have you ever two days or three nights or whatever. The next heard of Sister Ita? She’s dead now but he used thing maybe a car would come down late at to take them up to her. They didn’t stay but night and away they’d go. I did a lot of that. I she’d bandage them up and send them back met fellows and like I always say, not one - and home. They would come and stay in our house I didn’t know them from Adam - ever caused then. He used to take different fellows up to a me a problem and never once did they put their good doctor he knew. He’d (doctor) never say a hands on me, never once, always respect. I don’t word and he’d see to them or whatever. We think I’d do it now; go and meet a strange fel - used to have loads of guns in the house. My fa - low and walk down the Navvy Bank with him. ther was always sitting fixing guns, and then we’d a great big garden and a wall that was at Those days you didn’t have your patrol cars fly - the sea at the water’s edge. I remember him over ing around so you could go around at night on the wall at the sea shooting the guns. I remem - your bike jukeing and dodging. I never knew ber saying, “Dad are you going to shoot some - what I was carrying. My dad always said to me, body?” And he used to say, “There’s nobody “Mary what you don’t know won’t hurt you.” out there only birds,” and then the guns would We’d be told to fill up our bikes in the dark and be collected and all put away. go away out by Ravensdale and sit on the bridge. The fellows must have been told that we I was never caught, whatever we would be were coming out with stuff to them. They’d doing. I got away (with it) for a good few years have been running about out there somewhere. before I ever got married or before the guards We smoked then so we used to stand (at the could cop on. I remember getting off the

