PART THREE
THE ASSASSINATION OF SIR HENRY WILSON (7)
(7) Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson was assassinated in 1922 by two IRA members who had previously fought in WW1 as soldiers in the British army.
WW1 veterans, as I remember them, working in the Belfast shipyard, mostly Protestant, had this loathing of the officer-class, whom they serviced under. One incident that was mentioned a few times was the trial of a 16-year-old boy, who had given a false age, in order to join the army, and after being there a few weeks became paralysed with fear, wouldn't take orders, and tried to desert. He was court-martialled and sentenced to death. As one of the officers came out of the court martial proceedings a shot rang out and he was killed. The teller was delighted at the memory of it all. He was himself a staunch loyalist. There were other stories about unpopular officers being shot in the back as they went-over-the-top. Field Marshall Haig was loathed, as was the mentioned Sir Henry Wilson. It was what they felt was being made to run into the mouths of German heavy machine-guns, in ridiculous bayonet charges, much like Africans with spears. (racist terms were used here) They weren't radicals by any means, they just wanted to fight in a proper war with proper military strategy. They were all for WW1, unlike the WW2 veterans, who were arriving in the shipyard, and were cynical about their war role, with some regretting they had signed up for it. The South was neutral of course but there was also a feeling in the North that WW2 hadn't much to do with them, and I'm talking about the loyalist population. Probably this was because of the suffering of their forebears in WW1, who thought the war was mishandled by toffs, who just literally threw their lives away.
This attitude also showed up in England with works like Oh What a Lovely War, and articles written during a more radical period in the cultural life of the country.
So, I think the two former WW1 vets, who killed Sir Henry Wilson, just wanted revenge, more than just being IRA members. Tom Barry was part of the more calculating colonial service in the British Army and didn't fight in the trenches. He even ran the Old Comrades section in Cork and was under suspicion by the IRA for his enthusiasm, and only got the opportunity to prove himself when the leader of his section was arrested.
A CATHOLIC IN THE SEA CADETS
Sea Cadets in 1943
As a 14-year-old I joined the Sea Cadets, which is attached to the Royal Navy. It had an equal number of young Catholics. Rinty Monaghan, world champion flyweight boxer, came to teach us boxing on occasions. A Catholic, he had some connection with the Royal Navy, and was entertained, on his visits, by Royal Naval officers. He had no problems with his community. Ulster Unionism failed to honour him until after the Good Friday Agreement, when he had been dead for years
The Belfast Telegraph likes to be even handed but only when it comes to sharing blame. Until the Northern War Catholics in the British Armed Forces had no problem going home on leave. With people knowing one another, especially in West Belfast, they knew who to trust, so that could have continued during that War, for all I know. It might be hard for understand for some but many of these Catholics serving in the BAF still held their nationalist ideas, otherwise they wouldn't have fitted back into their communities after demob.
Obviously my mother, a nationalist, didn't want me in the Sea Cadets but I was very headstrong as a 14 year old. There was very little money around. I was working as an office boy in the shipyard for 16 shillings a week, and was given 2 shillings as pocket money. Fares to work were over 4 shillings a week for a weekly ticket. With a weekly ticket you were given a journey free to and from Belfast. Socialising with the other 14 & 15 year olds, you got all sorts to ideas about what to do in your spare time. The Sea Cadets gave you free travel to England once a year, mostly to Portsmouth naval bases, and to get there you travelled to London from Belfast to Greenock in Scotland, then by train to London, then a ride on the Tube in London, and another train from Waterloo. I was a country boy then and the whole journey was wondrous to me. Wearing a naval uniform in Carryduff, County Down in 1946 gave you no respite from the local sectarian boys. They sure jeered and cat-called in sectarian name-calling. It isn't hard to see the reason why young men, and now girls, with little money and no prospects, join up.
MIXED HOUSING IN RATHCOOLE
Rathcoole, a NI Housing Trust estate of fine social housing, gardens back and front with a view of Carmoney Hills at the back, and Belfast Lough at the front, was once, like other Housing Trust social housing, part of a social engineering scheme by some better-thinking unionists. where every Protestant had a next-door Catholic neighbour, every Catholic had a Protestant next door neighbour. The estate had a Catholic school, along with the usual Protestant school, though Protestant schools originally weren't labelled as being associated with any religion by the first unionist government in 1921-22. They were meant for both faiths, or any other faith in existence. But the Catholic Church wanted none of that, they wanted their own schools, and were allowed to have them.
