IRA Member My Story Exclusive

The Early Years

My Life Story – Chapter 1 - The Early Years

I have finally decided to write my life story. In order to protect the identity of family members and others I will have to change names and places as I go along. I hope you understand and appreciate the need for me to do this. I don’t think that changing the names will impact on the detail and richness of the story. Well here we go. Enjoy.



I was born in the mid-1960s. My mother and father were both Irish, they had travelled to England to find work and that is where they meet. This was not uncommon in Irish society. Particularly during times of economic depression in Ireland, Irish people would go to England or America in search of a better life. I was born in England, a home birth I am told, born in a basement flat, a flat that lacked the luxury of heating or running water. Our neighbours and friends were other Irish families and West Indians all searching for a new beginning. My father worked as a labourer on the railway lines. Work for Irishmen in England was usually labour intensive. The Irish were known around the world as hard workers and heavy drinkers. However, I think the drink aspect is often over stated as some of the world’s leading business men and women are of Irish blood, and we all know you won’t go far in business if you’re too fond of the drink.



So the streets of England were not paved with gold as my mother and father had expected. As our family grew and our basement flat did not, my mother and father decided to return to Ireland, when I was still a baby, ah. Eventually, I would be blessed with eight sisters and one brother. Returning to Ireland in the late 1960s did not improve my mother and father's financial position. Ireland was in economic decline and Northern Ireland (the north) was about to explode with civil unrest and political turmoil.



Catholics were being discriminated against in Northern Ireland by the Protestant dominated Stormont Government in Belfast. Northern Ireland was at that time made up of approx. 1 Million Protestant citizens who wished to remain within the United Kingdom, and 500,000 Catholics who viewed themselves as Irish. As a large Catholic family we could not get a council house and so we were forced to live in a house that was well past its sell by date. In better times this would have been a nice farm house, but it had lay idle for many years and had become damp and semi-derelict.



The road that lead to our house was poorly maintained as there were only four houses on the road. This meant that everything was a struggle; just getting a bag of coal for the open fire took great effort. The house consisted of two bedrooms up stairs, one of which could not be used due extreme damp. Damp that left a lingering green fungus on the walls and ceiling. The other room was more like a loft over the stairs. It was in this loft that we all did sleep, eventually that would be twelve of us. Down stairs there was an old kitchen that had a big black stove for solid fuel burning. There was also a small parlour, where hedgehogs would sleep in the winter. The sitting room was the only place that could be described as warm, and that was only if there was fuel for the fire.



There was neither running water nor inside toilet. Water had to be carried from a spring well that was a short distance from the house. A small tin shed was the toilet, enough said about that. There was no electricity in the house when we had first moved in; however, my father had run an electric cable from the mains on the road so that we could power the lights.



My father having come from a farming background planted some vegetables and potatoes in the garden. The privet hedge that surrounded the house was used for drying our clothes, when retrieving clothes from the hedge row ear wigs and other foreign bodies had to be carefully removed as they would invade every crevice of the garments. Have you ever heard a girl scream having found an earwig climb towards her ear? Well then have pity as I had eight sisters who all hated earwigs. There was no outside light, so winter time could be real fun when trying to find the outside toilet in the middle of the night.



My older sisters were my play mates as nobody else lived near us. We would spend many hours catching wild rabbits and keeping them as pets in a pen. We also had some chickens and at Christmas we would rear some turkeys to sell in the market. I was also given a pup when he was three months old and I was three years old. I loved going across the fields with my dog. In the summer time we would go to the nearby river to swim. We would spend long days catching baby fish in jam jars and on the walk home we would collect wild berries. Along the hedge rows there would be blackberries, strawberries and crab apples. These are small bitter apples, but when you have nothing, they are great. Now and again we would agitate a nest of wasps along the hedge row for fun, however, not recommended, silly thing to do, as we often got stung.



I often sat on the river bank for hours trying to catch baby fish in a jam jar. My sparkling clean jam jar attached to a length of white string would be cast a few feet from the river bank, and I would wait patiently for them to go into my jar before pulling it quickly from the water. The jar had to be crystal clear so that the baby fish could not see it in the water. The glass cul de sac would leave them with no escape route. It took some time to prepare a jam jar for minnow (baby fish) fishing. The glued label had to be soaked in hot water and scrubbed for several minutes with a wire pad to detach it from its foundation. The string had to be a manageable length and secured around the neck of the jam jar. This task took particular care and attention; too much string around the neck of the jam jar would alert the fish to the trap that lay ahead.



The jam jar had to be cast several times before any serious fishing could be done. Several casts would remove any odours or soap residue that may remain on the jam jar or string. The flowing current would carry these excesses downstream. The jar was then cast and allowed to settle to the bottom of the river bed that was covered in a mattress of moss and silt. Caution had to be taken to ensure that the jar did not strike any of the many rocks that lay upon the river bed. The initial cast would scatter the baby fish. However, after a moment or two of cam the shoal of want-to-be trout would return to the shadow and illusion of safety created by the long grass and ad hoc shrubbery of the river bank. The ad hoc shrubbery was made up of wild rose bushes, whose thorns could pierce to the bone an unsuspecting intruder, lured by their fragrant and coloured blossoms. Rushes could grow unhindered among the protective armour of the hordes of thorn clad roses.



The river was crystal clear in the summer and only a few feet in depth. I had to pull quickly on the string once my prey was inside the jar. The minnows were very sensitive to movement. Having captured my prey I would hold the cold wet jar in my hand and pour the small fish into my holding jar. In the short journey from my catching jar to my holding jar, the baby fish would like migrating salmon, attempt to swim against the torrent of pouring water. My holding jar was one of those family sized jam jars that were made by Robinson's jam company. At the end of the day I would simply empty the baby fish back into their watery community.



I would watch as the May flies like fighter jets in search of a target skimmed the surface of the river. Sometimes by way of navigational error the May fly would touch the water's surface and create a radiant ripple. This ripple was to the trout what the starter’s pistol is to an athlete. A trout would spear up from the water below and pluck the May fly from the air. Rocks pierced the water’s surface creating small white water rapids which provided camouflage for the lurking trout.