1 A republican from Ardoyne, Belfast. INTERVIEWS

Newry bus once; I would have gone up and Cumann na mBán and they never allowed me. down to Newry a lot and they (the guards) came down to the house and they said, “You I used to go about with four girls and they never were on the Newry bus last night.” And I said, ever knew what I was doing, never, never. I “I wasn’t on the Newry bus. I wasn’t any - would never tell them. I was crafty. I would where.” I used to have long hair and I used to never tell anybody anything; you used to never do different things to it to trick them, putting it know what I was doing. up and wearing a beret or something. They came down to the house, the (Special) Branch, I was married (to Frank) in 1959. I went on to and one came in and he was hassling me. I was England then because he was in the British home at dinner time for my dinner and he was army you see. He’d to run away. Frank was I sused to go hassling me and my father just turned around from Dundalk. His father died and his mother to him, one to one and he said, “Touch our died three weeks after and left them, eight of about with Mary and I will shoot you myself.” I was going, them, and the granny was rearing them and she four girls and “Dad!” He said, “One to one,” it was his word couldn’t manage them. Seán ran away and against his and my father said, “I’ll f-ing shoot joined the (British) army and then Frank joined they never you.” They never bothered me after that. the (British) army when he was 15 instead of ever knew 16. Seán was killed in Germany. Seán was a hit We had loads of support and you could get and run (accident) in Germany and there’s a big what I was around easily because they didn’t have the pa - story behind that. We go out to see his grave in doing, never, trol cars. I can remember a time, probably years Germany. He’s in a military grave and Frank and years later, I was at a funeral with Madge (my husband), he was in Germany and I went never. I Hand, a girl from Dundalk. She was a great re - over to England for two weeks holidays and publican. We were out at some funeral out in stayed for 22 years! would never St Patrick’s. We were just standing talking and tell them. I I walked away and she came running after me Frank and I went over to Wycome, in South and says, “Quick, somebody wants to meet London, Buckinghamshire. We got a house and was crafty. I you.” And I said, “Who?” And I remember this he joined Sinn Fein and then it started. We’d a would never old man came over to me and he said, “You bad time then. I remember them coming to raid used to bring me out guns.” And I was looking us and I remember them saying to us, “What’s tell anybody at him and I said, “Did I?” I couldn’t remem - your neighbours going to think of youse now ber. I could write books. when we tell them?” I said, “We live in a re - anything; spectable area. I don’t know what you’re going you used to When fellows would be caught, like there was to say to them. You never found anything any - plenty of them caught and all then, I can re - way.” They used to take out stupid things like never know member myself and Kathleen O’Neill going up bags of junk kids stuff and all; real stupid what I was to the guards barracks and asking what did they things. I used to be always giving out to them need, like cigarettes or whatever. And Kathleen because they had their guns. I used to say, doing. used to get them for them, wherever she got “What are you looking for in here anyway? Are them, and we used to bring them up and stand you looking for guns?” And they used to say, there and say to the guards, “You’re not going “Hmm we’re looking for guns.” And I used to to give them to them. You’re going to keep say, “Well the only guns here, you have them.” them yourselves. We want to know that they They’d take Frank upstairs, up to the bedroom, are getting them.” And away they would go and and they’d put me into the front room with the come back and say, “They’ve got their stuff. children and they wouldn’t let me out and I’d They’ve got it.” always want out to see what they were doing upstairs because I was afraid they’d be battering It started to get a bit dodgy just before I went to Frank. I remember this one time this policeman England. I probably would have been caught in standing at the bottom of the stairs so I couldn’t the end. I wasn’t allowed to walk in parades or get out of the front room so I came out of the anything, I used to say, “Let me walk in the pa - front room and he was saying, “Get back in rades,” and they’d say, no, because I was in there, get back in there,” and I was saying, “I INTERVIEWS have to go to the toilet, I have to go to the toi - myself and the four kids were in the bedroom let.” He said, “Get up there,” and I ran upstairs with this policewoman and I called her for and into the bedroom and Frank was sitting on everything because she was pulling the place the bottom of the bed and I was saying, “Are apart. I was going, “You’re a right bitch aren’t they hitting you?” And he said. “No.” They you. Do you love your job? Do you love your were pulling everything out. They were pulling job? Look at the witch. Is that what you do for all my clothes out of the drawers and I was say - money?” And she’d be talking and I’d be going ing, “Excuse me. Get out of my clothes,” and (to the children), “Don’t answer her. Don’t “you leave everything back the way you found speak to her. Look at what she’s doing in our it in this house.” house.” Then she’d pull everything down. She’d pull the mattresses off the bed and then I’d go They’d be there for hours. They’d come early in down and say, “Now you can start making the morning, I can remember them taking them beds and putting everything back where Frank out 2 when everybody would be going to you found it.” There would be a policeman work. The neighbours never passed any re - standing out in the hall and one other one in marks to us. They’d take him out and I’d be the bedroom because they wouldn’t let you out there and I’d be shouting, “Don’t worry Frank to Frank. It was horrible. They were horrible. I’ll be on to our solicitor.” We had no solicitor And their dogs; they came into the house and but I’d be shouting, “I’ll be on to our solicitor.” we had a dog and they’d make a laugh of our They’d take him out and he’d be away for hours dog. She was a bitch dog, and I used to go, and when he’d come back I’d ask what hap - “Our dog wouldn’t even look at your dog.” Big pened and he’d say, “They kicked the hell out Alsatians or whatever they were. They used to They’d of me.” (holds onto herself at this point) They have the Hoover out, all apart and spread paper take him hit him where it wouldn’t show; they did that down over the room and I used to say, “You’ll on him. That would go on for years and then not get anything in there but dirt.” Yeah, it was out and when the Birmingham bombing, oh, they’d terrible. he’d be drive by early in the morning. Our street was on a big hill so all the cars were parked on the Do you remember Annie Maguire 6? Well that away for hill, houses here and houses there. They made was the time and I thought they were going to a relief park where you could park your cars do that on us because they were always threat - hours and down the back and the police used to come up ening us; always. It was going on for years. I’d when he’d that wee road. It was only a wee dust path and say Frances was twelve, Brendan was eleven, they would park all their vans and cars and Irene was ten and Siobhan was five and they come back their dogs and they’d come up (to our house). I (Police) said, “We’re going up to the school. I’d ask used to run and tell Frank to get on him 3. I’d We’re going to let them know what kind of a run down and I’d open the door and I’d say, house this is.” Threatening us. That’s when I what “Well?” And they’d say, “We’re here to search said to Frank, “I’m going. I’m definitely going.” your house.” And I would say, “I want to see happened your ID.” And then I’d say, “Francie, Z Cars 4 We had this priest and he was a great republi - and he’d are here,” and he’d come running down the can. We used to hold our Sinn Féin meetings stairs. They had to come in then and they’d in his house. He was a great republican. I met say, “They start pulling everything out on us and they’d go him and I said it to him, “I’m going to have to kicked the away with these bags, even bags of rubbish. get out.” I said to him, “What do you think?” You’d be boiling 5. It was getting really bad then, And he said, “Mary go now. Go right now.” I hell out of real bad. They used to say, “We’ll get you two; said, “I’m taking my kids because they are me”. we’ll get you.” threatening to go to the school on us.” And he said, “Get out Mary. Go straight away.” So I I was bold then and it didn’t bother me. I used threw things into bags. to put on all these republican songs and I’d whack it (volume) up and I’d go, “Listen to When I came home I had nothing. I had four that.” I always used to say that I would never, kids and down the Coastguards. We left a lovely never speak to them and I remember one day house in England and came home and had no

