Republican News · Thursday 10 July 1997

[An Phoblacht]

Eyewitness to a military invasion

Pride in community response


Peadar Whelan was in the Garvaghy Road last Saturday and Sunday. Here, in words and pictures, is their account of the British military attack on that nationalist community


THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT DECISION to send RUC and British army stormtroopers onto the Garvaghy Road in the early hours of Sunday morning 6 July to impose martial law was cynical and vicious in the extreme.

A community that had hoped that the new British government with Dr Marjorie Mowlam at the NIO would at last protect their rights and bar the Orange Order from tramping through their area and over their dignity was sorely disillusioned.

d as Sunday 6 July wore on that disillusionment turned to a deep anger that will not go away for many years.

From last Wednesday 2 July when the RUC wrote to the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition telling them that their festival, planned for Sunday, was effectively banned, the writing seemed on the wall for their efforts for a peaceful resolution to a problem that has dogged their lives for years.

However, when we travelled to the Garvaghy Road in Portadown last Friday there was an almost unreal sense of carnival as crowds milled around watching muralists put the finishing touches to three works. One of the murals, linked hands resembling a dove, called for peace with justice. It was designed by local children.

Later, as hundreds of residents made their now nightly picket at the roadside the Welsh Red Choir, familiar to many from their visits of solidarity to the North, sang of revolution.

Even our trip to the cemetery at Drumcree church had the air of adventure. We walked past the outside broadcast vans from where the TV news was being transmitted and stood in the shadow of a church that has become synonymous with the suppression of nationalist rights and unionist intransigence.

Now after Sunday it has joined the roll of shame of yet another British government that has opted to brutalise nationalists when unionists crack the whip: Sunday 6 July will rank alongside internment, Bloody Sunday and the Hunger Strikes.

During Saturday the rumour mill was producing one possible scenario after another, adding to the air of tension that was building. And as the deadlines, when Mowlam was to contact the Coalition informing them of her decision, moved through the hours of the clock and there was no word it became clear to the residents of the Garvaghy Road that the promised early warning was not going to materialise.

The tense atmosphere seemed to produce a listlessness among the people: one resident drove us through the roads surrounding Garvaghy Road; along King Street, Obins Street, past the notorious Craigwell flashpoint and down to Corcrain Road. From there we went up past the Drumcree Church and were stopped by British soldiers and RUC no less than six times.

Drumcree Community Centre was a hive of activity as members of the various groups who travelled into Portadown as observers organised themselves, waited and waited some more.

Then at 5pm a fax message arrived asking the Coalition to contact the NIO. Instead of informing the residents of her decision regarding the march, Mowlam was responding to Breandan MacCionnaith's expressed disappointment that on the eve of the march his community still had no idea what would happen to it.

``No decision has yet been made,'' was the Direct Ruler's reply.

Moving into the early hours of Sunday morning we received the news that British army engineers had erected a barrier across Drumcree Road, in the spot where on two previous years other barriers had been built in order to prevent the Orangemen from marching down the Garvaghy Road, and then, after stand-offs, dismantled.

``It will be different this year,'' hoped the residents. ``New Labour was not dependent on unionist votes with its 170 plus majority, and hadn't `Mo' promised she would be different?''

In the space of three hours honest, genuine, trusting people would have their feelings, emotions and hopes crushed by a force of almost four thousand British troops and RUC.

The British had set their trap, now all they had to do was spring it.

At about 2.00am the residents warning siren wailed and we ran to the road.

``It's a false alarm,'' we were told, ``some soldiers took a wrong turning''.

Of course, no one really believed this and accompanied by a number of sceptical residents we walked to the roundabout at the Dungannon Road. In the car park of the Catholic Chapel were hundreds of British Army vehicles, all parked up but clearly ready to invade. It was an ominous sight. The car park is not fenced, ensuring an unhindered departure when the British troops received their orders.

We had barely returned to the brow of the Garvaghy Road, walking in to Ballyoran, when the alarm was raised a second time. This time a contingent of British troops had strayed onto the road and confronted by residents, they stopped. A crowd formed and some approached them and then a second time they retreated towards Ballyoran, but before anyone could breathe their relief the British government sprung its trap. It was 3.30am.

The ``least worst'' scenario snapped into place as grey RUC jeep followed by grey RUC jeep sped onto Garvaghy Road. An iron fist of black uniformed RUC hiding behind balaclava masks punched and batoned its way down the road.

