In February 1973, during the first Loyalist Workers Strike, I was
working in the Ballymena branch of Crazy Prices. There was a prolonged power cut and all the
freezers powered down. Urged by our managers we worked on. Until the
cry went up, 'the Tartan Gangs are coming!' And sure enough, gangs of
youths, wearing denim, big boots and tartan scarves were rampaging along Broughshane Street, smashing windows as they went. Managers hastily
locked the doors and told us to get ourselves off home but not before
allowing us to help ourselves from the freezers. So it was I phoned
Daddy to come and rescue me and my big cardboard box full of frozen
food. Seamus was not afraid of any Tartan Gang.
That is my abiding
memory of the 1973 Loyalist strike. Tartan Gangs and a surfeit of
frozen food to which we were certainly not accustomed. Of course the
power cuts meant that we couldn't refrigerate the food and a good
deal of it had to be thrown out anyway.
This month is the 40th
anniversary of the second, and even more sinister, Loyalist strike,
the one that brought down the power sharing executive, and the one
that Ian Paisley and his ilk supported to the hilt.
Today is also the 40th
anniversary of the co-ordinated bombings in Dublin and Monaghan. On the third day
of the UWC strike thirty-three people died, the greatest number of
people killed on any one day. A full-term unborn infant is not
included in the list of dead but tiny sisters Jacqueline and Anne
Marie O'Brien are. They were 17 and 5 months respectively and their
parents died with them.
No-one has ever been charged in relation to the murders in Dublin and Monaghan.
It was thirty-three
years later, again in the month of May, that Ian Paisley, who had
been so vehemently opposed to the idea of power-sharing, accepted the
post of First Minister of Northern Ireland, in an assembly that
included Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein as Deputy First Minister. It
is rumoured that the two of them got on so well they were dubbed the
Chuckle Brothers.
3 comments:
Such frightening stuff all that was. Horrifying. So glad you are ok.
It's taken me a while to comment here as I'm a bit wary of anything political, but your post sparked a memory. The loyalist strike at that time was a frightening experience for us too. I was a teenager and Mummy had the post office in Ballyronan. The milk tanker hadn't been to the farm and Daddy had gallons in danger of going off so we sold some to customers in the Post Office - Mummy hadn't closed up shop. That was until she got a rather threatening phone call telling her to stop. It was horrible wondering who had told what was happening and which of our neighbours had made the call.
For some people morality and decency were forgotten during that time.
Post a Comment