2 Arresting. 3 Get dressed. 4 A popular BBC police drama series broadcast in the 1960s and 1970s. 5 raging 6 Annie Maguire and other members of her family (later known as the Maguire Seven) were wrongfully convicted in the 1970s of handling explosives found during in - vestigations into a bombing in Guildford. They later had their convictions quashed (1991) when they were declared unsafe but they had already served their time in prison. The court of Appeal held that members of the London Metropolitan Police had beaten some of the Seven into confessing to the crimes and withheld informa - tion that would have cleared them in the original trial. INTERVIEWS

toilet, a toilet outside, and an old range 7. I put thing. They walked away and left the front door the children to school and then we went out to lying open. When Frank got home the front live in Giles Quay because my father had died door was lying open. When I by then. My mother was going crackers when I walked in with four kids and I said, “I can’t Often times I used to sit and think, when Frank came stand this,” so this fellow said, “I’ve a caravan was still in England and we were muddling home I in Giles Quay. Get up and get out there,” and I along in the caravan and everything else, have went out to Giles Quay in the middle of winter, I done right? Have I done right here with the had not one around, and we lived there for three kids and all? But I did because the kids loved it. nothing. months. Then Frank’s sister got us a house in They were all reared to the Irish way and they’d Mary Street South; this kip that we went into. go to school and they’d come home and they’d I put the children to school; three went to col - say, “Teacher said we’re not Irish” and I used lege, the Tech; Siobhan went to the convent. to say, “Go back and tell teacher I said you are They were battered because they’d English ac - Irish,” and they’d come home the next day and cents on them. They used to come home and say, “no teacher said we’re not Irish,” and I say, “They’re hitting us,” and all. They used to used to say, “but your name is Duffy, Frances batter Brendan. They used to say, “Get you out Mary Bridget Duffy, now how Irish can you of here,” because of the English accent and all get? You tell her that, yeah?” You’re not Irish. this. I remember saying, “I’ll go up to see who’s (laughs) hitting you.” Then I bought them bicycles, the three of them, and they (others in the school) used to take the valves out and throw them I was twelve months at home (in Dundalk) away on them and then they had to walk home. when Frank came home. Frank’s sister got us a They walked from the coastguards, from the house a few streets from her, and we went into Tech the whole way up here. Then they sort of it when Frank came home. We’d no money. It settled in. was depressing. I remember Frank and I were sleeping on the living room floor because the When I came here Frank was still living in Eng - bedrooms, there was collie wobbles and every - land and I was here with the kids. I used to go thing and I brought my poor kids home to that. to Kitty Adams because we’d no phone or any - No way of washing clothes or anything for thing, to phone Frank, or to get phone calls. them; it was terrible. But the first time I went She’d send me down a message, “Frank’s phon - out the door there was this big box of groceries ing tonight at eight o’clock,” and I would go up and I was going, “Who have they come from?” at eight. Then he was arrested. I think it was Frank’s sister had them sent round; vegetables. Paddington Green they took him to. I was get - Never short of money, whatever you want. All ting fed up with that and thinking, “I don’t I wanted was a smoke. As long as I had a ciga - know whether I am coming or going.” You rette that was that. I was a very independent know? “Should I be here or should I be over girl. I would have gone through a wall and no - there?” Jimmy Reilly, he was a good republican body would ever stop me. I’d go on and I used over there, and he used to be always in contact to say, “You’ll never be this down; you go on.” with me when Frank (was arrested) and he’d come on the phone, “He’s in but we’re looking We might have been there for about eight or after him and I’ll let you know,” and I often nine months and then Fra Browne called one used to say, “I think I’ll come back Jimmy. I’ll night to say he had got us a house in Muirhev - go over on my own first of all.” And he used to namore. I said, “Where?” I couldn’t even pro - say, “Don’t you come back. Don’t you come nounce the place. We came up here and we got back.” So I didn’t ever go back and I remember this house and we were all delighted then. I re - one time when Frank got out (of the police sta - member Frank had been down to the dole and tion) he said when he was in there, in Padding - he came back and he’d no money. He handed ton Green, they’d gone down to High Wycome me this slip for a bag of turf and I flung it at and got in to the house and went through every - him and I said, “You can go back and tell them

