When I became an active blogger over ten years ago, the”big theme” was the Decade of Centenaries.
As regular readers will know, I prefer private remembering to public remembrance. We are entitled to remember our history as we wish. I really do not understand officialdom getting involved in our personal histories.
If you look around Norn Iron (England, Wales and Scotland also) you will see a lot of Cenotaphs. I have no idea how many there are. Quite possibly, there are only four in the disUnited Kingdom and the memorials in Portadown, Liverpool, Doncaster, Swansea etc are merely war memorials.
The point is that the great and the good and old soldiers, parade, fall silent, lay wreaths, say something about the “going down of the Sun” play the British anthem…….and forget about it all until next year.
The First World War was all about lions led by donkeys. Officialdom distracted the bereaved, wounded, crippled and the angry and hid behind memorials.
That is what Conflict Resolutionists tried to do in our Decade of Centenaries.
Distract us into re-evaluating the Ulster Unionist Covenant, First World War, Easter 1916 as a faux exercise in our “shared history” and “shared future” so that we do not think about the much more relevant events of 1969 et seq.
Like it or not, the shared history and shared future 1969-1998 is very very real.
Somehow, the Conflict Resolutionists deem it helpful to re-consider the events of a century ago. But it is unhelpful to think about events that occurred just fifty years ago. Sometimes when I visit Milltown cemetry (and the same would be true of Roselawn), I see elderly people tending graves of their children or husbands. I see children brought to graves of grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts that they never actually knew.
The pain never really goes away.
We are now in the first days of 2022. Fifty years ago …1972…………was the most deadly year of the Troubles with 480 people dying. There are big anniversaries coming up …Bloody Sunday, Bloody Friday. Claudy but I do not think we should concentrate on events. There are individual pains which are just as relevant as the “community” pains. There will even be a few anniversaries that are personal to me.
Never Forget!
But just as importantly…DO NOT LET ANYONE TELL US HOW TO REMEMBER!
This is a re-written/edited version of an article I wrote for a USA-based academic website a few years ago.
I started work aged 17 on 29th September 1969. My parents were deeply disappointed that I had decided to leave school at the start of my final year at a grammar school. This was just nine months away from completing my “A” levels and getting into university.
At that time, my parents did not know that I had actually been playing truant from school for several months. My first working day was therefore just six weeks after the Troubles are generally accepted as started (August 1969).
So in a very real sense, there is a dividing line between my schooldays (pre-Troubles) and working life (post-Troubles).
So I applied for a few jobs in the summer of 1969. The target was being a clerical officer or clerical assistant in Belfast Corporation (now known as Belfast City Council). I had seven “O” levels (two more than I needed to be a CO and five more than I needed to be a CA.
I went for an interview and was appointed as a Clerical Officer.
So…Belfast City Hall….and maybe twelve new recruits in the Corporation Chamber. And we were given our Oath Of Allegiance (to “Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs and successors”) to sign. Incredible as it seems now, this Oath had to be signed before getting employment in any government or semi government job.
Maybe the “Oath” acted as a deterrent to committed republicans not to apply for such jobs. Maybe naive of Belfast Corporation to think that the “Oath” actually meant anything to the Catholic recruits. Maybe it was just a form of ritual humiliation.
But was it really an Oath?
It was actually a sheet of paper A5 size with text on each side. One side was a formal oath, “I swear to Almighty GOD” and the other side was less formal “I solemnly promise”. Catholics signed the promise and Protestants signed the oath. No Catholic/nationalist would ask GOD to witness that nonsense.
So when I get to Heaven…as I surely will….GOD will not hold it against me.
The Corporation had a lot of Departments….Parks, Town Clerk, Surveyors, Gas, Electricity etc. I was assigned to the Belfast Corporation Electricity Department. It was on the Albert Bridge (over the River Lagan). In 2021, nothing remains of the building except a small stone wall opposite Lanyon Railway Station.
The River Lagan divides the city of Belfast. The city centre shopping areas are on the west bank and West Belfast is mostly Catholic, North Belfast and South Belfast are mixed and across the Lagan East Belfast is almost all Protestant. There was a small Catholic enclave (Short Strand) just over the Albert Bridge.
As the name implies, the Electricity Department ran the electricity supply in the city of Belfast….reading meters, connecting services, selling immersion heaters, washing machines, installing supply to new buildings etc. A a clerical officer, my job was converting the readings taken by meter inspectors into quarterly bills. The higher ups were all Protestant but the clerical staff (lower orders like me) were mixed. For the most part, the Protestant clerical staff lived in the Castlereagh area. Indeed one went on to be UUP Mayor of Castlereagh.
My father had long warned me about Freemasons and their influence in the City Hall. When we paid our Rates or Electric Bill and walked away from the cashier, he would ask me if I noted the man’s lapel badge or the outsize ring he wore….so when I started work I was already primed to note the sub-sect of masons, respectable middle class men who were cosy with each other…and their funny hand shakes. Probably the least secret “secret society” in the entire world.