The large oak trees that stood to attention on the perimeter of the large field behind me would be tickled by the cool evening breeze. The hills in their snooker table greenery rolled to the river's edge. The smell of freshly cut grass filled the meadow air. The delicate stems of buttercups and bluebells remained in defiance of the farmer’s mower. Rabbits would scurry and play in the large dry mud beds. These mud beds cut from the hill side by the borrowing of generations of their forefathers. However, even in those early days the cruel pain of maximatocious had reduced the numbers of the rabbit clan. Bloated eyes and the smell of imminent death stalked the small furry white tailed caricatures of Disney's famous movie Water Ship Down.



A few of the Mammy and Daddy rabbits had been reduced to maggot infestations. The baby rabbits would instinctively run back and forward to the place where their parents had fallen dead from this heinous disease. The smell of death was too much for the small creatures who simply wanted to be playful. In a final act of selflessness the adult rabbits moved a safe distance from the borrows of family and neighbours before falling dead in what must have been excruciating pain. It is all very well for farmers to say rabbits needed to be controlled, but in the eyes of a child this is simply cruelty.



Cattle would come down to the water’s edge on the opposite bank. Their hoofs would muddy the water momentarily. The small clouds of muck would be carried away by the current, although cumbersome animals, the cattle of multi-breed and colour, moved gently on the water’s edge. Although moving in numbers of a dozen or more they made no sound. Perhaps these animals were aware of the delicate task of the fisherman on the bank opposite. Whatever the reason for the nodded acceptance of each other’s presence, I shared the river with my friends from the animal kingdom contently. As dusk fell I would collect up my fishing tools and begin the long walk home.



As I crossed the meadow frogs hopped along the deep tracks cut into the soft ground by the farmer’s heavy machinery. I would walk along the narrow over grown twisted single lane road that ran back to our house. Along the middle of this road stood a tuft of grass that was occasionally manicured by the under belly of the farmers tractor.



From the high hedge row I would pick a few bright red strawberries while discarding the yellowish green ones. Like Emory, the blackcurrants would shine from the hedge rows as the setting sun flashed across their moist tender flesh. In early evening the fruit fly would feed on the berry's luscious blood red juices within. I had often watched the fruit fly at close quarter as its small intravenous tongue penetrated the flesh of the fruit.



The transfusion of juice from fruit to fly would reduce the fruit to a vampirian corpse. I could not pass the crab apple trees whose branches reached their fruit alluringly down to head height. The tempestuous bitter fruit of the crab apple trees would take a heavy toll on my digestive system. Yet the bitter first bite of the crab apple is like no other experience. The wrenching of the face and squinting of the eyes, as the bitter juice touches the tongue, is one of nature’s electrifying moments.



One of the houses on the road where I lived when I was a child belonged to an elderly couple who had no children. These were wonderful people who had a small farm; I would spend as much time on the farm as I could. They had a few milking cows each of whom had a name. They also had some beef cattle and a selection of fowl, ducks, hens, geese and so forth.



This couple treated me like a son and I always helped out on the farm when I could. When the hay had to be taken in my sisters, father and I would help. When the cattle were ready for the market we would load them up early in the morning and spend the day at the mart. I loved the mart; I always got big mugs of tea and a scone (type of bun) with lashings of butters melting on top.



This couple lived on low lying land that was close to the river where I fished. I remember in the 1970s long before talk of global warming and such like that there were severe floods. Their house was flooded throughout; the water was going in the front door and out the back. My father and I helped to rescue all the animals. It was very scary; Sarah and William had only been altered to the flooding when their bed began to float as they were sleeping. We rescued all the animals and eventually everything returned to normal.



While we were Catholics these neighbours were Protestants. William had been in the British forces when he was a younger man and had injuries to his legs from that time. However, this was none of my business as a young child; I simply enjoyed working on the farm. William had a TVO tractor (small) which helped him to get about the farm. He also had a small black Morris Oxford car which only came out of the garage when absolutely necessary, to go to Church on a Sunday or some other special occasion.



Sarah baked the most wonderful bread, I particularly remember treacle bread, she would take a loaf out of the oven and it smelt like heaven. On occasion she would stand at the half door of their small thatched cottage and call to me as I made my way to school to give me some freshly baked treacle bread. I would have the bread eaten before I got to school. Saturdays were my favourite time on the farm as the bread man would call with his fresh delivery of soda bread and potato bread. Soon a large Irish fry would be sizzling on the pan, the sausages, bacon and black pudding would create an aroma fit for the nose of a king.



When Willie and I had finished milking the cows, we would be sat down to an Irish fry. As we entered the house my nostrils were filled with the smell of freshly baked wheaten bread, oh what a joy.

Bacon crackled on the heavy iron skillet, sausages sizzled on the pan are their fragrance popped from their skin. Fresh eggs collected from the dozen or so hens, spat their juices onto the top of the old cast iron stove. The Denny sausages had to be placed in the oven before Willie had them tasted away to nothing. Sarah was one for detail and even breakfast had to be laid upon a freshly cleaned lace table cloth. The dogs would be rewarded for their mornings work with a freshly cooked sausage. I cut into the soft homemade butter with one of Sarah’s prized ivory (fake) handle knives. The butter melted into the still hot wheaten bread. Soon Willie would be sleeping in his arm chair. Sarah and I would settle to watch the Saturday afternoon wrestling on the black and white telly. Great names like Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks still ring in my ear.



In the early 1970s the British Army had moved into every town and village in Northern Ireland. The British army established a base close to the home of Willie and Sarah and they were no longer allowed to keep their cows. The cows had to go as the army would not allow the milk lorry in to collect the milk, for fear that the lorry may have been hi-jacked and a bomb planted on it. This type of proxy bomb was common practice. The terrorists would hijack someone, place a bomb in their vehicle and tell them to drive it into a target.



Local shops and businesses were also affected by the presence of the British Army, shops closed and others had to move. The British Army were very active around the border areas; this is the area that divides Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland. There is no physical border like the former Berlin wall, it is simply a political border drawn in the 1920s when the British were forced out of the area now known as the Irish Republic.



