Republican News · Thursday 9 January 2003

Farewell to Carrickmore

To coincide with the historic closure with the joint PSNI/ British Army Barracks in Carrickmore, over 200 people marched to the Barracks on Sunday afternoon last, 5 January.

The purpose of the march was to mark the intention to reclaim for the people and community of Carrickmore land which has been occupied for over 20 years. The local people also called for further British demilitarisation and barracks closures in County Tyrone.

There was a very heavy presence of PSNI personnel - many wearing riot gear - and British soldiers in and around Carrickmore throughout the weekend and on Sunday in particular.

Those who marched to the Barracks assembled at Main Street Car Park at 3pm. Led by young people from the area carrying an Irish National Flag and by members of the Martin Hurson Memorial Band, the crowd proceeded the few hundred metres to the barracks, which by now was cordoned off by a ring of PSNI members.

Band members loudly beat drums at the entrance to the Barracks and played the timely tune, "Auf wiedersen to Crossmaglen, farewell to Carrickmore". A poem was read out recalling the strength of local feeling against the presence of the barracks in Carrickmore. Proceeding were chaired by local Sinn Féin Councillor Damien Curran, while his party colleague, Assembly member Barry McElduff, spoke welcoming the closure of the barracks and describing the occasion as 'a historic day' for the people of Carrickmore and wider Mid-Tyrone.

McElduff described the Barracks as 'a symbol of British oppression for over 20 years, a blot on the landscape of Mid-Tyrone, unwanted and opposed by the community'.

He traced the history of the installation and he detailed the chronology of events which led to the Barracks being established in 1981, following calls for such an installation by the DUP leader Ian Paisley, who described Carrickmore at the time as a 'No Go Area'.

McElduff also made reference to the British government decision in 1979 to ban the controversial Panorama programme that featured IRA patrols in the Carrickmore area. The Sinn Féin man said that Britain's purpose in putting the barracks there was essentially to gather intelligence and spy upon the local community, to appease unionism and to enforce the 'British writ'. He said that such a strategy had met with strong opposition in the area and that British strategy generally had failed miserably in Carrickmore.

McElduff called for further demilitarisation in County Tyrone and throughout the Six Counties and called on the British Government to hand these strategic sites over to local communities for much-needed social and community regeneration.

Before the National Anthem was sounded, a local man showed to the crowd a copy of the map which local people claim identifies the location of surveillance equipment and listening devices in an area west of Carrickmore.

The crowd dispersed without incident.

Afterwards, local Sinn Fein Cllr Damien Curran accused the PSNI of recording live video footage of the crowd, despite the fact that the march met all the legal requirements of the Parades Commission. He said that questions need to be answered as to where now that video footage and political intelligence will end up, given the history of collusion between British state forces and loyalist paramilitaries throughout Tyrone. Curran has written to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to raise these concerns.