Although I had lived in a “mixed” street all my life, working was a strange introduction into the various religious and class structure within Belfast Protestant and unionist culture.
Mrs Smith, the anti-Catholic religious woman who left little religious tracts on my desk. As I did not drink, smoke or curse, she viewed me as not being a real Catholic. I could easily be saved if I abandoned my Catholic Puritanism for Protestant Puritanism.
There was Bob, a sergeant in the B Specials. He lked to ask questions. I was fore-warned by Catholic co-workers. “he will be vetting you”.
So the strange mix of “respectable” masons, Orange and loyal order men, religious freaks, anti-sectarian (but unionist) trade unionists, “B Specials”, the downright sectarian thugs in the non-clerical workforce and the handful of Protestants who seemed to prefer the company of Catholics….it was all there.
The Catholics lived in the Falls area. The Laganbank Road (at the back of the main building) was the area for non clerical staff. Almost exclusively Protestant, (one section had 61 Protestants and just 1 Catholic but oddly that solitary Catholic was not abused…most abuse was heaped on the Protestant married to a Catholic and who lived on the Falls Road) and they mostly lived in Newtownards Road. These were meter inspectors, repair men, installers, drivers, electricians etc.
It was a hassle at times. There was a long corridor, decorated with pictures of Mrs Windsor and Dukey Embra going back to the Coronation. It was a kinda gauntlet of abuse, especially for female Catholic workers. And it accelerated as the Troubles got worse.
The odd thing was that from late 1969 thru to Easter 1970, it looked at times that the genie of Violence could be put back into the bottle. I remember feeling very grown up about going to a party in a nice new house…a housewarming I think….in Carnmoney, in the North Belfast suburbs.. The first occasion I had ever seen alcohol in a private house. And later in Dermott Hill, about 200 metres from my house, where we all listened to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” .
We had a football match …….Boys versus Girls…we even got our photo in a local newspaper. And had a concert for charity in St Georges Hall. All very normal.
But it all went wrong at Easter. There was rioting between our estate, New Barnsley (mixed) and Ballymurphy (Catholic) and in the aftermath, the Protestants left New Barnsley and this had a chain reaction thru the city….as the anti Catholic pogrom had less than a year before.
Any doubt that the violence was unstoppable was resolved in June and the Battle of St Matthews in the Short Strand. There are two narratives for the Battle of St Matthews. One is that the tiny Catholic enclave was attacked by a loyalist mob, determined to burn the church to the ground and repulsed by a small determined IRA unit. The other narrative is that peace loving loyalist Orangemen were provoked into an an IRA trap. Whatever…the IRA won the battle.
Short Strand enclave was just over Albert Bridge from the Electricity Department. In the aftermath, Catholic workers were forced to leave the Belfast shipyard and there were rumours that the Catholics in the Electricity Department would also be forced to leave. It was curious…the Protestants in the workshops were sullen and angry. The Catholics had a strut.
A few days after the Battle, I spent my lunch hour wandering around the streets in Short Strand…Seaforde Street, Madrid Street, Bryson Street etc…I had never been in the area before.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was re-organised. One of my Catholic co-workers joined up. He continued to live in West Belfast. He was maybe 28 years old. a kinda mentor to us who were in our late teens or slightly older. He had been at both those parties. He played in that football match.
A post-script……I was out with my first girlfriend, Theresa about a year later. And we were on Shaws Road at Andytown and we heard three shots in the darkness. I got her home. One of those shots hit my old co-worker in the head and put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. I only saw him once again…..when I was walking thru the Outpatients in a hospital and he had an appointment.
He died just over a year ago in 2020. Fifty years in a wheelchair after less than a year in RUC, he was convinced his West Belfast neighbours would not do that. There was not a bad bone in his body.
Theresa…she is part of the narrative. She had gone out with my friend Harry in 1970 and when he dumped her, I seemed to spend every lunch time, hoping I would accidently bump into her outside her office in Corporation Street. Eventually she did go out with me but dumped me in October 1971 because I was too serious. She got engaged to somebody else a few months later.
See…that is the thing about the Troubles. It was civil war. But it was also about Boy Meets Girl. Girl Dumps Boy. It was about new music…”In the Summertime” (Mungo Jerry in 1970), various T Rex and Slade to “Maggie May” (Rod Stewart in 1971). t was also about Sport…Manchester United were in decline from winning the European Cup in 1968 and would be relegated in 1973.
Nobody ever went out. All we had was Television…….British shows like Cilla Black, Generation Game, Black & White Minstrels, Top of the Pops and American shows like Mary Tyler Moore, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In, Ironside.
As the killings mounted, the Troubles were here to stay. They were not even a talking point in the offices. Or if there was talk…Catholics talked to Catholics and Protestants talked to Protestants. Early in 1972, I went to a funeral of someone I had been at school with. His 50th anniversary is next week.
But Belfast Corporation Electricity Department (the city utility) was about to be merged with other electricity providers into the new NIES (Norn Iron Electricity Service). This meant re-deployment into other Corporation departments or the new Norn Iron wide body. I don’t think that the full merger took place until 1972 but re-deployments and transfers took place in the summer of 1971.