On one occasion when I was about nine years old my father asked me to go to the shop for bread. It was about eight or nine o’clock on a winter’s night, the walk to the shop was only a few hundred yards. Any way as my father opened the front door of our semi-derelict house to let me out to the shop, several heads jumped up from behind the old stone white washed wall that surrounded our house. There was a clear sound of guns being cocked (ready to fire) and shouts of “Halt” “Halt” in an authoritive English accent. When the soldiers realised that we were simply man and boy they stood down their weapons.



I went on about my business after the soldiers explained that they were on foot patrol and thought our house was derelict. When they heard the door open they thought it was an ambush by terrorists. It was for me a frightening experience and my first real encounter with the British Army. I suppose in retrospect, the encounter was just as frightening for the young English soldiers who had been transplanted from working class areas in Liverpool and London to the back roads of a foreign land, were danger lurked in every shadow.



While my father was a pure breed Irish man he could not get a work permit in Northern Ireland as he was from the Republic. The refusal of work permits for Catholics from the Republic was only one of the many discriminatory laws set down by the Unionist (Protestant) dominated Northern Ireland Government (Stormont) at that time. My father had to sign on in the social welfare office as he was effectively a foreigner in his own country. I remember that for our large family he was getting eleven pounds per week, this would have been very small money to keep such a large family. My father worked illegally for many years in order to keep our family together. My father would collect the social welfare and work for cash in hand at the same time. My father had to leave our house early in the mornings and make his way across many fields to get to work so that he would not be seen by the authorities.



I often went to work with my father as I would get to work machinery and drive the big David Browne tractor. The women who owned the farm on which my father worked was one of God’s great gifts to earth, she grew all her own vegetables and fruits, she reared her own beef and bacon, her own hens for eggs and meat. She was just a magnificent woman. She had two sons who later in life would become very successful businessmen. Her husband died young from a heart attack, I don’t remember him very well but I do remember him dying. I would often go fishing with one of her sons who had all the fishing equipment, rods, reels and so forth.



My father, who is still alive, had one great weakness and that was alcohol. The weekly routine of drunken binges and domestic violence were common place. We were already outsiders in the small town in which we lived, my father and mother’s behaviour did not help matters.



In my early years my mother would also abuse alcohol, this meant that what little money we had from social welfare and my father’s work was usually squandered in the public houses of the small town where we lived.



I have many memories of spending long days in the public houses that were dotted around our small town. Catholics and Protestants had their own public houses and rarely did both sides meet while socialising, a kind of self-imposed apartheid. The pubs in those days were dusty old places, no fancy foreign brand drinks like today; it was bottles of Guinness and whiskey, Jesus, rough stuff folks. I would often be kept at home from school to help with my baby siblings, and then I would be the one to have to go looking for my father when he did not return from the pub. Social services were constantly at our door; in them days being home alone was common practice.

You know it is easy to look back and ask what the feak my mother and father were doing, but, I suppose having been through the wars now myself, criticism does not answer many questions. I often seen my mother struggle to bring a bag of coal home from the coal merchants up the town, she could not afford the extra few pence for the delivery charge and so the coal would be pushed in a child’s pram. They were difficult times to say the least, but we survived, sort of.



My mother who had travelled to America and England before settling in this small town was fearless. My father without drink was passive, when drunk he would like the wolf-man turn into a monster. My mother did not need drink to stand up for herself, she was lethal. My mother’s anger and frustration with life was often misplaced, she would often cause trouble that simply bounced back on myself or my siblings at school. This was a small town where your every move was monitored by the curtain twitchers. But mother carried on regardless, we were often left home alone, social services would be called, mother would point the finger at one neighbour or another and war would break out.



As we were Catholics living in a small divided town it was easy to find yourself with no one on your side, mother did not care, and she was not put on this earth to make friends. In deed today she is in her 70s and she still has a tongue that would shame the devil. On occasion mother reported some local Catholic lads to the police (RUC) for doing damage to a public building. This was a road too far for many and mother became more and more isolated in our small town. At school my siblings and I would reap what mother had sown. I was often brutalised by the older lads as I was an outsider, not from the root and soil of that small incestuous town.



In normal circumstances one would have said mother was right to report criminal damage to the police, however, the police in Northern Ireland were seen as a Protestant police force for a Protestant people. My mother’s behaviour was not acceptable in the Catholic community and the cold chill of isolation followed her everywhere. Many of the older lads that mother reported to the police had brothers at my primary school and so I would feel the pain of my mother’s ‘sins’.



I was very ill when I was a child, I had chronic asthma. The conditions in which we lived had aggravated my medical condition. Eventually, a Catholic priest would give me my last rites as it was thought I was about to die when I contracted pneumonia. I still have clear memories, when I was about nine years old, of people gathered around me. I was lying on the old vinyl couch, in the draughty front room of our old house. However, I made an incredible recovery after receiving the blessing and would never again be afflicted by asthma. Strange but true, why this happened I don’t know.

I did however remain weak. And the older lads at school showed me no mercy. On one occasion during lunch time the lads attacked me again. There was nobody supervising the yard as the four teachers simply went home for their lunch. They all lived in the town and really done as they pleased, who was going to report them. On this occasion I was dragged by the hair down a step grass covered hill, the big lad who was dragging me eventually kept on walking with only a large clump of my hair in his hand, I was effectively scalped. I did not tell anyone what happened, I was in terrible pain. I covered over the large raw piece of exposed flesh, with my hair that was long and not too clean at that time.



About three weeks after I was so badly assaulted my mother was checking our hair for lice, you know the district nurse had sent home a message to all parents to check children’s heads. Well as my mother was checking my hair, she found a festering hole in my scalp. I would not tell what happened, if I told, I knew what would happen, she would go straight to the people who done it and I would simply get beaten again. So due to my silence my mother had to draw her own conclusions, she thought it was ring worm, a disease you can catch from some animals.



Assuming that my injury was due to ring worm, my mother took me to an old man who had the ‘cure’ for ring worm. We are great in Ireland for having people who have the ‘cure’ for things. This man’s cure was to spit on to the wound three times while saying a few words. His chewing tobacco as he done this did not induce much hope of recovery. Eventually he rubbed his spit hard into my head, sweet mother of divine Jesus; I am just remembering the experience. Within days of this ‘cure’ my head was a yellow festering lump, the smell was unbearable.



