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(Belfast Born, Bred And Buttered By Joe Graham)

Chapter Nine

Civil Rights - Duke Street. Derry. 5th. October 1968

Saturday, 5th October, 1968 was quite a bright, yet nippy day, for the time of the year, it was 11 am and I was rushing to complete roofing on a house on the Upper Newtownards Road. <My haste was that I knew I would have to finish before noon if I was to get to Derry in time for the start of the Civil Right’s March from the old railway station in Duke Street, then over Foyle Bridge to the Diamond. This was to be the second march, the first, Dungannon - Coalisland having been attacked by R.U.C men. The Stormont Government had announced that this one was to be banned and most had no doubt the R.U.C would be implementing that ban with their batons, with equal effectiveness as that which I witnessed four years earlier in Divis Street.

I made good time and was even able to pick up a couple of guys who were thumbing a lift, I had a gut feeling they too were on their way to the march, so gingerly we picked our way through a conversation before we all admitted that we were all on our way to the march. Their names I learned was Gary, from the Grosvenor Road, the other a Sailortown man called Billy McDermott. Gathered at the foot of Duke Street was a crowd of about 600, if all the people who today claim to have been there on that historic day really were there Craigavon Bridge would have collapsed under the weight. It always reminds me of a passage I read in a book some years ago when a Dubliner wrote, “If indeed all those who hold a job on the Dublin Corporation really did take part in the 1916 Rebellion, how the hell did we lose.”

Looking around Duke Street I saw many familiar faces at such occasions, local Socialist, Eamon McCann, there was the Ardoyne stalwart, “Teasey” Corrigan and her three sons. Hughie, Sammy and Hilary, who were to be seen at any gathering which gave an opportunity to protest against the six county regime, there was Martin Meehan from Ardoyne, later to be arrested and dragged away before the day was out, wee Jimmy Mullan, an uncle of my own, from Jamaica Street, was there, as was the Bone man, “Fear Maith”, big Frank McGlade and his wife, Rebecca, republicanism was well represented, and why not,?.. Sure here was a chance to put the Stormont regime on the spit, demand that which they wouldn’t and more importantly could not give us... basic civil rights, why should I mince words here?, basic civil rights to Catholic people, for after all was not, divide and conquer, the age old ploy of these people, keep the working class at each others throats, they kept power by making one section of the community feel ‘second class’ and the other ‘special’. But no one gathered there that day were asking for ’Catholic’ civil rights, though well they could do, but why alienate the ordinary protestant people who we hoped would come round to the understanding that they too were suffering at the hands of these sectarian puppeteers. If the Catholics of the six counties could be likened to the underprivileged blacks in the deep south of the U.S.A, so too could many Protestants be compared to the ‘Poor White Trash’ of that country. But God help their wit they were content in the knowledge that Orangeism ruled in the six counties.

Already in some protestant communities it was being said that ‘what these ’Taigs’ are after, is our jobs’. It seemed history had done a full circle since 1798 when Presbyterians were asking Catholics to turn their backs on ’Defenderism’ (which they did) and join the Society of United Irishmen under the common name of Irishmen, now the Catholics were hoping the Protestants would turn their back on sectarian politics of the Unionist Party and Orange Order and reach out their hands in support to their fellow Catholic countrymen, sadly there was no great rush. But I have say there were many protestant people involved in or supportive of the Civil Rights movement. One springs to mind, Madge Davidson, a young girl who lived and breathed a love of people, whose heart burned with a passion for the day all working class people, protestant, catholic and dissenter, would unite and starve those that exploited them of the fuel that kept their divide and conquer machine so vulgarly and crudely ticking over . Madge died of an illness whilst still a young woman, and if ever there is a shame it is that there is not a public plaque erected to her memory, she worked so tirelessly and devoted her short life to the aspiration of the working people. It was always a source of discontent that only a handful of the 20.000 Shipyard workers, a state subsidised industry were Catholic, and when things were not going well in the shipyard in the early 1960’s one leading unionist urged private employers to keep a register of unemployed protestants so they know where to offer the jobs. Much as these facts were publicised, but a balance had to be kept, for the reality was that there was poverty and atrocious housing conditions among working class Protestants. And much as protestant workers were suspicious of the civil rights movement so too were some republicans, who at the time, were not supportive of the civil rights campaign, in fact were down right negative in how they viewed involvement in the civil rights struggle. I felt they could not see further than the end of their noses they could not see that here was the chance to strip at the institutions that kept these six counties ’British’. In fact if carefully worked at could tear down Stormont. I personally felt the more bad publicity Stormont got the better; this was a way of putting them under the spotlight. Some republicans argued they did not want British civil rights, they wanted Britain out of Ireland, and all our efforts should be directed to that aim. They could not see, well at that point anyhow, that by becoming involved with the Civil rights campaign republicans could have a kick at the ball, perhaps even get control of the ball now and then, the referee was the camera’s of the world’s press.