In August 1971, one NIES employee was killed when the headquarters at Malone Road was bombed by the IRA.
I chose to remain in the Corporation and was transferred to the Surveyors Department. Sounded good but it was the Cleansing Section.
The Cleansing Section……….Bins. Dustbins. Bin lorries. Road Sweepers. Bulk Waste, Incinerator. All in the days before Re-Cycling Centres.
At least it was clerical.
What does a Clerical Officer in the Cleansing Section do?
Well every household in the city had a bin….or trash can as the Americans would say. And they were emptied weekly by bin lorries, operating out of sixteen yards, administered by Inspectors (former binmen).
And we had great big ledgers with every address in the city and the date on which the bin had been issued to them. Bins were hired at five shillings a year, either by the householder or estate agents on behalf of landlords. Really nobody ever paid five shillings and while there was technically a possibility of bins being taken away for non-payment, it never happened.
A householder could have a replacement bin after eight years. And we updated the ledgers. And if your bin was missing or damaged we would send an Inspector out to find it or check on its condition.
Often an Inspector would report that the bins had been damaged by the householders themselves. Banging bin lids was the traditional way of alerting the neighbourhood that the Brits were raiding.
Christy Moore explains this better than I can.
It was not without controversy. If we said we could not deliver a new bin to an address in Sandy Row or Tiger Bay, irate householders would tell us “you would not say that if I lived on Falls Road or Ardoyne…..those Fenians get everything” And of course we would get the same abuse from the other parts of the City.
The clerical staff were aware at how farcical working in the Cleansing Section was.
But I was a 19 year old man of some importance. If you wanted a bin, I could get you one. My parents……Uncle Jackie/Auntie Mary….some neighbours……and of course Auntie Sheila/Uncle Charlie. Auntie Sheila used to invite her neighbours in to see the bin her influential nephew had got her. Yes my beloved auntie Sheila kept her bin INSIDE her house. She never used it as a bin……she kept her shoes in it for the rest of her life.
Whatever the farce, there was a war going on outside.
On 9th August 1971, Internment was introduced. In less than a week, 24 people would be dead. The most notorious incident was the Ballymurphy Massacre, a few hundred metres from my home. Nobody in the “official” media would believe or report what happened.. It took 50 years for the Truth to be told.
In December 1972, loyalists killed 15 people in an explosion at McGurks Bar in the New Lodge area. Again it took 40 years for the Truth to come out. RUC seriously spun it as an IRA bomb that had gone off prematurely.
By 1972, it was not phoney. It was very real. Bloody Sunday (January) 14 were killed by British Paras in Derry. More lies that took nearly 40 years to reveal the Truth.
But let’s be honest, working in the “Bin Office” of the Cleansing Section of Belfast Corporation had a kinda stigma. I was applying for other jobs. Trying to get into the Norn Iron Civil Service.
And …20th March 1972, the IRA dumped a bomb into one of our bin lorries. And it went into Donegall Street, the binmen unaware of their cargo. A phone warning was given but it was misleading. The RUC directed civilians into the path of the bomb. It exploded…….killing seven people. Two policeman were blown to pieces. So were the three men on the bin lorry crew. And an Inspector who had just retired and stopped for a chat with the crew.
A week later, the Stormont government was abolished and the British imposed Direct Rule.
Farce. Tragedy. LIES.
I suppose I used the experience of the two Corporation jobs as a learning curve. I was banking things that I had learned.
So I got out of the Corporation and into the Norn Iron Civil Service in May 1972. But the biggest lesson I ever learned was that leaving school before “A” levels was the biggest mistake of my life.
I have always said that an arc of events in 1972/73 was the most significant part in my evolution as a person. I had not realised just how connected it all was to my working career.
American academics who are interested in Civil Rights rarely understand that integrated education (Catholics and Protestants) was not a basic demand in Norn Iron. Educating black and white children together was a prime demand by Civil Rights activists in Alabama and Mississippi so why was it not an issue in Armagh and Fermanagh?
Well I think it is fair to say that in my lifetime, the Catholic grammar schools were just as good as the State (de facto Protestant) grammar schools.
Grammar schools might be perceived as elitist but the reality was that Catholic pupils were scholarship boys and girls, who had earned the right to attend thru passing the “11 plus” exam. I was one such pupil (1963-1969) and my only sister was one (circa 1966-1973). We were not elite.
But the education at grammar schools was the pathway to university, professions like Law or Medicine or at worst clerical and secretarial jobs.
Our schools run by Christian Brothers or nuns like the Dominicans and Sisters of Mercy were acutely aware that Education was our path out of the Ghetto and of course we were the pathfinders for subsequent generations.
So our schools were at least equal to the State system.
Of course “Integrated Education” has been a talking point for decades. More so since the Good Friday Agreement. Some see it as helpful to the long term future of Norn Iron. Some see themselves as outside the traditional Catholic and Protestant tribes.