My Mother took me to the local doctor. The doctor immediately took a scalpel and cut the festering lump from my head. I can still remember the horrible smell and the filth that came from the wound. The Doctor threw the rotting flesh into a small tin bin beside the vinyl bench on which I lay. The Doctor then covered the wound with red surgical disinfectant I had often seen this disinfectant used on the farm where I worked with my father, it would be used on the pigs after they had been castrated. I had a bandage placed on my head and had to keep it on for a couple of months, having it changed regularly. The Doctor, long since dead, was a very kind man and gave me a bar of Cadburys chocolate when he had finished cleaning and dressing my wound. He told my mother that day that if the infection had been left any longer I would have been blinded by the poison.



I was off school for the full two months, I was glad, hated school. It is only as I write that I disclose how this injury came about. I never told until this day. Mother never knew and so I suppose never learned. Each time she would cause a problem for someone in the town, I would get the beatings.



Even the Headmaster joined in the beatings and brutality. This was a small school in a small town, in a time before bullying or abuse was an issue. The Headmaster had absolute power and he used it to ultimate effect. He had a leather strap embedded with brass studs, he would use this on any part of my body, and sometimes I was simply punched in the head or body. I never cried or showed emotion, this meant that he would build himself into a rage, but I would not give in.



This brutality was not done in secret but in front of the entire class. The class room was heated by an old cast iron pot-bellied stove. On one occasion the Headmaster had built himself into such a rage and was hitting me with such force that his glasses flew from his face and into the open top of the burning pot belly stove. There was a flash of bright light as his glasses hit the burning coals. He bellowed at me to sit down, the girl seated beside me was crying because I had been beaten so badly. The Headmaster ran to where I was sitting and again punched me in the head; the punch knocked me to the ground. I simply got up and sat back in my seat, without uttering a word.



I think my mother done her best; she eventually sobered up to some degree and began to pay for us to have soup for our lunch at a wee café beside the school. It was great getting soup and potatoes during the winter, there had been many days when we got nothing. As mentioned above the pot-bellied stove was the only heating in the school, it burned coal and slack. The Headmaster constantly sent me out in the cold and wet to bring in coal or slack so that he could warm himself as he sat by the stove in his chair. It would take for ever for my clothes to dry when I would come back in out of the rain or snow. It was good in the summer when the warm weather came. Before we began to get the soup and potatoes for our lunch we used to have bread and jam, not always, but sometimes. There were wee half pint bottles of milk that we used to get free at school, which were great, although more often than not the bullies would get them first.



I remember once when I decided to retaliate against the Headmaster. It was not as dramatic as Kenny Roger’s, Coward of the County, but I felt good after it. It was just coming up to the summer holidays, the annual nine week break from hell. I was told by the Headmaster to remain in my seat while all the other children in the class took down our years’ work from the walls, drawings and paintings that we had done through the year. A general clean up before the holidays. At one point during the day the Headmaster left the class room, probably to check his bets in the bookies, the bookies was only down the street.



Any way opportunity and motive presented themselves. The Headmaster had left his tweed jacket hanging on the back of his seat. I wrote a note calling the Headmaster a bully and some other non-publishable words. Another lad in the class who had also been brutalised by this basket weaver volunteered to put the note in the pocket of the Headmaster’s jacket. However, the other lad, Connor, chickened out and decided to retrieve the abusive note before the Headmaster returned. We both knew that the list of suspects would be short if the note were found.



Anyway, Connor was happy that he had retrieved the note and I suppose I wasn’t that bothered, we knew what we would get if the note was found. I put the note in the back pocket of my trousers. When the Headmaster returned the first thing he done was put on his jacket. Connor and I looked at each other relieved that we had retrieved the note. The Headmaster sat down on his seat and almost immediately put his hand into his pocket. The Headmaster took a note from his pocket and began to read it; his face began to get very red. Connor and I looked at each other, I checked my back pocket, I had the note that Connor had retrieved. I gently took the note out of my back pocket and opened it under my desk, my heart stopped, the note that Connor had retrieved, was in fact the line out for the sports day we would be having the following day. The note the Headmaster had taken from his jacket pocket was my hand written note calling him all sorts.



Well it would not take CSI Miami to work this one out. However, the Headmaster called out another boy in the class, he was the class Rat. The Headmaster wanted someone else to point the finger. The Headmaster returned to the room and called Connor and I out to the front of the class. The Headmaster lost the plot, roaring and shouting obscenities, his face was apple red. I told him that Connor had nothing to do with it and had in fact asked me not to do it. Connor got six slaps of the brass studded leather strap and was returned to his seat with a kick up the ass.



The Headmaster tried to get me to hold out my hands, one on top of the other, I told him to Feak off, in plain simple language. The Headmaster battered me with the brass studded leather strap all over my body. I kept telling him to feak off and some other choice words were used. I would not give in and he just kept beating me. The beating lasted for ever, or so it seemed, then he spluttered out to return to my seat. I was satisfied that I had not given in, feak him. The Headmaster then announced that neither Connor nor I would be Alter Boys at the funeral of the Parish Priest who had recently died. To be Altar Boy at a Priest’s funeral would have brought us some pocket money, but that was not to be now, still it was worth it. I would never tell me mother what happened that day; I had to hide the big welts that covered my body from the blows of the brass studded leather strap. He was one hateful man, but he was not alone, recent reports produced in Ireland show that many in the Education sector abused their unquestioned position.



It was not all bad news, I remember one Christmas getting a three wheeled bike from Santa. On another occasion my cousin (RIP) won a toy wheel borrow at the annual Bazarre in the town. This was a sort of fund raising event for the local football club. Any way my cousin gave me the wheel borrow, it was great, made from tin and very solid, not like the plastic stuff you get today. I also had my border collie, Tiny. These were my worldly possessions. My clothes were normally from the second hand shop or the local Protestant jumble sale. I loved the Protestant jumble sales as they always gave away good clothes. Had my family lived in Brixton or the Bronx we would have fitted in quite easily to that academic term the ‘underclasses’.