7 Stove. INTERVIEWS what to do with a bag of turf. We’ve no was to know at the time, so there you go; that’s money.” It was my mother and Frank’s sister life. Walked around the place with Arthur Mor - that kept us and then, ah yeah, this other great gan 8, walked all around the place canvassing I would republican Gerry. He worked on the council. with Arthur. I loved it, absolutely loved it and never do it He’s dead now. I can’t think of his name. He to this day I would say I’m still a republican and came to our back door one day and he said to will always be. At the time of the hunger strike again. You Frank, “Are you working?” Frank said no, he I stood at Oriel Park in the rain with the blanket didn’t know wasn’t and Gerry said, “Get on the council. I’m around me. I remember doing that, yeah. I did getting you on the council.” Frank got onto the all sorts of crazy things but I enjoyed it. what you council and we were grand then. We’d hard times too. Frances, my daughter, were doing. Then we started work in Sinn Féin. I stood for died of breast cancer and Kevin dropped dead You were election myself, but I was only home (from with a virus infection he picked up in Mexico. England). They just threw me right into it and That was two of them (children dead) and I’ve just taking left me to it. If I had of been home longer and only three left; two in Australia and Siobhan in every day say working for Sinn Féin I know I would have England. done it (get elected). I got about three hundred as it came votes. People knew me as Mary Hughes be - We knew so many people and they were good, cause that was my maiden name, and they were definitely they were good. Dundalk had and saying afterwards (after the election) that it was changed (from the time we had previously lived whatever the Duffy (my name on the election papers) that there) but yet we always got the support up put them off. They would always ask would I here. Elections and all, we worked hard and I happened not stand (for election) again but I would say, used to do the tables (at elections) over there in you rolled “No, I’m not doing it again.” But I loved it. St Joseph’s. I could tell everybody coming up the pathway and we had all the gypsies coming along with Frank stood and he got elected. Frank was a up. We had to go in with them (to the polling it and good councillor. We did some good work here. station) because they couldn’t read and we’d And the poorer you were the harder he worked help all of them. I’d have them all marked off hoped for for you. He was the only one going in (to the because I knew them all. We knew everyone of Council) on a bike and they used to laugh at our supporters and I’d say even to this day. the best. him, the other councillors, “Look at you on your bike.” I used to say, “You never mind I would love for Kitty Adams and me to get to - them; you’re working for the people.” We’d a gether. I can’t remember if she was in Cumann great cumann going here. We sold four or five na mBán but she was a great friend of my fa - hundred papers a week. I used to stand at the ther’s too. She was from the north and he old shopping centre, myself and John Grimes. looked up at anybody from the north. I can re - He’d do the front door and I’d do the back door member going to her door with messages. I and we got rid of loads of papers. We did that would love to meet and say to her, “Kitty what every Friday night. I loved it. I don’t know if I’d were we at in those days? What were we talking ever do that again. about?” But I don’t know what way she thinks now. We’d a great cumann here, the Duffy/Downey Cumann and we worked hard; we really did. I would never do it again. You didn’t know The more we got on the more the cumann got what you were (doing). You were just taking on; yeah, we did that. I enjoyed it. Oh I loved every day as it came and whatever happened it; I absolutely loved it. I knew everybody there you rolled along with it and hoped for the best.

8 Sinn Féin TD for Louth. INTERVIEWS

In terms of my family being republican, my grandfather had done time in prison and my fa - ther’s uncle, Paddy Casey, left the John Boyle Paddy O’Reilly hall in the middle of the town in 1916 to get to Dublin (to the Rising), him and Pete Clifford, Tommy Clifford; the majority were all Agnew from this area. He (Paddy Casey) ended up in Frongoch prison in during the War of born dundalk, 1955 Independence and when they were released he came home but there was nothing in the town for them so he went to England. That was the last the granddad ever heard of him. He sent hen you came out our home a photo. I have it in the house. He mar - It was after house on the road ried a girl called Daisy over there then he just there was an Easter disappeared off the face of the earth and was Bloody never heard of again. My immediate family Sunday Lily. ‘Honour were not republican; they were sympathetic. dead’, they painted it They weren’t active; my da never even men - that tioned it, he sort of avoided it. He was that type eWvery year at the corner of Philip Street recruitment of man. Some say he was involved somewhere and at the other end of Philip Street down the line; you wouldn’t know. became there was writing on the wall demanding What influenced me was that in 1968 and 1969 unreal; the release of republican prisoners and people started streaming out of the North, they were in between that was the school. So you refugees they called them. People put them up here in the Clans Hall and in caravans round coming couldn’t pass that road without walking our corner and in the field. You started asking, from into something. The school, there was ‘What’s going on?’ I was born in 1955 so at this good teachers, but in them days it was time I was 13 or 14 years old. I started asking everywhere why these people were here. Why they were to join 1798 they were teaching us about; Wolfe being burnt out and that. Around that time the Tone and Robert Emmett and all them next thing was internment and there were ‘Re - because lease the Prisoners’ rallies here in the town and boys, Boulavogue and Father Murphy. in the square and Kevin Gray, Peter Duffy and that was The teachings changed for the 50th Pearce McGeough’s father used to stand up just a Anniversary of the Easter Rising and and publicly ask people to join the IRA; up on the platform. I was about 16 years old and a sickener. they taught about the Post Office and couple of us went over and they told us to James Connolly, so in 1966 these boys come back in a year because we were too young. We wangled our way in because we (Connolly et al) became heroes. There knew a boy who was involved and he got us were parades. They took old Pete into the Fianna 1 and in them days in wasn’t like Clifford from our street who was the old boys scouts Fianna, it was bomber jack - ets and jeans. It was after that involved in 1916 up to the school to raise recruitment became unreal; they were coming the tricolour up and then everyone was from everywhere to join because that was just a sickener. So I got involved, the usual, and got sent home; it was a free day. trained out in the mountains. This was around 1972. There really wasn’t much going on. Mar - tin Meehan 2 was involved in the gun battles but that came to a halt because the Guards started

