(Belfast Born, Bred And Buttered by Joe Graham)

Chapter Fourteen

The Burning Of Skinny Lizzie’s Union Jack

The loyalists usually put out their flags long before the 12^th of July , but “Skinny Lizzie“, Mrs Gilmore, who ran the wee shop on the corner of Hooker and Chatham Streets, put hers out even earlier in 1969. I must point out, although Mrs Gilmore was known as “Skinny Lizzie” she was anything but skinny she was rather a plump woman. Her husband, Billy also had a nickname, “Billy Onion” , due to him having an onion like growth on his forehead, he was a little. timorous, thin man, whom Lizzie was often heard to roar and shout at. And on the day Billy put out the flag, Skinny was there holding the ladder for him and bellowing instructions up to him, They were quite a comical couple, and behind her loudness and loyalist viewpoints, she was quite well liked by her Catholic neighbours and no one would say her little shop was not an asset to the community.

On the first night the flag appeared, a crowd of unionists appeared on the other side of the Crumlin Road to cheer its appearance, and in reality it was very unique, here we had a situation of where all but two or three of the people living around Hooker Street being Catholic and yet the Union Jack was flying high I suppose they did have something to cheer about. There would be little doubt what would happen if a Catholic had put out a Tricolour on their house on other side of the road but there was no chance of that, all the Catholics had by now been chased from their homes in that area. The unionists gathered and sang loyalist songs over in the direction of the flag and Hooker Street, as my granny would say, “The Pope got a roasting” .

To cap it all, two Sterling sub-machine gun carrying R.U.C men were put on twenty four hour duty at “Skinny Lizzie‘s” Corner, right under her Union Jack. The appearance of the R.U.C men seemed to annoy people a bit, and some would comment as they passed them, “It’s a shame you didn’t show such attention to duty at Burntollet when the civil rights people were attacked. “

Catholic people can be very tolerant and if the unionist thought they could goad them into attacking Lizzie or Billy just because they put out that flag they were wrong. A lot did not like it, but the way most people saw it was, ‘well they see it as their flag, and they are an old couple, we should not bother them over their political views‘, and throughout all this “Skinny Lizzie’s” shop trade did not go down a penny, she still received her regular custom for her Catholic neighbours, other than this who else could she have as customers. In truth there were more comments from the Ardoyne people on the guard duty of the two R.U.C men than there was about the Union Jack, and that’s exactly what brought the matter to a head.

A teenager passing the R.U.C on guard duty at “Skinny Lizzie’s” Union Jack made a remark to the peelers, one of them hit him in the mouth with the butt of his sterling sub machine gun. You would have thought a pig had been slaughtered by the amount of blood splattered over the pavement, crowds gathered to banter the action of the peeler. The lad was taken to hospital and all the fuss brought the loyalists out on the other side of the road to cheer and taunt. Someone decided the peelers and the flag would have to go. About three hours later four young men approached Lizzie’s corner, two walking along from Chatham Street and two from along Hooker Street , the two Hooker Street men both lashed out and punched the cops simultaneously, one of the two Chatham Street men were carrying a rope with half a brick tied on one end, the brick end of the rope was thrown up over the flag pole by one, his mate grabbed it coming down and the two pulled on the rope , down came Lizzie’s flag, wall bracket and all. The peelers raised their guns and backed stumblingly out onto the Crumlin Road, and one was bleeding like a pig. Within minutes half a dozen Land Rovers spilled into Hooker street, and for the first time petrol bombs were introduced, dozens flew over the roof tops of Hooker street from the waste ground that was bordered by Hooker street, Chatham street and Butler Street. The R.U.C had taken a step too far in the grievous assault on the young lad. The R.U.C retreated out onto the Crumlin Road, where they had been joined by more Land Rovers the activity there was like an army preparing for an invasion. Of course by now hundreds of men had gathered in Hooker Street and Butler Street, petrol bombs were being made at every gable end, man hole covers in the middle of Hooker street were lifted hopefully that would trap the wheels of the Land Rovers. Hundreds of Loyalists had came from all over the Shankill and Woodvale and mingled freely with the dozens of R.U.C men. A lot of Catholic women and children were moved from their houses on the ‘front line’ round to their family or friends in Glenard for safety. There was a deathly silence, as the two elements stared across at each other. Looking back it reminds me of the Irish story of the brown cow, when a farmer accused the other of stealing his brown cow, he went to his local Chieftain and demanded justice, meanwhile the other farmer went to his local Chieftain and demanded defence, before long two opposing armies faced each across the field in which the cow was grazing. One farmer called the cow to him and as it moved toward him the other farmer called it, the cow went that way to him, they repeated this over and over, much to the amusement of the soldiers. Before long even the soldiers on both sides joined in the fun and holding out handfuls of grass they began calling the cow toward them. What set out to be a battle ended up in everyone having a laugh.. but there was no brown cow in Hooker Street.. there was just a certain oul Union Jack floating about , the flag was waved at the peelers and loyalists then soaked in petrol and set alight. The following week seen the fiercest rioting in Ardoyne, R.U.C men burst into Gilmartin’s Bar and batoned men having a drink. After apparently a Tricolour was spotted through the pubs window by passing Orangemen on their annual parade. Hughie Corrigan and Topper Deeds got jailed for allegedly waving the flag at the Orangemen. Meanwhile we moved many of the evicted Catholic families up to some completed and near completed houses at the new housing project in Lenadoon, which helped that problem greatly.