I have one good memory of primary school, only one, that was the day I won a box of sweets. The school had only four teachers, the Headmaster and his wife had two rooms and then there were two other female teachers. In the room that I had to attend for a couple of years before entering the Headmaster’s room, the female teacher was ok but she would not stand up to the Headmaster. Any way I would have been about 8 years old when this teacher held a quiz. The quiz was general knowledge, but my team won as I knew an answer about Louis Pasture, the man who invented pasteurisation, I only knew the answer because of my work on the farm. We were given one of those small boxes of Milk Tray to share, what a feast.



As I now conclude this chapter I have mixed emotions about what happened to me as a child. There were no such thing as children’s rights then, a Headmaster in a Catholic School in a small divided town was never challenged, who would dare, he and his wife made up the Board of management, they could basically do what they liked, they were smart enough never to hurt the children of the financially well off or the educated. Still that’s life, absolute power wields absolute abuse. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and chapter 2 is already being worked on.

My Life Story – Chapter 2 – A New Beginning

Eventually in 1973 my family were granted a council house. This was an exciting time; these were new local authority houses. The house that we had been granted had four bedrooms, a kitchen, a sitting room, a dining room, a bathroom and toilet, the house also had a large back garden surrounded by a high fence. The house was situated in a small cul de sac; there were only fourteen houses in this new estate. Nine of the houses were for families and the rest were for pensioners. I remember to this day the first night we went to see our new house, I was so excited to see inside tapes that I turned the water on full blast and could not turn it off. The water came pumping out all over the place, my father eventually got the water turned off. Good kick up the arse for me as the floor was soaking wet. In our old house we had a spring well for our water, this meant that we had to go with a bucket to the well each time we needed water. This running water inside the house was like a whole new world.



I remember shortly after we moved into the new house that an RUC officer (police), who also lived in the cul de sac, spoke with my mother and father to welcome them as neighbours. It is very hard to explain this, but, before the civil and political unrest broke out in Northern Ireland (the north) both the local soccer football team (Protestant) and the GAA football team (Catholic) held their annual dinner dances together. It was at one of these outings that our RUC neighbour and my father had been involved in a fight, while I don’t have the exact details, I would suggest that my mother was being flirtatious as was her normal behaviour when she drank alcohol.



Our house was semi-detached and the house next to ours was also lived in by a Catholic family. So there were two Catholic houses out of fourteen. Still mother was never one to discriminate and before long she had fallen out with everyone, especially our only Catholic neighbour. Mother would often engage in verbal antagonisms with our neighbours, although she was not adverse to a physical bout now and again. I could never establish any good reason for mother’s behaviour; I knew that all of my neighbours could not be at fault. I think that mother always felt like an outsider and decided that she might as well be hung for s sheep as a lamb, in other words, to hell with everyone. My father’s family only lived a few hundred yards away, yet my mother could not pass civil words with them, indeed the opposite.



Even though we were now removed from the obscurity of the town’s rural out lay, my father’s drinking and domestic violence continued uninterrupted by the glare of our new neighbour’s. The RUC would be regular callers to our house as my Mother would report my Father’s abusive behaviour. Often my Mother was not innocent in all things domestic. I had often seen her being flirtatious with other men when out with my father, and as anyone who has blood in their veins will know, a flirtatious woman and alcohol don’t mix very well.



A lot of crazy things happened in those times. I remember on many occasions my father attempting to take his own life. When we had lived in the old house my father had consistently tried to drown himself in the spring well and indeed the river nearby. I remember searching for him on dark nights when he would go off towards the river in a state of drunkenness. Still we were now in the new house and the river was a long walk away so father had to adapt to his new surroundings. During drinking binges in our new house father would hold his tie over the new teak door in the sitting room, and this to a small child appeared to be a serious attempt at death. Now of course I know that he could never have died from such attempts, his hand would have released the tie before he fell into unconsciousness. My Mother would run off for the RUC when such madness would be occurring.



On one occasion my mother had received fourteen stitches to her head following a bout of domestic violence, this was a mad scene, blood and screaming and eventually the ambulance arrived. My father was gone completely mad that night. Later when everything settled down and my mother had returned from hospital and gone to bed, I found my father in the kitchen with his head stuck in the oven of our new gas cooker. The empty whiskey bottle lay beside him on the floor; I pulled at his heavy lifeless body and got him away from the cooker. I then discovered that the gas cylinder was not even connected to the cooker, mother often disconnected it so we would not waste the gas. His body was simply lifeless from the alcohol abuse. I fetched a cushion from the sitting room and rested his head on it. The next morning my father had forgotten everything and went off to work.



With everything that went on in our house and the regular SOS calls to the RUC, social services were regular callers to our house. I remember one particular occasion when social workers called to our house. My mother had kept me at home to mind my baby brother and sister at that time, they would have been about one and two years old at the time, I would have been about nine. My mother had received the weekly cheque from the social services, it was all automated now, before this my father had to go to the social services and collect the cash amount due. Why I was always kept at home to mind the babies I don’t know, I had older sisters and they were never kept at home.



As usual my mother said she would bring me back a can of coke and a packet of crisps for looking after the babies. At about twelve-noon that day a knock came to the front door. I was in the back room trying to keep the two babies in bed to keep them warm. Our electricity worked on a fifty pence metre pay box which had been fitted as we had failed to pay our electric bill on more than one occasion. Until my mother would return from the shop there was no heating, it was very cold. There was no coal to light the open fire in the sitting room, so the only way to keep the babies warm was to keep them in bed. I looked out the window to see who was at the door as mother might have forgotten her keys. I could see a tall man and two well dressed women at the door.



By the time I had went to the window to see who was at the door the babies had started crying. It was now impossible to pretend that there was nobody in as I had been too often coached to do by mother. I went down stairs and opened the front door; I asked them what they wanted. They asked if my mother and father were at home, I quickly said both would be back in one minute as they had simply gone to get coal for the fire. They asked if they could come in. I asked why. They said they wanted to see the babies as my mother had went to England. I told them that that was not true as she had only gone to the shop. They asked again where my father was. Again I told them that he was at the shop. They said that they were social workers and that they needed to see the babies and take the babies into their care.