The headmaster of my Protestant elementary school in Clontonacally, County Down, was born back in the 19th Century, kept such a notion alive and vigorously defended the few Catholics attending his school. He couldn't be called a liberal, in fact he was a militant Protestant and was a fanatical supporter of the Linfield Football Club (the Blues). It might seem unbelievable but you can be that without being sectarian. I think the idea of secular schools was the idea that children caught young could be integrated into the idea of a unified NI. This idea of integrated tenants in the housing field was another attempt at this. No bands or rallies from any source were allowed on these estates, especially during the 12th of July. I remember hearing it all in the distance when my family lived on two such integrated estates. It was quite a peaceful time but there were always individual Protestants who weren't in agreement with that programme and caused a few problems for both Catholic and Protestant neighbours. The feeling I got, despite my previous experiences, was that the Protestant working class also liked peace, and not to be stirred up all the time.
Rathcoole was where the mixed-religion (nationality) family of the Sands lived, with Bobby growing into a teenager there and playing football in a mostly Protestant team. Then the pogroms, then the beginning of the Long War, the tragedies that hit everyone.
CATHOLIC POLITICS IN THE THIRTIES AND FORTIES
The IRA was never a childish fantasy in the Catholic areas of Belfast. The 1930s saw Stormont hanging a couple of them. WW2 saw a serious situation with some of them being shot dead by the RUC. A cadre element remained in the early 1950s. it was too puritanical for most people outside the Falls Road area . It seemed as if you had to have a grandfather, and a father, who was part of it in order to join. Those keeping the rules the most were teenage girls. You had to have an IRA pedigree if you wanted to have a date, as a teenager. Not all of them of course but those from the ruling families, that was those who were given the most respect because of the exploits of their antecedents. These working-class teenage girls already knew their history with a united Ireland not on the cards because of the Dublin government attitudes towards the Northern Catholic. That was as long ago as 1948. It was the period of Soviet leftism or British leftism, and they weren't going for either. The only leftism I remember was the religious Joseph the Worker parades. The only politics outside Republicanism was Catholic Action. As Young Worker' League member we met them most Sundays in Ma Fusco's cafe in the Lower Falls for discussions, that is the few Catholic members of the YWL plus one sympathetic Protestant. like ourselves. Ma Fusco would cross herself as we entered, but in a jokey sort of way.
THOUGHTS PROVOKED BY KENNETH BRANAGH'S SUCCESS WITH THE FILM BELFAST
If you tell the world your No 1 hero is Winston Churchill, that you are a knight, that you cleverly got below the skin of the English nation by starting your acting career doing Shakespeare, getting the ear of Prince Charles, as a result, then I suppose you can do almost anything you like eventually, when the coast is clear, it's a walk-in-the-park. I haven't seen the film Belfast but the media are sure behind it. Some of my relatives (Catholic) have seen it already. The females were quite touched by it, the males not so much - a cosy Protestant life, no romper rooms were Catholics were tortured to death, no stray Catholics killed in drive-past-shootings. That might be asking too much if you want a commercial success. Of course such families existed but when writing for the mass media and they are at the fore front then that has to be the overal image throughout the film, despite showing their co-religionist sectarian rioters, who become less important.
There has been such a description about the film in the British media, I feel as if I have alreadY seen the film though I do plan to see it. But if you are me who wrote about the situation back in 1968 and was produced by the socialist Unity Theatre, and wrote again about it in 1969 and was produced again by Unity Theatre, wrote again about it in 1971, produced by the Royal Court Theatre in 1972, wrote again about it in 1975, produced by the National Theatre in 1976, when the courgeous Peter Hall was in charge and put his career on the line, suffered from the critics who went ape-shite, about the last two production, when what you were only doing was reflecting the real situation, showing members of PIRA as human seemed to be the problem for the British media, called a Stalinist, a PIRA supporter sending secret messages to them, had an agent who prevented the Royal Court production being toured by the prestigious Washington Arena Theatre throughout the US for 10 years,, seemingly in cooperation with agent's discussions with the security services, then it takes all your strength just to keep writing and sending it out, but theatre being a small world they know about you and are afraid to produce you.
I''m talking about when the war, was actually ongoing, not 20 years plus later. TV experience much the same, a drama at the height of the war, to be filmed on the bombed-out streets of Belfast with a mixed religion cast, cancelled when someone representing BBC Headquarters London, got cold feet, or through a whisper in the ear, a few months in preparation for the the film, agreed to be filmed in both Catholic and Protestant area, by Republican and Loyalist forces, cancelled, and an inferior copy made in a studio in London.