Throughout July and into August 1969 there were continual incursions into Ardoyne by the R.U.C but one night in particular will always stand out in my mind, August the 4^th. It became obvious as the riot went on that the R.U.C had set about rounding up the members of the Action Committee or anyone else who was on their list of ‘Ringleaders’. Up until that night there was only one ‘ battle front’ the Crumlin Road, with most of the fighting taking place in Hooker Street. But that night the R.U.C drafted in hundreds of extra men who sneaked on foot from Brompton Park through the back entries and alleyways into Elmfield Street , Oakfield Street and ultimately into Butler Street at the rear of the rioters. They literally saturated the area. Meanwhile extra mobile R.U.C poured into Hooker Street and Herbert Street from the Crumlin Road. The engines of their land Rovers and heavy barricade removing vehicles roaring in low gear could be likened to the wail of the Banshee. Stones and petrol bombs were useless against this so rioters retreated to houses, hopefully to regroup later. I and two other guys, one a member of the Committee got into Larkin’s House at Butler Street and slammed close the big heavy front door. At that time any and every door was ‘open’ to rioters such was the support for them and the disgust at the R.U.C. Outside the noise was deafening and the screams of the R.U.C “Come out you Fenian Bastards”, could be heard , even above the merciless cries of a young lad, whom we later learned to be Neil Somers, who lay under the wheels of an R.U.C Land Rover his leg hanging off. At a tribunal later it was reported that a certain R.U.C man in the vehicle that ran over Neil had said to the driver, “Run over the Fenian Bastard”.

INSERT PIC No. 31 The R.U.C had completely swarmed the street and a two or three more rioters rushed into the house into the house we were in, one of them being Martin Meehan another member of the Ardoyne Committee. Butler Street by now had been completely taken over by peelers they were kicking in doors and pouring in houses, we were well cornered. Suddenly the front door busted open the front door busted in and in piled the riot clad R.U.C, batons at the ready. We were in a double dilemma because the family of the house was also there in the living room. The best we could do, in their interests, was to isolate ourselves from them in the scullery , which worked well. The R.U.C poured through the living room ignoring the family and made for us, we slammed the scullery door closed and pulled the washing machine over behind the door and added our weight to keep the peelers out. It was all to no avail the sheer force of numbers of the R.U.C began to force the door open and they began flailing at us with their batons which weakened our resolve to continue pushing the door against them. One of the other guys with us said, “we will get out the back door”, someone else said, “Is your head cut there will be twice as many of them out there”. Nevertheless he opened the back door, I suppose in desperation and said, “There is no one there” and bolted out into the back entry. It seemed to good to be true but worth a gamble. Out we piled and true enough there wasn’t a peeler in sight, they had gave all thought to cordoning off Butler Street and the streets on the other side but completely overlooked the entry that was actually behind their ‘front line’ of vehicles. In the darkness and confusion, maybe even panic, we lost each other but later learned that Martin had been caught in Larkin’s house. The peelers battered him so severely that he had to receive the last rites, but as you know, that didn’t put him off.

Events came hot and heavy after that, all before August ‘69 , there was another incident that was another very significant in the street agitation of the time...I say agitation for it was no use us merely getting up of our knees, those who misruled had to know that we were not going back on our knees, we were demanding what was rightly ours.. Equality, justice and fair play and we were determined to highlight every injustice that came along. Many people complained that there had never been a Catholic Lord Mayor of Belfast , the Unionists always seen to that. But on one occasion we entered the City Hall Chambers just as another Unionist was to be enrolled as Lord Mayor , a Shankill Road Fireplace manufacturer called Joe Cairns, things got so heated that Cairns was knocked to the floor. The peelers steamed in and dragged us out, a memory I will always have of that incident was the angry face of Eileen Paisley, the “Big Man’s” wife, she was a councillor at the time, she looked like that wee girl in the movie “The Exorcist”, We got a right old diggin’ but it was worth it to see Cairns lying on his arse and the whole wee phoney ceremony upset, and it gave notice that we were sick of discrimination, of keeping Catholics out of public office. This wasn’t our first run in with “Wee Joe” Cairns, back in the January election he stood in North Belfast for O’Neill’s ‘good’ Unionist Party against Paisleys ‘Bad’ Unionist Party, as some people called the parties then.

One night he and his unionist cronies came down the little path that led from the Oldpark Road down into Havana and Jamaica Street, it was snowing, and they were actually going to canvas Ardoyne for Unionist votes . Well we spotted them and threw snowballs at them and they thought it was all good fun, and some of their party returned snowballs, giggling and laughing like the “all fun Unionist Party”, vote for us and we will play snow ball wars with you. So we decided to get right into the spirit of snow ball fighting and rolling in the snow, We rolled the Unionists up the hill, they dropped all their election pamphlets, but laughed , not as heartily as earlier, we rolled them down the hill, the laughter seemed muffled, and then the penny dropped. These guys aren’t playing fair, “Okay, we have to get on with our canvassing now , bye” said wee Joe the candidate for North Belfast, before he was grabbed by the legs and dragged across the waste ground into the thicker snow. By now some of his party were slipping and sliding up the wee path again to the safety of the Oldpark Road only to be joined by Joe when he had dug himself out of the snow. Later allegations were made that the snow balls the Unionists were hit with had stones in them, a lie of course. In May 1969 an Amnesty dropped all charges connected with the Civil Rights struggle .