I turned and ran up the stairs; I grabbed my baby brother and sister and held them tight against the steel head board of the bed so that they could not take them. The babies were crying. The bed was one of those old caste iron ones, with the steel bars for the head board and big knobs on either side, like most things we had been given the bed by social services. I held on tight to the Iron rails of the head board, nobody was going to take my baby brother and sister. Eventually, the social workers agreed that they would not take the babies but would wait until my father returned home. One of the social workers put some money into the electric metre and there was heat in the house. They also warmed a bottle of milk for the baby and a cup of warm milk for my baby brother. I refused to take anything off them.



Eventually my father returned home from the farm where he had been working. I was able to relax then. The social workers explained to my father that my mother had changed the social welfare cheque, had got on a plane and went to England. She had phoned the RUC to tell them what she had done. She had also told the RUC where my father was working. Social services agreed that all my siblings and I could stay with my father as long as my aunt was available to help out with the child minding, my aunt had agreed to do this. This was not a very nice thing to happen, and while my sisters were upset, I was very angry with what mother had done.



As we lived in a small town, word soon spread about mother running off and leaving the children, this did not help our situation. My mother eventually returned a couple of weeks later, but for me the damage had been done. While my siblings were glad to see my mother return, I refused to have anything to do with her. My mother’s attitude to the towns’ people simply got worse when she returned. Mother had given the local gossips the very ammunition they needed. After a brief honeymoon period between mother and father upon mother’s return, the drinking and domestic violence started all over again. Mother was shameless in her affairs with other men around the town and father’s drinking simply got heavier and more aggressive.



For many years after this incident where mother had run off and left me holding the babies, she tried to make it up to me, but to this day that incident has left its mark. Although I never stayed at home for her again she would always buy me coke and crisps and leave them in my room, but it made no difference I just never trusted her again. Even today our relationship is at best strained, I can only be in her company for a few minutes and then I have to leave. I have tried but deep down there is a great mistrust.



As a teenager my mother had travelled to America and England and I think this early travel left my mother ill-equipped to deal with life in a small incestuous town, where her every move was monitored. Mother had a great many problems to deal with, she was by no means innocent in the domestic violence incidents, she could lift something and strike out even when all else was calm. While today conditions like post-natal depression and domestic violence are openly discussed, in those days you were expected to get up and get on with it. This lack of support simply made things worse.



I remember my mother’s, father and mother dying within three months of each other in the early 70s, even then my mother had to simply pick herself up and get on with it. Travel was not easy then and so we could only get to my grandparents funeral and back home without any real time for mourning. On one occasion when my mother was yet again pregnant and the usual madness was going on around us, my mother had a miscarriage in the middle of the night. When I went to see what all the shouting was about I seen the blood on the bed, my mother was taken to hospital that night and the next day she was back to her daily routine.



My happiest child hood memories are of long summer holidays in the west of Ireland where my mother originated from. As my mother could not pass civil words with her own family, my siblings and I would be simply dropped to the west of Ireland and left for several weeks. When I went to the west of Ireland I never wanted to go back home to the north, it was like two different worlds. The 1970s were the dying days of a by-gone age. Everything was done by horse and donkey on the farm, sheep were sheered by hand, the hay and oats were cut by hand and everything was done by neighbours sharing the work load. The mowing of hay with my uncles horse was such fun, the thrashing of wheat, the cutting, stacking and drawing of the turf from the bog was such a delight. These were and remain God’s own people; these people lived off the land and respected the land. I was treated the way a wee boy should be treated. I would go fishing with my uncle’s neighbours who had great fishing gear.

The vast majority of people in rural Ireland lived off the land in the 1970s. People had small farms where they grew their own vegetables, fruit, spuds, pigs, cattle, and sheep. They also made everything themselves such as butter, bread and kept one or two cows for milk. Neighbours would rally together to reek (big hay stack) the hay. Reeking was a method used to store hay before the bailer was invented or available. Loose hay was built in to large reeks. Five or six men would be on top of the reek and another five or six on the ground using forks to pass the hay to the men on the top of the reek. The men on top of the reek would tramp the hay down to make it compact. The reeks when finished would be covered in a sheet of felt and tied down with rope made from hay. The tightly packed hay and the strong rope would protect the reek from the winter rain and breeze. This would be the winter feed for the cattle.



Each year in the west of Ireland where I stayed there would be a cultural festival. Our family would return from America and England for this holiday time. There would be Irish music and dancing on the streets until the early hours of the morning. I would be given pocket money for my work on the farm and I would buy sweets, toys and lemonade. At that time you could buy a big bag of chips wrapped in an old newspaper for five pence and wash it all down with a bottle of Cidona for another five pence. Cidona was and is an apple drink sold in Ireland. Cidona was very popular when we were working in the fields at the hay, others preferred butter milk. I would attend the local parish hall for ceili (Irish) dancing and music. These were family occasions and the parish priest was always on standby just in case anyone got too close to each other.



In the eyes of a child these were simple times in the west of Ireland. I can still remember the first tractor that was bought by one of the local lads. People came from miles around to see the tractor; men wondered how this machine could ever work in their small meadows. Sadly this lad who introduced the tractor into the area would die in tragic circumstances some years later. He was in his much loved Ford Cortina car on a cold winter’s night, when he parked outside his girlfriend’s house as he left her home. They sat to listen to the music on the radio not aware that the snow was building up behind the car. The snow eventually covered the exhaust and they both died from fumes that entered the car. The girl’s father carried them both into the house thinking they were frozen but they were in fact dead.



Any way my school holidays did not last forever and I would eventually have to return to the north. By the early 1970s things had started to get very nasty in Northern Ireland. The British army had now been firmly established in every city and town and both Loyalist (Protestant) and Republican (Catholic) terrorists were causing murder and mayhem everywhere. I remember the large Chinook helicopters carrying large concrete bollards into the small town where we lived in order to block some of the roads that lead from the Republic of Ireland. On the open roads the army would establish permanent checkpoints. I often watched from my grandmother’s house as the IRA fired shots at the army checkpoints. The IRA (Irish Republican Army) could take up position in the Hills in the Irish Republic and fire down on the British Army check points. The red tracer bullets would light up the night sky as the army sought out their elusive target. The exchange of bullets would be punctuated by army flares that would light up the fields for miles around.



