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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