As residents tried to form up in peaceful protest they were swept aside, batoned, kicked and punched as the RUC advanced. Some met this violence with bricks, bottles and other missiles. Then the first of three petrol bombs were thrown. Plastic bullets were fired and claimed their first hit. Donncha, from Waterford, who had come along as an observer, was yards from me and was clearly unarmed in any way. He was struck on the throat and two people who aided him were also fired on and both injured. All three received hospital treatment. (See box).

Two other men ran past with blood streaming from head wounds and a delighted youth danced proudly as he displayed the RUC helmet he captured.

Driven back to the entrance to Churchill Park the crowd was encircled by a second RUC force that had come up from the town; the people sat on the ground in peaceful protest.

It was then only a matter of time before they were dragged off the road and when the removal came it came with the same violence and brutality that accompanied the initial invasion.

One by one the protesters were dragged and beaten from the Garvaghy Road and as each was hurled through the RUC lines RUC members rained baton strikes on them.

No one who was there that night will forget the wanton brutality of the RUC, there is no doubt they enjoyed their work.

The crown forces had complete control of the estates by this time and the sporadic rioting that was going on was a token resistance inflated by the RUC to justify its actions. Residents were refused permission to go to shops nor could they move freely about the area.

The cruellest irony of the day was the way in which the people were told by the RUC they would not be allowed to go to mass and opted to have an open air service surrounded by British soldiers and their heavy Saxon armoured cars.

After the mass people went to the Drumcree Centre to take stock of the day and speaking to some of the observers, particularly some TDs and the Americans, it was clear that whatever they thought might happen, their view of the RUC and British government was changed by what happened.

d if I had a penny for every insult directed at Marjorie Mowlam I would have left Portadown a very rich man.

If tension eased slightly in the next hours it cranked up again when the Orange parade was due along the road, at about 1.00pm. People made their way to a car park close to the road and rattled pots, pans, binlids and anything else that would make noise, a noise that rose to an unbelievable crescendo when the Orangemen passed. They knew the residents of Garvaghy Road weren't defeated and were still defiant.

Immediately after the parade as the RUC and British army pulled out of the area they were pelted with bricks and bottles and fired plastic bullets in return.

Speaking to the crowd Breandan MacCionnaith said, ``the RUC came in this morning to beat us into the ground. They thought we were beaten. Do you look like a defeated people?''

``No,'' shouted the crowd.

``You have won the respect of people throughout Ireland,'' MacCionnaith told them, ``the people of Ireland are looking at you, they are proud of you''.

It's true. There was a sense of pride in seeing how that communtiy had withstood what was a military invasion. And I knew that the people of Ireland would be looking at that community to admire its resilience and respect its dignity in the face of the most extreme provocation.


Observer, nurse hit by plastic bullets

Donncha O'Fearain was one of the first to be injured by a plastic bullet as the RUC moved in. He was hit in the throat and a student nurse, Tria Ni Chormaic who went to his aid realised he could not breathe. She worked with him and got him breathing even as plastic bullets were still being fired and a second young lad who came to help her was also hit.

``I got up and started shouting that I was attending to the wounded,'' said Tria, ``but the RUC kept firing. They were about 25 yards away''.

Then Tria was hit herself. She maintains it was an aimed shot and hit her on the leg. People who saw the incident told the young woman that the RUC deliberately fired at her.

All three were brought to hospital where initially staff were worried about Donncha whose injury was the most serious and who was kept in. Tria and the other lad were released later. She has ripped muscle in her leg and bad bruising.

``I'm extremely angry and bitter,'' she told An Phoblacht. ``Mowlam has a lot to answer for.''


Like Sharpeville - South African MP

South African MP Gora Ebrahim, who witnessed the events on the Garvaghy Road, told An Phoblacht that the scenes he witnessed were like Sharpeville and Sunday was a day when the British government destroyed whatever optimism there was with the recent Labour victory in England.

``It's obvious the decision was not a spontaneous one, it was made well in advance and made at a political level - not by the RUC - it will take the British a long time to rebuild confidence''.

Ebrahim said that on his return to South Africa he will submit a report to the Foreign Affairs committee who sent him to Ireland and will seek a meeting with President Mandela, ``who has a great interest in Ireland''.

``It was interesting to personally witness that nationalists say they are treated as second class citizens and Sunday's events confirmed that to me: the rights and feelings of the Garvaghy Road residents came second to the Orange order,'' he said.


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