Mary O'Malley, artistic director of Lyric Theatre, Belfast, decides to do the Royal Court production, shots fire at theatre but the production goes ahead, car-bomb attempt on theatre but O'Malley's husband foiled it when he parked his car in entry to block any attempt, when such a place was where the theatre would have been torn apart, car-bomb found in front of theatre and defused, production still went ahead with good reviews even from The News Letter, though there was confusion about the idea of two nationalities back then in the 1970s which brought serious threats from elements in Republican circles as well as Loyalist circles, and the suspicions of British Army intelligence, death threats, mass cards.
A scene from the Lyric Players production of Within Two Shadows
Am I complaining? Well no, I had great satisfaction in getting my views across and just watched the Uriah Heaps forelock touching elements attempting a counter-view. I have never stopped writing on the subject, and following work was dropped like a hot potato after agreeing to produce some of it. The problem the dissenting writer has in this society is the hostility of the media, and even worse in not being mentioned. Even the most well-meaning conspirators on your side will be more impressed by you if the media highlights you.
A 'LUNATIC ASYLUM'
Purdysburn. I remember the period of the Lunatic Asylums, when the staff were called Keepers, There were huge red-brick buildings called Purdysburn, within the Carryduff area, about 3 miles from where my family lived. It was surrounded by high railings and locked gates. The inmates (patients) could be scene in the farming area of it working, watched by Keepers in dark blue uniforms. The Head Keeper's children went to my school. The son, aged about 10 was a natural comedian. It was snowing one day when he said: 'The disciples are plucking geese.'
Their dad was never finished concreting the walls of their huge house. Locals said he had caught something because of where he worked. He wasn't so lunatic as the the rest of the population, he and his wife and children were non-sectarian. I couldn't believe it and I ask myself why not. Their family were one of 5 families in the area who were totally non-sectarian Though they voted Unionist, none of them were part of the Orange Order.
The odd patient would escape from Purdysburn and the RUC would be searching the area and stopping all transport to have a look at the passengers. I remember them dragging a very elderly woman out of a ditch where she was hiding. Purdysburn was a place of dread. A stressed out person might say: 'I'm fit for the Big House' (Purdysburn). 'Fit to be tied' was another expression. (8)
(8) A personal note. As a pupil in a posh school ('Inst') in Belfast I sometimes went on organised visits to Purdysburn. Apart from a conversation with one of the people there trying to persuade me that he had a woman concealed under his bed, my main memory is of a large room with three roll-up garage style doors. One of them would open to reveal an Anglican communion table (the Church of Ireland at that time wouldn't have used the word 'altar'); another a Presbyterian communion table; and the third a Catholic altar. An early example of ecumenism at work - PB.
'DICTATORS AT WAR'
I watched: Rise of the Nazis, Dictators at War, on BBC2 last night. Wall to wall propaganda by all sorts of elements, a number of them creatures of the CIA and MI6, and a burnt-out former spy.
It seems Stalin and Hitler got millions killed when it wasn't necessary. Half a million Russian troops died defending Stalingrad, plus 40,000 civilians. That was Stalin's fault in defending Stalingrad? You got the feeling they were saying it was better for the Soviet Union to just give in to the Nazi invasion and save lives. One or two blamed Hitler, saying he took over and didn't let his generals do the job properly. That is, beat the Soviets. A former general in charge of the British Army moralised his guts out in his anti-Soviet rant. Looks like he forgot his troops behaviour in Northern Ireland, in an attempt to batter down the Catholic population in their revolt against dictatorial Unionism, also forgetting Iraq, Libya, Syria, and further back, the atrocities in Malaya, Singapore and Kenya, to mention just a few.
I clearly remember WW2 from the age of 7 until the age of 13, WW2 turned into a Russo-German war. That viewpoint came from those around me in Carryduff, County Down. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union over back-garden-wall neighbours were saying the Russian were not good fighters. When they began to win their popularity heightened. Maybe odd in a sectarian society, but a farmer named his dog Timoshenko after the Russian general (as the Cold War developed, it was shortened to Tim). The Protestant population was cheering on the Red Amy. Some Catholics were hoping they wouldn't want stop in Germany.
The Soviet advance was also being cheered on in Britain. The leftist government of Attlee weren't too pleased with this and so became early Cold War warriors, which was reversing previous acknowledgement of the Soviet victory at the cost of a huge human sacrifice.
Last night's screening was a taste of how anti-Soviet propaganda operated in the 1950s. it was sickening.