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(Belfast Born, Bred And Buttered By Joe Graham)

Chapter Twelve

Buses Floating In the Newry Canal. January 1969

There was one more major march in January 1969, this time in Newry, a town with a massive Catholic population, I mention that because the reason the R.U.C gave for stopping the march when it got to Merchants Quay that day was that it was offensive to the people and could be the cause of trouble so they could not allow it to progress on into Sugar Island.? This angered the marchers greatly for it was obviously a lame excuse to stop the proceedings. The crowds came to a stop just at the old Frontier Cinema and was addressed by various speakers like Kevin Boyle who explained the weakness of the R.U.C’s excuse to stop the march, but more significantly the speakers, quite rightly I felt, pointed out that this was a trap set by the R.U.C. They had hoped the anger of the people would become so blind that they would go on the rampage damaging property in their own town. Had this happened the peaceful protest record of the Civil Rights Movement would have been lost and indeed any violence would have been greatly exploited by the Unionist Puppet Government. The speakers urged the crowd to ignore the goading of the R.U.C at their barricade at the side of the old cinema, and this most people done. But a little crowd of about twenty young men, and Belfast was well and truly represented in that group, moved quietly to the front line, and positioned themselves right along the steel crash barriers the peelers had erected, behind which they stood. What followed was like a scene from the key stone cops.

The R.U.C had parked these grey coloured buses that they had arrived in across Merchants Quay as a make shift barricade, then they stood in front of them, six or seven deep with batons and shields ready. In front of them then was the metal link up gate like partitions, there stood the Orange Militia like an unmovable force. Two bricks were thrown into the mob of R.U.C men and as if by signal the twenty or so young men took a grip of the crash type barrier and surged forward, forcing the peelers against their buses, They had no room to lash out with their batons, they had created their own trap, batons and shields were dropped and they scurried under and over the buses to escape being crushed further with the metal gates. The peelers took off running toward Sugar Island leaving their buses behind them, The twenty or so young men I mentioned earlier must have thought this very inconsiderate of the R.U.C for they had left the road blocked by their deserted buses, so the public spirited young men pushed the vehicles off the road… and into the canal that ran alongside. Newry handled it all with great dignity that day.. but I have to say, it was a Belfast man who spotted the silly position the peelers had placed themselves in and suggested the pushing of the metal gates to spring the trap. With the peelers chastised and humiliated, no damage was done to the town, much as the R.U.C would have liked, and the people dispersed of their own free