the troubles i've seen.....

[Puckoon]

growing up on the Falls during the troubles was tough and plenty of reasons for hate

What was tough about it? I'd have thought the Falls would have been a relatively safe place to see out the 'Troubles'. Ditto Cross and many areas west of the Bann such as Derry city.

What would have made it relatively safe, if I may ask?

I consider where I lived relatively safe, because I saw nothing, heard nothing, except what I saw on the news. I regularly saw the Falls Road on the news. We've already had posters from that area talk about "the troubles they've seen", and they saw alot more than I did! Surely growing up in an high octane area during the troubles, increased your chances of being directly affected by the time. Just because you may have been expected to be ok (due I guess to being surrounded and protected by your own) wouldnt have made it safe, per se?


Or am I totally not understanding what you're saying?

[pintsofguinness]

Puck you know perfectly well the dfference between a solider and an unborn baby. 

As for the soldier, you seriously expect me to cry for someone who made a choice, is somewhere he shouldnt have been, is part of an army that has carried out atrocities all over the world?  Forget it.  I'm not trying to justify his killing or anything else, I'm saying I've zero sympathy.  I dont care if he was crying for his mother, should have thought about that before he joined up.


I've heard that story before and I've thought it's an old wives tale, but my feeling is the same for any other british solider or policeman. 

[Donagh]

What would have made it relatively safe, if I may ask?

I consider where I lived relatively safe, because I saw nothing, heard nothing, except what I saw on the news. I regularly saw the Falls Road on the news. We've already had posters from that area talk about "the troubles they've seen", and they saw alot more than I did! Surely growing up in an high octane area during the troubles, increased your chances of being directly affected by the time. Just because you may have been expected to be ok (due I guess to being surrounded and protected by your own) wouldnt have made it safe, per se?


Or am I totally not understanding what you're saying?

You answered that yourself.

[Minder]

So the people of the Shankill for example were safe among their own when Begley went into the fish shop? I wonder where a UDA/UVF hit squad would go if they wanted to indiscriminately kill a few Catholics? My wife saw a fella shot dead on the Springfield Rd when she was about 9 by the UDA  (I think), because he was a Catholic, so there is another side to that argument Donagh. The very fact that "you are amomg your own" woul put the cross hairs on you.

[Donagh]

So the people of the Shankill for example were safe among their own when Begley went into the fish shop? I wonder where a UDA/UVF hit squad would go if they wanted to indiscriminately kill a few Catholics? My wife saw a fella shot dead on the Springfield Rd when she was about 9 by the UDA  (I think), because he was a Catholic, so there is another side to that argument Donagh. The very fact that "you are amomg your own" woul put the cross hairs on you.

We're talking about the Falls not the Shankill but as I said, it's relative.

[brokencrossbar1]

Donagh, perhaps in the likes of Cross we were much safer from being targets, but I wouldn't put The Falls in that bracket.  Sure you have the whole safety in numbers, but that is not everything.  We had the physical protection of being isolated, a 99% Catholic community with the physical protection of the rural countryside backing us up.  Why do you think that so much "other" stuff happened in the area, you can be very lost in South Armagh very quickly.  The spin from the Falls to the Shankill isn't exactly that far, couple with the collusion allowing a clear passage for attackers, then I certainly would not have liked to live there.  I would put the likes of the whole north Armagh in the same bracket as the Falls, and probably it was more dangerous with that fcuker King Rat being the main man there.

The other thing is that being among your own isn't always safe.  While there were touts in South Armagh, there was a greater opportunity in the urban areas.  I would categorically state that in all my time living in the north, I never felt happier or safer than whenever I pulled down the road at Camlough lake, lost my phone reception and avoided the black holes on the road to Cross. 

[Donagh]

BC, my point is that it was all relative. South Armagh was probably one of the safest places in the north from the 80's on, likewise West Tyrone and many parts of Derry and Fermanagh. West Belfast while a bit riskier, still had a self contained community with it's own shops, social and leisure facilities. If you want tough, try North Belfast, North Armagh, South Antrim, Mid Down, East Tyrone where not only had you the Brits and peelers on your back, you had to live with death squads targeting exposed communities, tartan gangs and other random  groups targeting people, running the gauntlet to do the shopping every day or to use leisure facilities.

[brokencrossbar1]

That's true Donagh, particularly North Belfast.

[armaghniac]

South Armagh in the 1970's had all sorts of odd things going on, most of them not especially traumatic to me. However I recall vividly travelling back from an evening event at the Abbey in Newry with my parents and the car being overtaken by two ambulances. We realised why when we came to Silverbridge and the aftermath of the bomb at Donnelly's pub.

[5 Sams]

A few things stand out for me. On the day that 18 paras were killed in Warrenpoint, I happened to be in the graveyard in Burren. Remember both explosions well and the gunfire afterwards. Wether or not it was the army shooting or ammunition going off from the fire in the hay lorry I don't know. A friends uncle worked for the fire service in Newry, he always maintained that there were a lot more than 18 soldiers killed that day. He wouldn't have been a man for telling stories either and had no political affiliations as he was English.
We had a delivery in work one Friday evening but the forklift was broke and there was no way anyone was staying on to offload it by hand. Arrangements were made to get a lend of a forklift first thing Saturday morning, so we were lumbered with a Scouse lorry driver for the night. He wanted to go on the lash so we all ended up in Cupids, cant remember who was playing that night but it could well have been Brush Shields, 5 Sams could probably confirm as he worked there. Anyway long story short there was a mortar attack on a police car outside the tax office and a police woman was killed and a policeman lost both his legs. There was a carnival atmosphere both inside and outside Cupids, felt sorry for the lorry driver as he was pretty scared by both the bomb attack and the atmosphere afterwards. He never came back on a delivery after that.
Saw plenty of riots in my day, the best of which were in Newry in 97 after the Drumcree debacle. Newry and South Armagh were like the wild west for a few days afterwards as the police that were left in Newry were confined to barracks. The younger generation think it was mad, but to us it was part of growing up. Although we have a "normal" society today, society in general isn't what it used to be.