Meanwhile unionists, as expected, seen the Civil rights movement as a front for the I.R.A. a total lie of course. The Civil rights movement was made up of all shades of political opinions and some with no political opinion. People like Frank Gogarty, a mild spoken Dentist whose Fortwilliam Park home came under regular attack from loyalists from the nearby Mount Vernon estate; I was in his house many a night during these attacks. There were great socialists like Betty Sinclair and Sean Morrissey , veteran republicans like Kevin Agnew and Frank McGlade . My own personal reason to attend the marches was to avail of every opportunity to incite the ignorant monster that was personified as ’Northern Ireland’, I knew full well its weakness was its intolerance, and in its arrogance, they would be forced to resort to their usual behaviour, violent, hateful and intolerant. I personally seen the marches as a ‘stage’ and the rest of the world as an ‘audience‘, the task, I felt, for those who wanted to end British rule in Ireland was to become the ‘Managers’ of the ‘Production’, all we had to do was stand with our hands in our pockets, in front of the worlds T.V camera’s who conveniently turned out, and chant, “End The Special Powers Act,”, “One Man One Vote” . The Unionist Militia, the R.U.C, would lash out violently, in front of the camera’s, the eyes of the world would witness how out of control these vicious puppets where, and if it took, at times, a little more than that to get them to ‘perform’, well then, that could be arranged, provided the ‘Productions Managers’ were skilful enough. History showed that the Unionists, with British backing, could deal quite well with physical resistance, in fact they invited armed insurrection, faced with a choice, the I.R.A on the streets or the Civil rights they would have chosen the I.R.A every time. But this only highlighted the lack of moral justification they had for the existence of their state, their paranoia of ‘an enemy within‘, showed in their treating Catholics people, as second class citizens, this was their weakness, this should be exploited. They knew only one way too ‘protect’ their evil state, “Special Laws, “Special Police” and as the 1920’s showed, violence, even mass murder. They had created their own monster and that monster, as I seen it, could now be manipulated to destroy its own sectarian state. All too readily those who got up of their backsides and protested were described as troublemakers, but if being a trouble maker meant exposing all that was rotten in this state, and what people knew to be rotten, meant ‘making trouble’, then trouble had to be made to make those who misruled this region of Ireland at least feel uncomfortable. Why shouldn’t trouble be made for those ’gentle’ people who so crudely and cruelly mistreated a whole section of the northern community. I hoped people who were being treated like second class citizens would come out and protest. There were plenty of ’fireside activists’ or ‘bar room activists’, but things do not get done by firesides or in bar rooms. But at least people were beginning to talk about the injustices openly and voice their disgust; previously they left it to politicians to waffle about on the local T.V News. People outside the six counties were ignorant as to what was going on here. I fervently believed then and still do; when a people are oppressed no politics can outdo the politics of the street that grabs the headlines. The Unionist Party were not out advertising to the world that they had the Special Powers Act, they weren’t that daft. Even South Africa who practised Apartheid did not have any law remotely as draconian as the Special Powers Act. The “Special Powers Act “ gave the R.U.C the right to confiscate even rebel records. or books you had, you could be arrested without charge , held without trial, even publications could be banned, newspapers could be banned, “The United Irishman”. was one such paper.

At one point, many people suspected that in obvious desperation, the R.U.C and Unionist party had set about creating an I.R.A scare by colluding with loyalists bombers to blew up the Dunadry water main, by refusing to state, whilst knowing full well, that it was a loyalist planted bomb. They rushed to the media to claim that this was an I.R.A bomb. Later, through no fault of their own, it discovered that it was the U.V.F who had placed the bomb. We had them on the spit, they were getting desperate, now all we had to do was to turn them, let the world see, through the battalions of T.V camera’s, the depth of their hatred and viciousness. And God they showed plenty of that in Duke Street that October day, as I or any politically intelligent person had expected, who honestly could be surprised by their actions that day?, if handled right they would self destruct.