Teaching History in Norn Iron
In any school, 1 plus 1 equals 2….and the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the square on the other two sides. The real bug bear is History.
In my Christian Brothers grammar school in September 1963…that first year was the Tudor Years, beginning with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and Henry VII and ending with the death of Elizabeth in 1603. So as we went thru those years learning about Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, Anne Boleyn, Mary Tudor, the Reformation the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Pilgrimage of Grace, “Saint” Thomas More, “Saint John Fisher, Edward VI, Cranmer, Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, Spanish Armada….we were already taking sides. English History in Tudor Times is basically a century of Protestant versus Catholic.
The Reformation
The nuances of Martin Luther, the selling of Indulgences, the corruption at Papal courts was lost on us.
We were after all Catholic and the Reformation was a very bad thing…so the Christian Brothers said. And if Henry VIII and his son Edward VI went about cutting the heads off “Saint” Thomas More and others, then clearly that was a very bad thing. Mary Tudor (vaguely one of us)..well she was just as bad of course with a penchant for burning Protestant martyrs at the stake. But Elizabeth I…..Good Queen Bess…she was worst of all. It was our priests after all who were being drawn to Tyburn and other places, hanged and cut down before death, various body parts cut off, cut open entrails burned before their eyes and of course their limbs cut off and heads placed on a pike.
It was the barbaric fate that awaited political conspirators like Anthony Babington and religious missionaries like Saint Edmond Campion. And of course, there was a link between these types of martyrs.
Of course Elizabeth I was a heretic…we were told. But 16th century religious fanaticism has a very modern parallel.
Take Guy Fawkes, a Yorkshire Catholic at the centre of the Gunpowder Plot against James I. He fought in European religious wars, educated alongside Catholic emigrés who were educated at Catholic institutes in France and Flanders and came back to England to establish Catholic dominance. And he and others advocated the violent overthrow of Good Queen Bess.
Now that does not seem a lot different from 21st century men from Yorkshire who go to fight a religious war in the Middle East and are educated at a madras in Pakistan and come back to England to establish a caliphate and sharia law. Not always by peaceful means.
Protestant heretics. Christian infidels. Not a lot of difference. Does this mean that our Catholic martyrs are just the same as Islamist terrorists?
The Irish Dimension
But the curious thing about our first History book in 1963 was that English History was the main event. And Irish History was the second feature. So Silken Thomas, Hugh O’Neill were like the second theatre of the Culture Wars.
And of course that study of History continues in 1964, 1965, 1966 and so on. The pattern is that British History was mainstream and Irish History a very large footnote. There is ALWAYS an Irish Dimension. Whether it is the Spanish Armada in 1588 or the Brexit Disaster (2016 et seq), Britains Danger is Ireland’s Opportunity.
But when History overlaps with Politics or Nationality, it ceases to be Academic.
An academic might say that the Reformation was a good thing, long term for Europe. That it was the forerunner to Enlightenment, Democracy and Freedom.
The problem for 36 Catholic schoolboys in 1963 is that we were on the wrong side of History in terms of “religion” but were we on the wrong side of History in terms of national freedom.
English Catholics Are Not Friends of Ireland
Initially the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland was not a Protestant-Catholic thing. And effectively in 1155, the Papal Bull “Laudabiliter” gives ownership of Ireland to England. The Pope had maybe a vested interest. He was Pope Adrian IV, the only English Pope. Whether this is a Papal Bull or Papal Bullshit as the late Cardinal O’Fiaich described it is problematic but to this day, the aristocratic English Catholics regard it as valid. In historic Catholic terms England OWNS Ireland.
In 1973, I was part of a SDLP delegation from SDLP in West Belfast who met the local Brits in a barracks. The officer we spoke to was a Catholic (Ampleforth-educated) and downright hostile to us. It was our duty to be loyal to the Crown.
And even in the mid 16th century, Mary Tudor was expanding the conquest of Ireland in the midland counties Queens County (modern Laois) and Kings County (modern Offally). So those Catholic martryrs who suffered under Elizabeth I were not overly sympathetic to the Irish.
Which brings me to the Victorian hymn “Faith of Our Fathers” originally written for an English audience. But later adopted in Ireland
1
Faith of our fathers, living still In spite of dungeon, fire and sword, O how our hearts beat high with joy Whene’er we hear that glorious word! Faith of our fathers! holy faith! We will be true to thee till death!
2
Our fathers, chained in prisons dark, Were still in heart and conscience free; And blest would be their children’s fate, If they, like them should die for thee: Faith of our fathers! holy faith! We will be true to thee till death!
3
Faith of our fathers, we will strive To win all nations unto thee; And through the truth that comes from God Mankind shall then indeed be free. Faith of our fathers! holy faith! We will be true to thee till death!
4
Faith of our fathers, we will love Both friend and foe in all our strife, And preach thee, too, as love knows how By kindly words and virtuous life. Faith of our fathers! holy faith! We will be true to thee till death!
We learned this hymn in primary school, maybe at 9 years old. It is pretty graphic. At that age, I did not fully comprehend “forefathers” in historic terms but rather saw “father” as a contemporary family word…my own daddy chained up in a dungeon because he would not say Protestant prayers.