I remember it well Doublecross although I wasnt working that night.....what year was that???

I remember Narrow Water well also...we were having a kickabout in the field in Ballyholland about 5 miles away and could hear everything that went on...Mountbatten and a local young fella were blown up the same day in Mullaghmore.

[brokencrossbar1]

South Armagh in the 1970's had all sorts of odd things going on, most of them not especially traumatic to me. However I recall vividly travelling back from an evening event at the Abbey in Newry with my parents and the car being overtaken by two ambulances. We realised why when we came to Silverbridge and the aftermath of the bomb at Donnelly's pub.

That was the week before Christmas 1975 armaghniac.  I was born on the 17th as was Roisin Brecknall. We were in class together in Primary School.  Her dad, Trevor, was there wetting her head and was killed in the blast.  Here is an extract from the case

Brecknell - The applicant, Anne Brecknell, was born in 1933 and lives in Armagh in Northern Ireland. She is Trevor Brecknell's widow. On 19 December 1975 loyalist gunmen went into Donnelly's Bar, Silverbridge, in County Armagh, throwing a bomb and firing a machine gun. Trevor Brecknell, Patrick Donnelly and Michael Donnelly (aged 14) were killed and six others were seriously injured. The applicant was at the time in hospital following the birth of her daughter. In 1981 a decision was taken not to pursue charges against two people who had apparently driven the perpetrators (including a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR)) on the night of the incident.

Obviously it did not have a direct effect on me, but haunted me because of the connection.

[thebandit]

The younger generation think it was mad, but to us it was part of growing up. Although we have a "normal" society today, society in general isn't what it used to be.

Very true, there was less crime, drugs etc in South Armagh before the ceasefire

[illdecide]

f**k i used to love going up to South Armagh on Sundays for a match as you were guaranteed not to get stopped by the scum bags once you were in bandit country, always seen the helicopters coming in and out of the barracks whilst a match was on and hovering above the pitch just to annoy the folk. But living in Lurgan was a different cattle of fish alltogether you just never knew when or where you were going to be stopped and searched and held for hours for no reason other than being a catholic. Lurgan town centre was another shit hole as it's divided down the middle and when you were young you daren't venture up the other end of the town without getting the f**k beat out of ya, i also remember the time of "the Jackell" and "King Rat" and it was scary shit just to walk at night, cars used to pull up alongside ya and slow down and you thought your days were numbered just waiting on someone opening their window and shooting ya...I've seen a solider shot in Kilwilkee (minor injury) and the squeals of that hoor was nothing normal...seen many more incidents but wont comment on them...

[Bud Wiser]

I was 19 when Jack Lynch made his famous statement to the Nation "We will not stand idly by" (which as we now all know is exactly what we did the government did.  Anyway, we were all rounded up and we were all supposed to be going into the North.  We were taken to Cathal Brugha barracks first and lined up to see "who could fire a Bren Gun, who could drive a truck etc.  As is now know we had to do a bread run to the Curragh to get provisions first and by the time we reached the border the Brits were in place.

Anyway, we did border patrol for a few months and we were holed up in this place, a Christian Brothers monastry in Tannagh in Cootehill.  At the end of our spell the regular army decided to throw a party for us and it included a soccer match between the regulars and the FCA.  Time to settle an old score with one of the regular corporals who had bullied us during our stay so myself and another lad banjoed him and got promptly sent off.  As Eddie Moroney woukld say, we made pure shite of him.  We were banned from the nights celebratioins and put on guard duty for the night.

There was no threat where we were and we saw guard duty as a charade and when the officers came back that night from a black tie do in Cootehill we just said "hows it going lads" as we sat in the back of one of the jeeps sipping pints the lads had smuggled out through the windows.   They came out in full uniform and gave us a dressing down and told us if we did not do our job on this last night we would be here for another month without pay.

Later that night we heard screaming inside the bar area and we thought our lads and the regulars were at it, but, it was a lad from the signal corps who got appendix trouble and he was screaming in pain so they called the doctor from Cootehill.   There was a big long driveway up to where we were and later, around half two in the morning, in the pissings of rain, thiunder and lightning this car comes flying towards us.  It was Dr. Gunn from Cootehill.

I went down first with the torch and rifle and Duff, the guy with me was behind with a Gustaff.  I said "halt who goes there" and without stopping yer man rolls down the window and shouts back at me , Dr. Gunn, Dr. Gunn.    Next thing happens is Duff opens up with the Gustaff (after a few pints) and there are bullets flying over yer mans car and Duff says to him " I'll give you drop your f**king gun"  (Gunn Dr. Gunn - drop yer gun)

Another time we were in Waterford barracks when rerfugees were coming down on busses and a fellow from Ballyroan brought some of them over to Fad Brownes to buy them a drink because he felt sorry for them.  We looked down along the bar and this lad was drawing out something with a pen. Next morning most of the 'senior' refugees were gone - as was every rifle that was in our billet - which would be considerable easy if you had a map drawn out for you and the lock left off the chain.

[Tony Baloney]

The younger generation think it was mad, but to us it was part of growing up. Although we have a "normal" society today, society in general isn't what it used to be.

Very true, there was less crime, drugs etc in South Armagh before the ceasefire

Not unless you count diesel smuggling, cattle rustling etc. as crime. We do where I'm from. That's not counting the various murders in the area.