There too in Duke Street, that day was the Dungannon pamphleteer, Adian Corrigan, who used to compose long winded surveys on pamphlets, of how few Catholics were employed in different branches of the county councils, he soon earned the nickname of “Count The Catholics”, but his little pamphlets done more harm to British and Orange rule in Ireland than a dozen bombs in the recent war. Moving about the crowd were the ‘Green Tories’, the old Irish Nationalist Party and it’s President Eddie McAteer, who, before that day was out, earned a nick name that he took with him to his grave. It was when the march got to the top end of Duke Street, the R.U.C, through a loud hailer, told the crowd that the march was banned from going any further we were ordered then to disperse. An order resented by the marchers, who after all, were merely asking to walk from ‘A’ to ‘B’, the democratic right of any citizen, in any country through out the world. Confrontation seemed inevitable, so Eddie McAteer appealed to the marchers to disperse, pointing out that they had made their point, and had walked that far. He was hearing groans of disapproval from the crowd, then he put his foot in it.. right in it, he informed that crowd that “Half a Loaf is better than none” , the hisses and boo’s rang out from the crowd and Eddie from that moment to the day he died became known as “Half a Loaf”. To add insult to injury poor old Eddie got a drenching from the R.U.C water Cannon vehicle which roared into the street at this point. Gerry Fitt, received his red badge of glory that day with a swipe to the head by a peelers baton, the poor man was never the same after it, as could be seen many years after. The blow to the head must have left him thinking people like Maggie Thatcher were right in every thing they said, it was noticed that his head, voluntarily or involuntarily, would move up and down, like a nodding dog every time Maggie in the house of Commons, would say hunger strikers were criminals. Gerry backed a loser in his political career on the hunger strike issue, but, none could deny that he done a lot of good for working people in his early career.

The vicious attack on the marchers that day by the R.U.C is well recorded and in thousands of Irish homes throughout the world families have their own personal footage of it saved on video tape, so I won’t go over it all here. One thing I feel I have to say, what the camera did not show, the peelers got a bit of their own medicine when they made the mistake of going further down the street as they pursued some victim’s. Come on!, you don’t really think that young men, reared in Ardoyne, Bogside, Ballymurphy, etc, who knew full well the depth of hatred these uniformed thugs had for their communities, stood with the hands in their pockets, and watched women being bludgeoned by the Orange Militia,? and they got plenty more stick later at Butcher’s Gate and in Irish Street, where by the way, the very first barricade of the entire ‘troubles’ was erected that night. Two weeks later there was another march along the same route, and again the R.U.C, mercifully blocked it, and afforded the world, through the media’s cameras. Another glimpse of their sectarian hatred, they were so predictable, is it any wonder James Larkin described a peeler as ‘six foot of colossal ignorance’?

Next there was to be a march from McMordie’s Hall, to the City Hall, organised by ’The People’s Democracy’, principally a student body at Queens University. By this time a society of political ’activists’ was emerging and needless to say, not all who attended the Queens meetings and formation of this body, were students, indeed much of the agenda was set by none students. It was at the second meeting in McMordie Hall, that I witnessed a tiny little girl who was soon to become a symbol of the people’s resistance to all that was rotten in the statelet. It was agreed that the City Hall protest would go ahead the following Wednesday and just then this girl put up her hand to speak, she pointed out that since no one had taken steps to get the usual right to parade permission from the R.U.C , she had obtained the permit from Donegall Pass R.U.C Barracks. A huge cheer went up, for all knew that without this permit the parade would not have got to leave the front of the Hall let alone reach the City Hall. Without such notification of intent to march they would have effectively banned their own march. The girl was Bernadette Devlin and I believe, that night, I witnessed the first sign of the determination and leadership quality of this young Irish heroine. Also that night, at the back of the hall, a tall, thin young man, a non student, raised his hand and suggested that perhaps we should prioritise the issue of the discriminatory practises in the allocation of housing of the Belfast Corporation Housing Department and the Northern Ireland Housing Trust, (forerunner to the Housing Executive) we should consider using squatting as a means to highlight these allocation practises of the housing bodies. He went on to state, with great passion, that he and his family would be prepared to offer themselves as squatters if necessary, this speaker was Joe McCann, a revolutionary socialist, who called a spade a spade and believed in grabbing the bull by the horn. Joe was ambushed and murdered as he walked along Joy Street, 15th April 1972, by British Army, some say the S.A.S. A conspiracy theory was also bandied about as to Joe’s murder. A silhouetted picture of Joe, Armalite in hand, with burning buildings in the background became the poster of resistance following internment.