At the time of Confirmation (February 1961 in St Peters) denying “our Faith” was a big thing. In my understanding, if a Protestant jumped out from the very dark wall at the Dominican Convent (it was the darkest place I knew) and held a knife to my 8 year old throat and demanded “are you a Protestant or Catholic?” then the only reply I could give was “Catholic”. I was obliged to die for my faith, as my forefathers had done ……..in Drogheda, Wexford, Limerick etc during the Cromwellian and Penal Years
The video (if it works)…..shows images, St Patricks Cathedral, Armagh, holy well, Marian grotto, Penal Cross (shaped to be easily hidden), Mass Rock (where Mass was said in secret places), Knock Basilica, Matt Talbot, Irish saints…and the preserved skull of executed Archbishop Oliver Plunkett (hanged, drawn and quartered in 1681). Religion (Catholic) and Irish nationalism are connected.
Of course as the 1960s progressed and the Troubles were “before my time” and I was crossing Sandy Row and Shankill Road to play football in Botanic Gardens and Woodvale Park, it never dawned on me that the “Catholic or Protestant” thing would ever be relevant in my life.
The 1970s……I lived in fear of the likes of the Shankill Butchers and other nakedly sectarian murder gangs who would happily torture me to death.
“Denying Faith” is not uniquely Catholic. Or unique to Norn Iron. But it is not about Religion it itself. It is as much about the historic baggage that comes along with it.
It is perfectly reasonable for a person born into the Jewish faith in New York City to re-examine his or her committment as an adult. But at least part of him might be wary of turning his or her back on the history right thru to the Holocaust.
So it is perfectly reasonable for a 20 year old Catholic woman in Ballymurphy or a 30 year old Catholic man in Coalisland to say “ya know what…………I just don’t believe this any more.”. It might be because of a deep philosophy or it might be revulsion at 20th century scandals of Abuse, Magdalene laundries and Tuam babies.
So why then are these new athiests (Sinn Féin and SDLP voters mostly) not at the forefront of calling for Protestant and Catholic children to be educated together? Well in part it is historic. There was a time when the Catholic religion was banned and a time when Catholics were educated in “hedge schools”. It is hard to turn your back on History, especially the suffering of our forefathers.
Well the simplest answer is that integrated education is NOT about RELIGION. Integrated Education is about POLITICS.
Catholics may learn a lot about Religion at schools but we learn much more about Politics. I did not become a Catholic thru going to Catholic school. I became a Nationalist and a Republican and maybe even a Socialist.
Of course there are “State” schools which might be described as “neutral” but the reality is that in terms of the attendees and atmosphere, these are de facto “Protestant” schools.
The third block “Integrated Education” educates children from both backgrounds in what purports to be a more genuine neutral environment.
But in Norn Iron, neutrality……..the space between Nationalism and Unionism……is in itself a (unionist) political stance. A stance that says we can live together as a homogenous society. No wonder the Alliance Party endorse it.
About two months ago, up to 150 people in Norn Iron will have got letters from a department within the Cabinet Office in Downing Street.
They will have been told that “Her Majesty the Queen” (sic) has decided to award them a peerage, knighthood, CBE, QPM. OBE, MBE, BEM …and they will have been asked to treat the correspondence as confidential and to reply indicating their acceptance or if they decline.
In England itself, the word “Empire” is not exactly acceptable in some circles. Many leftists or people from ethnic minorities decline an honour simply because of the word.
What I find more curious is that quite a lot of lefties and people from ethnic backgrounds are happy enough to take a bauble.
Norn Iron is no different. The letters will have gone out to folks here.
It is not exactly Cold Calling and Junk Mail. People are “sounded out”.
For example, a midwife who has spent 40 years of her life delivering babies in County Down will be recommended for a MBE or whatever. Her discerning boss will have a good idea if she is likely to accept. And the elderly lady who runs the charity/good will shop in County Tyrone…her charity committee will have a fair idea of whether the lady is unionist or nationalist.
It is not straightforward to say that unionists accept honours and nationalists refuse. I know a Catholic nurse and a Catholic teacher who have accepted the honour they were offered. And I know another Catholic civil servant who received the Cabinet Office letter and went straight round to Human Resources to confront the official who recommended him.
That’s how it goes. There are always Uncle Toms in the Republican and Nationalist community. But the point is that in order for the final published Honours List to appear balanced, more Catholics have to asked to allow for the Catholics who tell the Cabinet Office to shove their letter where the Sun dont shine.
As a general rule, nationalist politicians do not accept honours. It is bad for business. Gerry Fitt went into the House of Lords in 1983 but he had left SDLP some years before. In 2019, Margaret Ritchie joined the House of Lords but left SDLP to so do. Her decision to accept a peerage sent shock waves thru the SDLP. She now sits in the Lords as a member of the (British) Labour Party.
At this time of year…the dog days between Christmas and New Year, I always get nervous that a SDLP politician might accept a peerage or other honour. Likewise any celebrity (entertainer or sports man or woman) So hopefully not this week.