1 Youth wing of the IRA. 2 Senior IRA man from Ardoyne in Belfast, now deceased. INTERVIEWS

lifting them. Up to that they had a free run. Be - There was about 20 men on hunger strike then, fore that the Guards didn’t bother. The boys 3 maybe in two groups of ten. Something like would be back in the town before the Brits had that; so that was the end of that. stopped firing; you know that type of thing. After the riot they put ten (prison) guards on Steven Nordone was with me at the time; each end of the wing and I think they are still Steven did 22 years in England and is now liv - there. There was a boy there I was at school ing in Sweden. In 1973 we knew there were a with, he was a guard. In them days there were few guns up in the Avenue Road in a customs no visits: so he went down to see my mother man’s house, so we went up to rob them and I and told her not to be worrying – we were dead was caught. I got three years for that in Moun - on. They were probably only doing their jobs. tjoy (Prison) first and then they moved me to In terms of how my family felt about me being Portlaoise (Prison). I didn’t know what was in prison they used to say, “At least I know ahead of me going to jail. It was the fear of the where you are.” (laughs). unknown but once you got into the republican wings everybody pulled round you and helped I got out in the summer of 1976. It was brilliant. you out, checking you were alright. You never It was a sunny one; a swelter. The three years wanted for anything. As usual in prison there’s didn’t teach me any lessons though. I was still always protests and the conditions were unreal. floating about, still operating and coming into They were locking us on the wings and trying March 1977 in an incident in Carlingford We were to close us down. There were 4 wings, A, B, C, Lough I got caught again. We were like the IRA arrested and D and they would try to lock each individ - Navy. (laughs) We were on a mission in a boat ual wing. Things were getting bad so we de - and we were stuck in the middle of a gun battle and taken cided to have a riot over the conditions. We let with the boys 4 (IRA) on one side firing at the onto the loose; took all the doors off. You could take the Brits and we were in the middle. We were doors off with a stick or something, you know caught with gear 5 even though we tried to get docks and if you hit it on the jam (of the door), because rid of it over the boat, getting rid of as much as they were old wooden doors with the spy hole. we could. There were boys (IRA) waiting on the the And then the riot squad came in but everything banks just in case something went wrong and commandos calmed down and we thought we got away with everything fucking went wrong; the whole thing it. It was about 12 o’clock that night, remember went pear shaped. hammered there were no doors on, it was like a hotel, and us. There then we heard the riot squad coming in again. We were arrested and taken onto the docks and This time when they’d gone we were left with the commandos hammered us. There was heli - was only what we were standing in; they cleaned the copters and all there and they kicked the lamps helicopters wing, took everything, beds etc. The only thing out of us. Then to Bessbrook 6 and more beat - left was what you were wearing which was a ings from there to the Crum 7. The Brits ham - and all pair of jeans and a t-shirt. We thought we had mered us and then the cops hammered us; it got away with it (laughs). There was thousands was nearly a relief to get to the Crum. As they there and of pounds worth of damage. were lifting us I said to the boys, take a deep they kicked breath because it’s your last. (laughs) I was ar - There was brutality at this time and that was the rested with Arthur Morgan, Peter Dullaghan, the lamps cause of the riot. They used to come in at six or Gerry Murphy and Gerry Bradley. out of us. seven o’clock in the morning and we wouldn’t conform so they used to strip us, pull the clothes The Crum was the same as the other prisons 8; off you. Then the usual happened and a load of same kip. I was down on my own and Big Han - you would end up on the hunger strike in nah 9 the IRA spy, we didn’t know he was a spy protest. In them days (this was 1975) after 22 then, he mightn’t even have been one then, but days on hunger strike you were carted off to the he was decent. He came up and took me out hospital. They came in to the wing and and put me in with Gerry Brophy and boys stretchered them out (those on hunger strike). from the New Lodge. The blanket protest 10 was

