Memories of a friend and comrade
Arthur Fegan remembers his friend, Fian James Templeton, who was
shot dead in Belfast in 1975, aged just sixteen.
On 1 November a commemorative plaque was unveiled on Belfast's
Ormeau Road, near the corner of Farham Street, in a tribute to
James (Temp) Templeton, aged 15 years, a member of Na Fianna
Eireann who was fatally wounded near that spot on 29 August 1975.
Despite the bittter cold and showers a large number of residents,
friends and republicans attended. I could see his mother and
other members of his family. From their tears I knew it was a sad
occasion for them, but they were proud that their son and brother
was being remembered.
Temp was an only son and lived with his parents and two sisters
at Peveril Street, which used to be down near the Belfast to
Dublin railway line.
I met him at St Augustine's in my first year. I was 12 years old.
Like me, he had no love of school, and both of us spent more days
investigating the world outside than attending classes.
In my mind's eye I can still see him; cropped fair hair, bright
blue eyes in a round baby face, and a tall slim body, on the
verge of getting taller. He was at times thoughtful, generous,
moody, playful, a totally unpredictable youth; always grateful to
be with a good friend.
We got very close during the summers of 1974 and 1975, when we
went camping on several occasions without a tent, and very little
money either. We also liked to try out discos in the greener
fields of the New Lodge, Newington, Andersonstown, Clonard and
other areas, only to find the talent as elusive and non-committal
as in our own wee areas.
It wasn't very suprising that Temp was a fun loving lad, full of
life and eager for more. He was in that respect no different from
any other lad of his age, an ordinary teenager. Belfast, however,
was no ordinary city. Nor was the community from which he came
ever treated in an ordinary or fair fashion.
Temp, therefore, like other generations of Belfast teenagers,
joined the Republican Movement. Sometime in 1973 he joined Na
Fianna Eireann in the Ormeau Road, attached to the 3rd Battalion,
Belfast Brigade.
As a Fianna boy he attended lectures and meetings designed to
prepare him for the time when he would join the IRA, although in
reality teenagers who were eager to join in that fight did so
whenever the chance arose; and Temp was no exception.
I remember at an August 9th bonfire in the Short Strand in 1975
James (Pablo) O'Neill, Temp and myself stood for hours talking
and watching the flames. At one point unionist snipers opened
fire and we had to run for cover.
This was the second time gunmen had opened fire on us in as many
months. The previous occasion was at the top of the Short Strand
when a man pretending to be a drunk staggered from the Ravenhill
Road. Suddenly he started running towards us, one arm held
straight out, firing a handgun. We retreated back into the Short
Strand with half a dozen bullets whizzing past.
We continued talking for some time around the bonfire after the
gun attack, and arranged to meet up some night soon. We never
did.
On the night he was killed Temp had been with his friend Jackie
Prior. They had stopped to talk to a doorman at the Rose and
Crown public house when a car pulled up. A passenger opened fire
with a handgun, hitting Temp twice in the body. As he lay on the
footpath he asked Jackie to quickly fetch his mother. Jackie ran
the couple of hundred yards to Temp's home, but when he and Mrs
Templeton arrived back at the scene Temp had left in an
ambulance. At the hospital they found Temp in a corridor about to
be wheeled into the theatre.
They were able to speak to him for a few emotional and
heartbreaking moments. He died three hours later.
He was buried in Milltown on 1 September, on my 16th birthday, a
beautiful late summer's day; and I have missed him ever since.
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