“Bloody Friday” was a series of bombings which took place on 21st July 1972. Before talking about the specific event, I want to point out that this was one of a series of traumatic events in the twelve months from August 1971 to July 1972.
Traumatic events….but also a kinda learning curve for me. Personally traumatic too I think. Events that shaped my life or warped my life (depending on how you view me).
Despite the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969 (or if you prefer 1966), the Falls Road Curfew and the Battle of St Matthews (summer 1970) and the killing of the first British soldier, Robert Curtis in early 1971, there was an element of phoney war about those early years. In West Belfast, the Provisional Irish Republican Army openly drilled. The names of the leaders and the structure of the organisation was well known, published even by the Sunday Times “Insight” Team.
But the element of the “phoney” disappeared with the Internment (9th August 1971) and the Ballymurphy Massacre. I declare an interest. I lived in the Greater Ballymurphy Area. I was 19 years old and a student. There was actually a prequel to the Internment Day. About two miles away at Springfield Road RUC station, a builder from South Armagh was killed…shot dead by a Paratrooper as his car allegedly backfired.
The actual Internment Day (a Monday) began around 4.30am with the banging of dustbin lids, the traditional warning for Army and Police raids and from the corner of our road, I could see Army trucks speeding past. Rumours quickly spread about the rough treatment and that so many aged and infirm people were “lifted”. For most of the day there was absolutely no sightings of British Army. The only activity seemed to be certain men moving about in cars. Later that evening a massive gun battle began. Fr Hugh Mullan one of our local priests was killed overnight. He had celebrated the Sunday Mass I had attended the previous day.
The actual gun battle was between the local Provos and the British Army, aided and abetted by the UVF in Springmartin. People much closer to the action than me ….but who I believe…..claim that Protestant civilians were allowed to attack Catholic homes in Springfield Park as the Army drove back Catholics. There is a certain logic to this …….the Brits were not going to open two fronts.
Of course this event would subsequently become known as the Ballymurphy Massacre. At the time, it was claimed that every person killed by the British over that two day period before they re-occupied the area by coming down the mountain…..was a gunman. In the context of admissions and enquiries in recent years (Bloody Sunday and McGurks) there is I think a tacit acceptance that several of the eleven civilians were murdered…..at this point there is no public admission.
McGurks Bar…..4th December 1971…I was actually in County Kildare at the time. Fifteen Catholics died in an explosion in a bar at North Queen Street, probably five miles from my home. The BBC and official British papers reported that it wasa Provisional IRA bomb which had gone off prematurely. The voice-less Catholics from the New Lodge Road area claimed it was a loyalist bomb. To us all….the latter was much more likely.
Almost forty years after the event the British admitted the truth. It was a loyalist bomb and the Police and Army knew it at the time. Lies. Lies. Lies.
I was home when Bloody Sunday in Derry happened (30th January 1972). The events of that day are of course well known and finally accepted that fourteen people were murdered by Paratroopers. The same guys who had been involved in Ballymurphy some months before. Lies. Lies. Lies.
From this arc of events, I was originally tempted to leave out the Abercorn Bombing….the restaurant in central Belfast. Arguably I should have been more traumatised by this than any other event of that twelve-month period……..as I had walked past it just a few minutes previously. I was still in the city centre, heard the blast and saw the glass fall from several storefronts. I really dont know why that one (Saturday 4th March 1972) does not register ……..was it “only” because two people died? was it because of the near certainty that it was carried out by the Provos? They still deny it to this day but there is a tacit acceptance that they were responsible.
Saturday 13th May 1972…Kellys Bar. At the top of the Whiterock Road, less than 200 metres from my home. Bomb kills two or three people. We lose a window in our house. My mother was actually out shopping but is safe. I went out to look for her. Just as we arrive thru the door, the shooting starts and goes on all day. The UVF have positions in Springmartin and their snipers have been lying in wait and open up on the rescuers. The Provos and even the Stickies shoot back. And the British join in…………and ignore the UVF snipers. Indeed they collude. It is overt. And even that has recently been confirmed by the UVF.
21st July 1972. I attended an interview that afternoon for a temporary job at Dundonald House in the Stormont Estate. Seventh Floor. A bomb went off. I was in a waiting room with a panoramic view of Belfast City Centre. The people waiting hear a dull thud. A plume of black smoke rises. Another bomb goes off and another plume of smoke. I suppose Wikipedia has the complete record of those bombs…….Oxford Street Bus Station, York Road Railway Station….
As it turned out the interviews were cancelled and we were all advised to go home but the problem was that there was no bus service. No bus to take me (say) four miles down the Newtownards Road into Belfast City Centre. It seemed that I might be left to fend for myself until one kindly civil servant volunteered a colleague to take me into town.
The journey into town was uncomfortable. Vlearly the driver and his regular passenger did not want to engage with me in any way. From the city centre I walked another four miles home. It was really only then that the scale of the bombings was known. On this occasion that there was no doubt that the IRA was responsible. Claims that they had given warnings rang hollow.
And just ten days later (31st July) it all happened again in Claudy, Co Derry. Another nine dead to add to the nine on Belfast’s Bloody Friday. What geometric term do I use……an arc of six events, a learning curve, or coming full circle. The Phoney War was long over. We were now all passive. The IRA were the lest likely of three groups to kill me. The Brits not as likely as the UVF/UDA. And basically most people sat it all out for years. And we all found our own way out.
Actually the story of Bloody Friday is best told thru Drama than News. The 1981 Drama “Nailed” stars veteran Norn Iron actor, Colin Blakely as an RUC man, under cover in a holding cell with a young IRA suspect played by Liam Neeson. The entire play is set in the cell with a young Colm Meaney making occasional appearances as the RUC custody officer. Blakeley tries to get the suspect to confess by acting himself as an IRA man…….but realises that Neeson is not guilty of any crime when Neeson recalls Bloody Friday. At one time he might have become involved in violence due to the experiences he had had before Bloody Friday but his mind was re-directed from violence when he saw RUC officers shovelling the remains of a body into a rubbish bag at Oxford Street Bus Station. Of course this resonates with Blakely…..who was one of those officers. Blakeley was hardened by the experience. Neeson softened.
That image is as engraved on my mind as it was on the fictional mind of Liam Neeson
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