3 IRA volunteers. 4 The IRA. 5 Explosives. 6 British Army base at Bessbrook in South Armagh. 7 The Crumlin Road Prison in Belfast. 8 Mountjoy and Portlaoise. 9 John Hanna, a senior prison officer, was convicted of passing on information to the IRA. 10 The blanket protest began in September 1976 when republican prisoners refused to wear the prison uniform – under new legislation introduced on the 1 March 1976. They were then held naked in their cells and work a blanket. INTERVIEWS on in B-wing and Jimmy Duff, Joe Maguire tried to get you to stand at the door at night, and Fra McCann were there. Roy Mason was lock up, it was a whole different regime. They Secretary of State for ‘Northern Ireland’ at the were the law and that was it. They punished time. When the prison started filling they took you by losing (removing the privilege of) parcels a load of men to the H-Blocks 11 . etc if you stepped out of line; you know that oul thing. I was on remand from March 1977 to Decem - ber 1978 when we were sentenced; that’s 21 Going back to the H-Blocks after sentencing months on remand. I had myself sort of con - they took us up to the reception and told us to vinced that I would never see daylight again, I wear the gear 14 . We said we’re not wearing the was 22 when I went in and I thought if I get a gear so we had to strip off for the screws and The 20 year sentence I’ll be 40 odd when I get out. they took us over in the van in the nude to the I got sentenced in December for 16 years, Blocks in the middle of December, gave us a protesting which was a relief. towel and locked us up. We said we’re not Blocks wearing the gear and that was it and they tried In the Crum they were protesting too. From the to scare us. The protesting Blocks were totally were minute you go into jail someone is protesting. different (from being there on remand). When When you were on remand you had parcels but you went in you sensed electric fear. It was totally then these guys 12 came in and say, “We’re start - quiet and I thought, ‘Jesus what have I let my - different. ing protesting,” instead of leaving us alone to self in for here.’ I didn’t know what to expect. I enjoy ourselves for a while because you are ended up in H4, the ‘hardcore wing’, just before When you going to get 16 years. (laughs) They always have the forced washes and then they moved us up went in to fucking protest. (laughs) They just can’t sit to H 6. still. It was the Sinn Fein ones that came in and you sensed started a massive protest and then all of them There was word going round that there was got out on bail. (laughs) It’s true. Same in Port - going to be forced washes and that the first electric laoise; there was about 20 Dubs in and they thing to do was resist but the boys over in H3 fear. It was would be only in for three months and they got hammered and the Dark 15 sent word round were the worst for starting the protests. They to resist passively. So you’d be standing in your quiet and I start something and then they would get out cell there at the bottom of the wing and there thought, and we would be left high and dry. would be ten done before you, next thing the door would open and your feet wouldn’t hit the ‘Jesus We had a fair idea what was going on on the ground. You’d be dragged down the wing to the what have blanket protest because we were moved up to sinks and toilets and the doctor Emerson would the H-Blocks for a while before sentencing. We look at your hair and say, “Shave it,” because I let myself were still on remand and we were meeting the of the lice. (laughs) I was only in jail a week boys on visits and smuggling the tobacco to when I got my first wash; there were no lice be - in for them. Before the dirt (the do wash/dirty cause I was only in. here’. protest) we used to meet the boys (IRA); they were clean and everything then but after that, They left us like muppets; shaved half our Jesus it was desperate, you could smell them. heads then they’d take us over and put you in Ah Jesus here, sometimes you seen the boys the bath. I remember the screw, Reggie Beag, who weren’t on the protest 13 and they were a he stuck me under and said to me, “You killed wee bit ashamed. We were all in it together and my mate.” I just wouldn’t give up. I would just always hearing rumours that it (the protest) was lie there and another screw pulled him off me. going to end. They got this white stuff and painted it all over us. It was all part of it. The difference between the Crum and the Blocks was that they (the prison authorities) During the day all you did was walk the length tried to run the Blocks like a real prison. The of the cell; morning, noon and night. Just dan - screws were totally on top all the time. They dered up and down. Put a blanket on the

11 The H-Blocks, Maze Prison/Long Kesh outside , Co Antrim was the main prison for holding male political prisoners throughout the conflict. 12 Other republican prisoners. 13 They were wearing the prison uniform and abiding by the prison rules. 14 Prison uniform. 15 Brendan Hughes, Officer Commanding (OC) the republican prisoners. INTERVIEWS

ground to keep the cold from your feet. Talk to wee lad beside us whose girlfriend blew him out your mates out the window. Someone might and we got word down that he was very quiet come back from a visit with a bit of so we had to get him going, so me and Scoby sceal/news/craic keeping you informed of Carey 18 did; two good men to get anyone going. what was going on. (laughs)