Have I any predictions?
Well could Arlene Foster, former First Minister ousted by DUP “colleagues” this year get into the Lords .”Lady Foster” is almost certain.
Or David Ford former Alliance Leader and Minister for Justice get a knighthood. “Sir David Ford”?
“Dame Deirdre Heenan”…..hopefully not.
Archbishop Eamonn Martin….I wouldn’t put it past him.
Quintin Oliver…..who knows? …”Quintin Oliver OBE?”
The Belfast Gazette (like its London and Edinburgh sister publications) is a weekly “government” publication. Usually it just lists things like bankruptcies and “royal” business.
Twice a year, it lists the New Year and Birthday “Honours”.
About 45 years ago, I was asked by the Editor to proof read the Honours List with him. As I read thru the names I stopped…….”Edward Ger……..Eddie that’s you”
And Eddie smiled, put his finger to his lips to indicate that this was “Top Secret” stuff. Eddie had been awarded one of the minor honours. As a civil servant for around 35 years, I have had colleagues who received minor honours.
The Honours system is a peculiar thing.
In Norn Ireland last year, around 90 people received an honour.
As far as I can make out four people received the Order of the Bath (sic) or Royal Victorian Order. They were senior civil servants. Another nine received the Queens Police Medal.
But the bulk of the baubles were six CBEs (Commander of the British Empire), nine OBEs (Officers of the British Empire), 28 MBEs (Members of the British Empire) and 39 BEMs (British Empire Medals).
No doubt, within the context of a midwife, who has spent forty years delivering babies in the Scottish Highlands or a firefighter who has spent a lifetime in daily danger, then honours are justified.
But the hierarchy in these awards means that some very worthy people go unrecognised. They are simply a cover for the major awards of Peerages (Lordships), Knighthoods/Damehoods to retired politicians, bankers, captains of industry, chancellors of universities and celebrities in sport and entertainment.
Membership of the House of Lords is membership of the British parliament and bestows lifelong voting rights on retired politicians and political donors. And they get a daily allowance for just turning up and signing in.
Knighthoods and Damehoods…….as in “Sir Ian McKellen”, “Sir Michael Caine”, “Dame Helen Mirren”, “Dame Judi Dench”, “Sir Elton John” does not carry any political importance and as much the preserve of chairmen of banks, senior civil servants as the increasing number of celebs.
The lower orders ….CBE, OBE, MBE, BEM are the bottom of the pyramid that keeps the whole farce going.
Increasingly the dubious qualities of people awarded major honours has taken a shine off these medals. Can Owen Paterson, a former Cabinet minister, MP for 24 years and mired in scandal really be elevated to the Lords? Would he have to stay under the radar for a few years?
This year, Daniel Craig has been mentioned (a knighthood) but I would think William Roache (who has played Ken Barlow in Coronation Street for 61 years must be in the running. And maybe Jimmy Tarbuck and Adele.
The thing is that the secrecy is never really secrecy.
News camera crews and newspaper journalists will have already been despatched to interview the some celebs and a midwife or COVID nurse.
The annual Christmas speech by Mrs Elizabeth Windsor is one of those things that is impossible to explain, mainly because I don’t actually watch it.
It is a curious throw-back to the 1950s. Listen to any left wing “woke” British stand-up comedian and he will talk about how their parents made him stand up at 3pm every Christmas Day and they all sang “God Save the Queen” at the end.
That is the thing about England. There are traditionalists for whom the Queens Speech is a patriotic duty. For English folks who read the Guardian, it is a farce.
And of course in our part of the world it is no different. Unionists love the Queen. Nationalists are indifferent and we boast about we have never actually seen or heard it. Was it 1985 or was it 1986 when nobody in our house could find the TV remote and I had to throw myself across the living room to switch the TV off manually. We still talk about that.
Back in 2012, the RTE Guide (the Irish TV listings magazine) kinda summed up our feelings. “The British monarch lectures her subjects” yes its childish and inappropriate and crass but aren’t we glad that a Republican minded Irishman got this past the sub editors of RTE Guide. It will be there forever.
Actually, the Queen’s Speech is kinda predictable. She mentions the Commonwealth….she is probably the only woman in England who gives a tinkers curse about the Commonwealth. And now that Barbados is a republic, there are very few people in the Commonwealth who are overly bothered about Elizabeth Windsor.
She also talks a lot about Family. Apparently this year, she did not dwell on Family. Andrew is still in hiding. And Harry and the Duchess of Somewhere and their babies also did not get a mention.
Does all this matter?
I think it does. As she approaches seventy years as monarch, it draws attention that the monarchy has missed two, maybe three generational opportunities to re-boot itself. Much is made of the modernising approach of Dukey Embra and the BBCs Huw Weldon in the late 1960s and 1970s. And of course the farcical “Its a Royal Knockout”, not to mention closer inspection of the business and private lives of the Royals.
The Royals is a curious soap opera. These are actors who are playing parts.