And down from Derry, at Queens, from which he had been expelled as a student some three years earlier. Was Socialist and dedicated Political Activist Eamon McCann. Many in the hall those couple of nights were to feature much in the street politics of the next couple of years and indeed the next few decades, names such as Rory McShane, Kevin Boyle, Eamon Farrell. Another speaker that night was John. D. Murphy,, who later went onto represent the Peoples Democracy in the famous or infamous, which ever way you look at it, January 1969 ‘Cross Roads Election’, John humorously stated that not all here present tonight would become lifetime activists, some were merely experimenting, participating as youth often does in the wild incitement of social issues and current politics, and in years to come they will be so absorbed in the running of their daddies business that they will forget that these days ever existed, these events will be far from their minds…how astute of John.

The People’s Democracy March got on its way, of course hassled and re-routed the whole way and finally brought to a stop by the R.U.C. in Linenhall Street. They were stopped in attaining their target and goal, a public meeting at the front of the City Hall. The marchers sat down in the street protest, even the T.V people appeared frustrated, a then well known local B.B.C political commentator, W. D. Flackes just stood by with his camera crew looking completely bored and perplexed. The R.U.C were quite pleased with the outcome, but as I mentioned earlier, at times it takes a little bit of ‘help’ to show these people at their ‘best’. It became a prolonged ‘sit down’, so we came up with an idea. A section of us, one by one would appear to disperse and leave, going in a direction away from the City Hall, the rest of the crowd would continue the ‘sit down’, whilst those that ‘left’ would reassemble at the front of the City Hall and complete the arrangements are arranged. This about thirty of us accomplished, I had the microphone, so turned the volume up full, so that the peelers at the back of the City Hall could here, and I proudly announced that the Peoples Democracy were today staging not one but two protests, this one here and a sit down at the back of the City Hall, which brought great laughter and I noticed a wide grin from wee W .D. Flackes, who we had confided in so that he could get round with his T.V. crew to put on record that the Peoples Democracy had completed its march and left egg on the faces of the Orange Militia.

The next march was in Armagh City, and this time Paisley and his new side kick, Major Ronald Bunting crowded the town City and effectively stopped the march, a new dimension opened, thugs were now joining with the R.U.C to try and stop the march for Civil rights. It was the most blatant concerted act of collusion I ever witnessed, ‘policemen’ in uniform were standing along side cudgel carrying thugs. Paisley walked the length of the town as if to assert that “This town is Protestant and no Fenian feet, as he saw Civil rights, shall march here”, he had the freedom of the town.

A more sinister element was the attention the R.U.C ‘Special Branch’ were paying to individuals, as if to let them know they were being watched and would hopefully from their point of view intimidate them from attending further civil rights events. On the way home from Armagh I was stopped by an unmarked car from which came a ‘Special Branch’ man, Cecil Patterson, who was gaining a certain notoriety. He and two other over fed, tweed clad individuals approached me, after asking me why I was attending such gatherings regularly, ominously remarked, “You should be careful on these old country roads, you never know who you could meet up with“. They say a wink is as good as a nod to a blind donkey... but this donkey was not blind, I treated it with the disgust it deserved…but there was a certain truism in his words, for a couple of months later we certainly did meet up with a very vicious element, of the type Patterson was referring to, no doubt friends of his, on a country road at a place called Burntollet, Co. Derry.

