A Risen People
It seems clear in retrospect that while the material condition of the nationalist people in the occupied Six Counties has changed little since August 1969, what did emerge then was a risen people.
In Derry (later followed by Belfast and elsewhere) barricades were thrown up, young men and women from their nests of resistance atop Rossville Flats kept the hated and eventually exhausted RUC at bay.
That birth of Free Derry was the rebirth of republican power. Orange state dictatorship was being driven physically out of our lives.
Then in came the supposedly reassuring Tommies of Dad's Army acting, so we were firmly told, as impartial arbiters between the oppressed nationalist people and the forces and supporters of the Orange state.
Only republicans said differently. However it was not long before the message became clearer. Brits: now in flak jackets, and terrifyingly screeching armoured vehicles, came at dawn to take away our people, young and old, to the refreshed and re-armed RUC... A Britain prepared to mercilessly gas, baton, torture, murder and massacre to maintain her imperial rule. A rule which we will break.
Phoblacht, Saturday 4 August 1979
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)