Rather like “Coronation Street” where hapless Ken Barlow was jailed for a week in the 1960s for a protest against nuclear weapons is played by arch Conservative, William Roache.
So Dukey Embra…that wonderful Scotsman was actually a part played by Philip (his surname is variable) an economic migrant from Greece.
The actors playing the parts of politically neutral royals are actually dyed in the wool Tories.
Fifty years ago, I used to walk down a corridor at work. The walls were plastered with faded newspaper cuttings dating to the Coronation of Elizabeth Windsor in the early 1950s.
It seems a million years ago. Charlie Chuck as my Auntie Sheila called him is a few years older than me. He might have been a lovable child and even looked like a Prince Charming. Now he looks like a befuddled, grumpy old git….as indeed do I.
Sometime in his late teens, he was made Prince of Wales (a new part for the actor to play) and classicly Prince Charming for most of the 1970s. But from Prince of Wales to Lady Di via deflowering every available English Rose, he is past his sell by date.
It is not necessarily ghoulish to think 2022 will be a big year for the English Royal Family. But surely a high watermark will be the Platinum Anniversary…70 years is no mean feat. By all accounts, Elizabeth is an excellent Queen (if you like that kinda thing) and is it ghoulish to think that she wont be around for ever. Her heir is now an elderly man himself…and that is not really supposed to happen.
It occurs to be that nobody has actually said “GOD Save the King!” in at least seventy years. Only one Coronation has ever been televised. And a person would have to be at least 75 years old to even remember Elizabeth’s predecessor.
The customary acknowledgement of a new monarch….how does that actually play out in the next five years. Will 5 year old children gather in school playgrounds to shout “GOD Save the King”?. Will BBC Newsreaders be compelled to say it?
Will Newsreaders in Norn Iron have to say it?
And within Stormont, what exactly is the new protocol for the death of a monarch and the coronation of a new one.
Two different dynamics. Might even be tears on Unionist benches. All of which seems reasonable. And it would be churlish for Sinn Féin and SDLP leaders to express sympathy across the aisle. It is the decent thing to do. She is after all a 95 year old lady who has given a life of service to (her) people.
But proclaiming “GOD Save the King” seems a step too far for any nationalist.
Yet it is hard to be neutral. How does Alliance react? Obviously a congratulations at Platinum time is appropriate. But joining in the acclamation for a monarch seems like a difficult step for a party that says there are both nationalists and unionists within its ranks.
It is now ten days since Alliance Councillor Carole Howard (East Belfast) defected to Ulster Unionist Party.
I had hoped to read an in depth analysis of this on Slugger O’Toole. Alas I am disappointed. Surely the defection of a councillor from one party to another is newsworthy.
If a SDLP, UUP, DUP or Sinn Féin councillor had defected TO Alliance, would Slugger have considered it not to be newsworthy.
I cannot answer the question. I can merely point out that Slugger has a tendency to talk up the Alliance Party. And often engages in fantasy Politics.
Alliance enthusiasts think that the Alliance Party can get 16 seats (up from 8 seats) in May’s Assembly election. It seems on the outer edge of Reality. A high degree of wishful thinking.
But whatever about potential Alliance gains, the defection of Carole Howard to UUP is not a prediction. It is a fact.
So I have just heard that a movie “Belfast”, directed by our very own (is he?) “Sir” Kenneth Branagh has been short-listed for an Oscar.
Some things are beyond Satire.
About 99.9% of us who have lived thru The Troubles think we have a talent to write about it all. I am no exception Of course my main talent is Procrastination.
Mostly I sit around telling to anyone who will listen what the Troubles (1969-1998) were all about. Of course, I do write it down but rarely in a considered way. There are of course two forms of Troubles literature…histories, memoirs, fiction, screenplay.
Belfast writer, Martin Lynch has a well received play “The Troubles According To My Da” . Personally I am not a fan of Lynch but the title of his play is brilliant. Yes I am one of several thousand “Da” type men who bore our children to death with our stories.
Films and TV productions about Norn Iron have a chequered history. Typically in the early days, square jawed British agents went undercover, seduced idealistic feisty red head whose father and brother were republican psychopaths.
For the record, the only good Norn Iron movie is “Resurrection Man”, essentially the story of the Shankhill Butchers. It is very true……and consequently unwatchable because of the sectarian cruelty.
Unionists ask why there is no movie depicting loyalists in a sympathetic light. I cant answer the quuestion. But I could ask the same about Nazi Germany, the Confederacy or the apartheid South African regime. I would guess it is hard to be sympathetic.
Is it that simply on the wrong side of History. Or is there a liberal Hollywood elite who think that colonisers and land grabbers are less lovable than the colonised. The Irish after all (in recent years at least) have been treated pretty well by Hollywood…..”Michael Collins” and “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” for example.
The scary headmistress, Sister Michael (“Derry Girls”) has the best take on The Troubles. “The only thing you need to know about the Troubles is that we are the Goodies”. A sentence that demolishes every LetsGetAlongerist nonsense that one side is as bad as the other.