Bobby Sands died at 1.17am but we never When Bobby was elected we thought this is it. heard until 1 o’clock the next day. We were iso - Everybody was of the same opinion; she lated at the back. It was the priest that came in, (Thatcher) can’t let one of her own die, she’s Fr. Toner, came into the Dark and the next going to compromise, we’ll get something and thing it came down the pipes 16 , “Fuair Roibeard this will end once and for all. But she wasn’t for bás’ and that was an awful kick I swear. I just turning; not at all. Then Frank (Hughes), he crawled into the corner in the cell and you went (died). What was strange was, when would swear someone give you a kick in the Bobby Sands died it was like getting a kick in stomach but you would think we would have the stomach, when Frank died it wasn’t as bad. heard (about his death), that even a screw When Raymie (McCreesh) and Patsy (O’Hara) would have told us. died it was nothing; it was like conversing. There were two boys talking about football out You didn’t think the protest was going to go on of the window and within a minute the football so long. You would say to yourself this has to conversation would be back; we were becoming stop. Even when (Cardinal) Tomas O’Fiaich fucking hard, cruel, immune to it all. From the came in everyone was clinging on to there being feeling from Bobby dying to Mickey Devine, something (in terms of a resolution to the you were waiting for it every morning waiting protest). There were rumours that there was for someone dying, cruel. We were becoming movement. immune to everything; a law onto ourselves.

I wasn’t disappointed after the first hunger The elections were taking place in the South strike. They gave us a document when it ended and I was put forward as a candidate for TD. From the and there was nothing in it and everything in it, The comm was read out in the wing about who we’d no clothes which is what Bobby was try - the candidates were. When I was elected Pat feeling from ing to wangle just to get us out of the cells and McGeown had a radio and we were just across Bobby get us washed. If we would have got the clothes from him and it was on the news that evening we could have operated from a position of and he says, “Fuair an iarracht sin an cuid is dying to strength. I said to myself, ‘What are we looking mo votai sa contae” (that effort over there got for, a victory or a solution?’ In 1973 17 we always the most votes of anyone in the County), and Mickey said it’s a solution. Pinta McKnight taunted the screws. He would Devine, you shout, “Get that IRA man an elected represen - In terms of the camaraderie through the forced tative.” He couldn’t have made it any worse for were washes and beatings and that I have always me; I got more beatings because of him. waiting for said. “I’ve been in better places but not with bet - (laughs) The screws were ripping it because an ter people.”. Everyone was for everyone. It was IRA man was elected. They got me back it every like your family; even people thought more of though on the wing shifts. They used to say, their mates than they did their own brother or “Leave that Free State bastard to the last,” and morning sister. It developed into that. You would have it was terrible. At least when you’re first you’re waiting for more loyalty to your cellmate or the boy next over and done. On the wing shifts they put a door who was after getting a beating. They kept mirror on the floor down at the toilets and you someone the place going with the classes and that. There would hope they would start at your end to get dying, was never a dull moment. There were always you away first. They would open the cell, grab people telling stories. If you got word that you, drag you down the wing, squat you over cruel. someone was depressed you would pull them the mirror, sometimes they would stick their out of the depression on the quiet. There was a hands in your mouth to search you, then you