We had a large black and white television set that was rented at that time. Each day on the Television there were reports of bombs and shootings all over Northern Ireland (the north). I still remember pictures on the television of police men using shovels to gather up body parts off the streets of Belfast after bombs went off. In Particular I remember a day now known as Bloody Friday, on this day the IRA (Catholic) in Belfast planted dozens of bombs in Belfast and murdered and injured hundreds of innocent civilians, including children. Innocent people were being murdered all over Northern Ireland, England and on occasion the Irish Republic. In 1974 Loyalist (Protestant) terrorists planted bombs in the Irish Republic murdering thirty-three innocent people and injuring hundreds more. Questions remain to be answered about these particular attacks as it is thought that certain British secret service operatives were involved.



Sometimes I did not have to watch the television to see the death and destruction. My first memories of the troubles are bombs and death, Neighbours, friends and family all butchered to death over something that I as a child could not understand. There was a small betting office in our town and my Mother liked to have a small bet on the horses. The betting office was one of the few places that Protestants and Catholics mixed in our town once the terrorist campaign started.



I remember going into the betting office with my Mother one day and there was a deadly silence. My Mother had not heard the news that day, and as we soon found out one of the Protestant lads who would drop into the betting office now and again had been murdered in his bed that morning by the IRA. People were numbed and shocked, but that was now part and parcel of our daily life. On another occasion I was walking up the street and there was a policeman lying dead, he had just been shot by the IRA. I knew this man well; he lived a few doors away. He left behind a young wife and his babies.



Ah, sure, what could I do only get on with it. I liked taking my dog away in to the country side and just staying away from everyone that was the best way. Any way the problems in Northern Ireland simply got worse. Bombs and gun attacks were regular features. Even as I write now I can’t even begin to recount the number of people I knew who were murdered during those brutal years of my childhood.



As I have said before I was told that no matter what happened during the terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland, it was the fault of the British. This of course was a great lie that I have already addressed, the Brits were not faultless but neither side had any legitimacy.



So it was then that as neighbours, family and friends were butchered, I was to blame the Brits. Even if the IRA (extreme Catholic terrorist organisation) murdered a totally innocent civilian, it was the Brits fault. If the Brits were not in Northern Ireland that person would not have died. It’s a strange logic when I look back now, but at the time it made perfect sense. I suppose it is the logic of the abusing parent, he/she was bad so I had to beat them with the stick. Or the unfaithful lover, I had to kill him/her because they were unfaithful.



Any way in the midst of all this death and destruction people just had to get on with life. As I was about to leave the house one morning my Mother asked me to stay at home to mind my baby brother and sister at that time. I was about 9 years old. This was usual practice. So I set about cleaning the kitchen. Mother had asked me to clean the kitchen and my reward when she returned would be a can of coke. A can of coke back then would be the equivalent of gold dust today, priceless.



As I cleaned the kitchen I had a small radio on in the back ground. The TV then was rented, and it only worked if money was put into a slot at the back, so it was rarely on. Any way I cleaned the kitchen and then tended to my baby brother and sister, they would have been one and two years old at that time. The house was cold; the electricity worked the same as the TV. The heaters would only come on if there was money in the metre. So there was rarely heating.



In the kitchen there was a gas cooker, one of those four ring jobs, with a bottle of gas attached. I sat my baby brother and sister on a blanket on the kitchen floor and turned on the gas oven to generate some heat. I knew there was a good chance that my Mother would get a bottle of gas that day and hopefully some potatoes would be cooked for tea.



I was playing happily with my baby brother and sister when the one o clock news came on the radio. The news reported that two men had just been killed on the road outside our town. They said both men were from my home town and had been named. One of the names read out was my uncle, he was 23 years old. He had a baby daughter and son the same age as my baby brother and sister. He had been a great man, loved cars and always rushed home from work to play with his babies.



As I would later find out, my uncle and his Protestant friend were travelling home from work when they were murdered by the IRA. The IRA wanted to kill my Uncle's friend as he was a Protestant, but it would appear that they did not want to leave any witnesses.



That evening I travelled with my father over to the Morgue as my father had to identify my uncle's body. This was not like CSI New York, where the family member is taken to a side room and where only the face of the deceased is disclosed. No, this was an open morgue. My uncle was lying on a stainless steel trolley covered in a white sheet. His friend was on the trolley next to him. Across the room two more dead bodies lay on trolleys, these were two British Soldiers who had also been murdered that morning by the IRA.



The Police Officer who accompanied my father and I, indicated to the mortician to uncover my uncle's face for identification. My father broke down, "Yes, in God’s name that’s him". I at nine years old was more curious than scared. I wanted to know why there were big stitches along my dead Uncle's neck. Big stitches like you would see on a broken teddy bear. The mortician explained to me in a very medical fashion that my uncle had been de-capitated. His head had been cut off and the mortician had sown it back on for the sake of the family who would be viewing my uncle over the following days.



My uncle's wake (at his home in open coffin) was very sad. You could only see my uncle's face in the coffin; his neck was covered up with a silk cloth. After three days of traditional mourning my father and others closed my uncle's coffin. I watched and listened as the brass screws squeaked into their final position.



My Uncle's funeral was massive, he had been so popular. Yet I was told that even though he had been murdered by the IRA (our own people) my uncle's death was the fault of the Brits. I watched as my uncle's baby daughter and son had a single rose placed into their tiny hands so that they could touch the rose before it was dropped down into the deep grave were my uncle now lay. I insisted on helping to fill in my uncle's grave. I wanted to make sure that nobody could hurt him anymore. Each shovel of clay echoed as it fell upon my uncle's coffin. I tried to put the clay down quietly but it was a long way down.