What does Kenneth Branagh bring that is new?
Well I think he brings three maybe contradictory things.
First off, he is a 60 year old man who was born in Belfast to working class parents. He left Belfast as a child, more or less as the Troubles were starting. He retains an affection for his Protestant, unionist roots, still a supporter of Linfield and (Glasgow) Rangers, very much part of that “culture”.
Secondly, he is a gifted writer, director and actor who in his early career was labelled as a “new Laurence Olivier” and perhaps also labelled as a stereotypical “luvvie”, an “actorrrrrr!) (sic).
Thirdly, he is a very “establishment” figure. “SIR” Kenneth Branagh is a unionist in that so called liberal English way…….not of course in the narrow “Norn Iron” way.
I sincerely hope “Belfast” does NOT win an Oscar. I detest anything that might be interpreted as a good news story for this God-awful entity that is Norn Iron. The word “Belfast” appears on my birth certificate. And I never want to see the word in any other other context.
There are however movies that seem like obvious Oscar winners because of the subject matter….”Mississippi’s Burning”, “Schindler’s List” and maybe “Michael Collins”. In a sense the Academy is voting for the theme as much as the movie itself.
Ricky Gervais (I am not a fan) touched on this in his series “Extras”. In that excellent series, Gervais played a jobbing “extra” in TV series and movies. In this capacity he met stars such as Patrick Stewart, Daniel Radcliffe and others.
Actually these guest stars played alternative exaggerated versions of themselves.
So……”Kate Winslett” or rather the exaggerated version of Kate Winslett was playing a nun in a WW2 movie and chatting about her role. It was a movie about the Holocaust and “Kate” had taken this role because playing this kinda part, she had a good chance of an Oscar.
Maybe I am too cynical. But that is how I see Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast”. It is a worthy subject….Photogenic children coming of age in civil war Norn Iron.
In the summer of 1966, a man called John Patrick Scullion was murdered in the Clonard area of West Belfast. It is the first killing of the (modern) Troubles.
He was shot outside his home and died two weeks later. Local people had heard gunshots. But the Royal Ulster Constabulary investigated the murder as a stabbing. A month after his burial, his body was exhumed and it was then determined that he had indeed been shot.
By any policing standards, that is total incompetence. Indeed by any medical standards, that is total incompetence.
So what happened to John Patrick Scullion? Well, a UVF gang led by Gusty Spence had set out to kill a Clonard-based republican, who had been active in organising the West Belfast parade for the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. Unable to get their target, they settled on shooting Mr Scullion, who had been drunkenly shouting “Up the IRA”.
The UVF had become active in response to Terence O’Neill’s liberal unionism.
I lived quite close to the Clonard area. My wife (then only 8 years old) lived in the Clonard area.
In 1966, I was 14 years old. I was old enough to go with my friends from our “mixed” street to play ad hoc games of football in Falls Park (west Belfast) and Woodvale (north) and Botanic, Ormeau and Lady Dixon (south). My father with memories from the 1930s would caution me to be careful but as a naive and optimistic teen, I knew those bad old days were over. Heck …it was over 30 years ago…ancient history.
Really that first sectarian murder and two more in 1966 did not really change things. It was 1969 before all Hell broke lose.
John Patrick Scullion …murder is murder. But somehow it feels that a shooting being classified as a stabbing is downgrading. Class and sectarianism are inter-mingled in Norn Iron. The worst (non-sectarian) insult from my youth was “you/he/she are/is a Nobody”…..unseen and unimportant. In that sense John Patrick Scullion was a “Nobody”.
Whatever his injuries………stabbing or shot….he was unseen. It did not matter, And the witnesses in Clonard area who heard the gunshots. Invisible. Nobodies.
Of course I was a Nobody also……..albeit a slightly different one who passed the “11 plus”. But my dread of abduction, torture and murder in the 1970s has not gone away. Names and faces from that naive football team or my school or workplace who had that fate haunt me.
I spent decades making myself (and sons and grandchildren) “Somebody”.
In 2013, my best friend, a remarkable historian invited me to Texas for two weeks to talk to her post grads about Conflict Resolution. As the lecture ended, a young man asked me how do young people feel about it all.
I gave a flippant answer that I dont know or understand anyone under forty.
But the real answer is that some young people tell me that everything is different now and other young people tell me that nothing has changed. THEY ARE BOTH WRONG.
I am terrified for my grandchildren.
One of the awful clichés of the 1970s was “the Royal Ulster Constabulary are keeping an open mind”. It was so common that it was joked about in West Belfast…..”a Catholic man was found strangled, stabbed, shot and beaten to death on the Shankill Road…….police are keeping an open mind as to the motive”. I apologise for the dark humour but I have to be honest.
In fairness, police should initially have an “open mind” and maybe even be sensitive about spreading fear into a community.
We have a narrative that it is all over. I believed it was all over in the 1960s. My father cautioned me to careful where I went. Like I caution an 18 year old and a 14 year old.
John Patrick Scullion was the first victim of the (modern) Troubles. His death was marginalised.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 