16 Prisoner spoke on the heating pipes that ran between the cells. 17 During the hunger strike in Portlaoise. 18 Cellmate. INTERVIEWS were dragged to the other wing. If it was winter down where I was scalded, didn’t give me any - you could be waiting the whole day to get your thing for it, but the screws nailed me for it on blanket. They would leave you standing freez - the way back in the big cell. They dragged me ing and there was the odd sneaky screw who down it; the boys heard and knew I was getting would stick the boot in to you or spread-eagle fucking tanked. They then carted me back to you against the wall; face the wall, give you one my own cell; I was in bits. I was lying in a heap (punch) on the ribs or a slap on the back of the in the corner for about an hour and Tommy head. But you got used to it, you became hard Gorman shouts up, “Is he alright? What’s up?” as nails, hardcore from H4. (laughs) I said, “I’m going to no more fucking doctors. Up yours.” Sure all you can do is laugh. I gave it a brave bit of thought (about joining the hunger strike) but I knew I couldn’t go Apparently a TD has a vote, if a Senator gets through with it. I seen the boys in Portlaoise three or four TD votes he gets into the Senate. being carted out on stretchers and that put me They were sending me correspondence looking off; a protest, yes, hunger strike, no. I’d be afraid for my vote. There are people dying all round of letting the troops down; like a weak link, us and all they were interested in was getting which isn’t true but I’d rather not even attempt my vote. They asked me to vote for them. I and collapse. It’s a big major decision. You have should have asked the governor! There was an - to be 100% and know what you are at. other election and that was that over 21 ; it was like a millstone around my neck. (laughs) So I get I got correspondence from the Dáil and I’d have to see the to read it and give it back 19 and I don’t know On 3rd October (1981) the hunger strike ended. what they done with it then. I got this letter ad - We all knew it had to come to a halt and Fr. governor dressed to me at the Kesh saying I had to attend Faul getting to the families 22 was some tactic. Dáil Éireann on the Monday so I asked to see He got to the right ones and you can’t blame and say, the governor. They asked me what for and I him either; he was a ‘man of God’. We knew “Here, I said, “Never mind.” I was feeling cocky. we were fucked. We got nothing 23 . After the (laughs) They thought there must be something first one Pat McGeown said, “Lads there’s have to up because I was asking to see the governor and nothing. Don’t be thinking there is. There’s no be at Dáil we normally didn’t. So I get to see the governor documents,” so in that way we were sort of re - and say, “Here, I have to be at Dáil Éireann alistic; we knew. Eventually we got the clothes. Éireann next Monday.” He said, “Get him out of fuck - Our feet were killing us for weeks after getting next ing here.” My feet never hit the floor. I got in a pair of shoes because we were so used to under the white boxes that the monkey suits 20 walking about in our bare feet. Monday.” were in and they were swinging at me and beat - ing me. We started getting everything bit by bit and by summer 1985 all was great and then I got word Do you mind your man, the (prison) orderly, that I was going to Magilligan 24 . You are sup - Carson Craig? People never believe me when I posed to serve your time closer to your home mention his name. He came round one night and I was being moved closer to Derry so there with the supper and he threw a cup of tea over was no sense in that move. I moved there and me. I was burned on the stomach, so I shouts it was the same, no segregation, back to square down the wing and the boys wanted to know one, back to 1973. So the protesting started what happened. I told them that he had just again and I had over a year left to serve. I’m an scalded me. Tommy Gorman tells me to put my unfortunate man. (laughs) In Magilligan you name down for the doctor and tell the doctor couldn’t get equipped with nothing. The loyal - that the orderly did it. It was the worst thing I ists there wouldn’t play ball 25 ; they were no ever did; it got me another beating. (laughs) The good. medic took me out and all the screws were looking because this was a major move because I got released in September 1986 and was sad we never complained. The medic, he took leaving the troops, especially the lads in Mag -

19 To the prison guards. 20 Prison uniforms. 21 He lost his seat as a TD. 22 Fr Faul encouraged families to intervene in the hunger strike by authorising medical intervention once their relative lapsed into a coma. 23 The prisoners won one of their demands, the right to wear their own clothes rather than prison uniform. 24 Magilligan Prison. 25 Wouldn’t agree to jointly protesting for demands. INTERVIEWS

illigan, were only young fellows and they didn’t ferent for me. They (the have the experience and they needed someone to hold the ship, someone like myself, and I’m I’ve never been back to the Blocks 26 . I’ve been British not blowing my own trumpet. The young lads offered (to go on a visit). I nearly went but government) were vulnerable and the screws were exploiting thought, better leave it. It’ll never be out of your them, and they’d do things they shouldn’t. I felt mind but leave it; it’s done its bit. It’s still there said we had glad to get out but sad leaving the troops. You it is. I might go down to the (prison) hospital if need to experience it to know what I’m saying that ever opens. no support and you know what I am saying. That was it. and the Going back home, nothing had changed. Com - Looking back it was great to see the people vot - ing back home here was different than lads who ing for us to get elected. They (the British gov - people were going back to Ballymurphy or Ardoyne ernment) said we had no support and the proved them because the Brits were still there and they were people proved them wrong. Everyone came out going back into the war whereas at least I was and voted. It was some performance. Big Doc 27 wrong. on holidays some would say! It would be tough was the same and still they even let him die. for them because it’s still the same. It was dif - Cruel.

25 The H-Blocks closed in July 2000 with the early release of the remaining political prisoners under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Shortly afterwards Coiste na nIarchimí, the umbrella organisation for republican ex-prisoner groups throughout Ireland, applied for the Long Kesh/Maze Prison site to become a ‘listed building’ due to its historical significance. The application was successful and after years of negotiation it was agreed that a section of the prison site, including the hospital where the hunger strikers died, would be preserved and open to the public. Numerous visits have since taken place. 26 Kieran Doherty who died on hunger strike was elected a TD for Cavan/Monaghan.