The Long March to Derry - Burntollet Ambush

“The Long March”, organised by the “Peoples Democracy” started from Belfast City Hall on January 1st 1969 and ended January 4th at Derry’s Guildhall. I joined the march and walked as far as Antrim town, and joining us was Major Ronnie Bunting and a couple of other Paisleyites, who barracked us along the way. This Major Bunting had been an officer in the British army, he was a walking contradiction, and there was a certain ridiculousness about him, which went further than the silly hat he wore with a feather in it. He had been an electioneer worker for Gerry Fitt when Fitt stood for and took the West Belfast seat, he also belonged to a body that sought reform in the ‘Northern Ireland’ government. He was a leader in the Ulster Protestant Volunteers and the Loyal Citizens of Ulster. Years later his son, Ronnie Jnr. A dedicated socialist, became a leading member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party and in 1980 he was shot dead along with a friend, Noel Little, who was stopping at Buntings Downfine home. Ronnie’s wife was also wounded and the couple’s child narrowly missed death. The gunmen had burst through the door in the early hours of the morning, some say they were loyalists, others, including Mrs Bunting, suggested most likely it was the S.A.S, most did not discount collusion of which there is a long history between Loyalists murder gangs and the forces of ’law and order’ in this region of Ireland.

I drove home that evening my van having been brought out by a workmate who was using it during the day, and rejoined the march the next morning at Antrim Town, doing this each day and evening until the final day on which I had. I picked up Frank and Rebecca McGlade, Liam Mulholland, the Corrigan’s and a couple of others in my van and set off early morning to rejoin the march for the final leg. It was a pleasant enough day considering that it was early January but what lay ahead I will remember all my life, as I have for the last thirty six years. Many times throughout the march the R.U.C attempted to frustrate its progress with diversions and rumours were plenty. .

On this, the final day, such again was the pattern and at one point as we rounded a bend leading to the bridge over the river Falcon, large groups of men were seen on a hillside on the right, looking down on the road. The R.U.C were in attendance but did not seem overly concerned, that about two hundred to three hundred men, some wearing handkerchiefs, mask like, across their faces and armbands, some with crash helmets and carrying cudgels had gathered. Of us, the marchers, there were about seventy five or eighty, and about a third of those were women. Rocks began to reign down on us from the hilltop and it was obvious that mounds of rocks had been dropped there earlier as ammunition from a lorry. Men came screaming up the road and down from the hillside flaying with cudgels, the R.U.C appear to retreat and every now and then make feeble attempts, or as I personally seen it, pretend attempts, to stop the vicious attack. At one point our cortege broke up in total disarray, some running into the fields and wade through the river on our left to escape the flying rocks, blood mingled with the water as some fell on all fours as they rushed into the river, but none left the scene entirely, we were not going to abandon our determination to complete the long march. When the, in my opinion, R.U.C seen that we were determined to reassemble they seem to converse with the attacks who eventually moved on. No one will ever convince me that there was not collusion between the R.U.C and the loyalist mob that day, and later it was proven that many “B” Specials were among that mob.

Off we went again, my van being in the rear containing some people who were hurt. All went well until we got to Irish Street, then again missiles filled the air, the loyalists were throwing rocks and bottles over the roof tops from the street behind. Luckily we had no serious injuries and continued on our way and soon a huge crowd began to appear coming the road towards us, hundreds of people, I thought, ‘ah God, so near and now it looks as if we won’t be able to complete the last mile or so’, but as we got closer to them the crowd opened up leaving a clear path leading right through them. It was with great relief that we learned they were supporters who had heard of the attack and were making their way out to meet us and offer some protection. Cheers filled the air as we made our way through their ranks and this continued right into Guild Hall Square. There was a great sense of celebration, the four day march had been completed and we had defied the Orange junta. Some speeches were made in the Square... I can’t remember a one…but I do a part of the speech of that little girl I mentioned earlier in McMordie Hall, Bernadette Devlin, and the reason I do is because of its republican content. She analogised that through us completing the march against all odds that the spirit of 1916 lived on. Late that night we set off in the van for home, with Big Frank McGlade entertaining us with poems and recitations, he was reciting, “The Man From God Knows Where”, when suddenly, from God knows where, two R.U.C Jeeps blocked our way as we left Maghera, we were all asked to get out off the van and three or four R.U.C men holding Sterling sub-machine stood around us as another two searched the van. It was a good job that movie, “Mississippi Burning“, had not yet been made, or we would have been convinced what was going to happen next, to be honest that did cross our minds, but we were let go on our way after about half an hour.