It is probably clear that the murder of my young uncle remains with me until this very day. Those memories will never leave me. More painful are the lies I was told by people who perhaps knew no better. On another occasion the IRA had blown up the army base near-by and our house was completely destroyed, the rook was blown off and the windows were all shattered. On this occasion my father’s boss on the farm had been forced to drive the five hundred pound bomb into the town while his family were held hostage. I had been returning from bingo with my mother and father when we saw the sky over our town light up with brilliant colours, these colours were from the bomb exploding. It took weeks if not months to get our house and the community back in order again after this bomb.



Initially the British Army had been accepted by the majority of the Catholic community as peace keepers. This was due to the fact that thousands of Catholics had been burned out of their homes in Belfast by loyalist mobs. The British army stood between the loyalist mobs and innocent Catholic families who were being persecuted. However, the British army would some be viewed in a different light after their murderous actions on what is now remembered as Bloody Sunday. On Bloody Sunday thirteen innocent Catholics were murdered by the British Army as those innocent Catholics attended a Civil Rights March in Derry, in 1972. Bloody Sunday has been subject to one of the longest and most costly public inquiries ever, The Saville Inquiry. It will make no difference to Catholics whether the Saville Inquiry finds that the IRA fired shots on that day or not, Catholics will always view Bloody Sunday as murder most foul.



The British Army also fell foul of the Catholic population when they were involved in rounding up thousands of innocent Catholics and interning them without trial. The vast majority of these people would never have supported terrorism; however, the internment camps became the recruiting ground of the IRA. Recent history reminds us that the British have learned little from their mistakes, to win a war you must win hearts and minds; you don’t achieve that through inhumanity and brutality.



In my small home town both Catholics and Protestants were slaughtered in equal numbers. The IRA made their way across the border and planted bombs and carried out shootings. Loyalist terrorists would respond by murdering innocent Catholics. Old scores were also settled in the shadow of political cause, Catholics who had tried to buy Protestant land were murdered, and Protestants who tried to buy Catholic land were murdered. The ‘political’ violence was used to settle petty disputes and arguments. Men, women and children were butchered to death and in the majority of cases those murdered were simply innocent people who were not involved with the ‘political’ violence.



During this period the IRA often took young Catholic men and women from their own community and murdered them for alleged miss-conduct. One woman who was a single mother to ten children was taken by the IRA and butchered and buried in an unmarked grave as she allegedly helped comfort a dying British Soldier who had just been shot. This woman’s body was only recently found. These people who were kidnapped and murdered by the IRA and whose bodies have never been found are known collectively as the ‘disappeared’. Children as well as adults remain undiscovered.



There is no doubt that many Catholics allowed their dislike of the British presence in Ireland to blind them from the terrible crimes against humanity that were and continue to be carried out in their name. When Myra Hindley and Ian Brady (The Moore’s Murders) kidnapped, molested, brutally murdered and buried children in England they were locked up for the rest of their lives. In Ireland we have become immune to the crimes against humanity committed in our name, indeed during the current ‘peace process’ we have voted for and allowed mass murderers out of prison, some have went on to re-offend.

My Life Story – Chapter 3 – Moving On

1974 was a very unsettling time in Northern Ireland. A Loyalist (Protestant) strike led by the Loyalist leader the Rev. Ian Paisley, he was able to shut down most of Northern Ireland’s infrastructure. Electricity, water and other essential services were closed down, due mainly to the fact that these essential services were run by Protestant workers. Paisley had called this strike as a political deal was being agreed between Catholics and some Protestants, which would have seen Catholics having a say in the political affairs of Northern Ireland. As I write in March 2010 Mr Paisley has announced his retirement from politics after some fifty years, he is now 83 years old.



The loyalist strike in 1974 would eventually be broken by the British Government who used the army to provide essential services. Still it was a strange time; Protestants who had never been involved in politics were forced to take their legally held guns and man illegal checkpoints. Many innocent Catholics were again subjected to brutality and murder and this murder and brutality was equally replicated by the IRA against the Protestant community. On one occasion ten Protestant workmen on their way home were taken out of their van and murdered in cold blood by the IRA, a music group made up of Catholics were taken out and butchered by loyalists.



1975 finally seen my days at primary school end, I would leave that den of torture and intolerable cruelty to move to a secondary school in another town. I would now travel on a bus each day for the four mile journey to my new school. I remember this being an exciting time for me; it was almost like getting out of jail, in fact it was like getting out of jail. I was given a free school uniform, this meant that I was dressed the same as everyone else and I no longer stood out in the clothes my mother bought for me in the jumble sales. On many occasions I had been picked on at primary school as some of the clothes I was wearing had once belonged to some of the better off boys at school.



My second hand clothes wardrobe meant that any thing I ever wore was always out of style. I remember when I was about twelve years old my mother was at the jumble sale and bought me a full Bay City Rollers (pop band) outfit. This included a brown jumper with tartan down the sleeves, parallel trousers with tartan down the legs and a jacket with tartan down the sleeves. This would have been great if the Bay City Rollers were still popular but they had disappeared from Top of the Pops (music show) by the time I got the outfit. I looked like a real Wally; I forgot to mention the rubber platform shoes that cost twenty pence. I looked a real dip stick.



My new secondary school was modern and clean. Every day I got free dinners and dessert, as my parents were on social welfare. I loved the dinners I can still remember how good they were, Jesus it was great. Each day I would position myself to the back of the queue in the dining hall; this meant that by the time I got to the hatch the dinner ladies would give me any left-over food. Some of the dinner ladies knew those of us who were hungry and they would keep something for us every day, it was great and they were great.



Unfortunately by the time I had reached my secondary school, I was full of anger at everyone and everything. I don’t know exactly why I was angry, but I was angry. The first week that I was at my new school I was involved in six fights. The Headmaster, who was a fair and decent man, kept telling me to settle down. While he used a metre cane to discipline me, he never used it excessively, corporal punishment was allowed then. In my first year I was placed in the second highest class, I suppose they seen potential. However, in my second year I was moved down to a lower class, this was due to the fact that my main interest was fighting. I remember my Form teacher asking me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I told her I wanted to be an electronics engineer. I did not tell her that my real career choice, even at twelve years of age was to join the IRA. My form teacher told me that if I made a good effort at my work that year she would get me promoted back up to my original class. So as she had taken the time to talk to me I made an effort. That year I came first in my class and was promoted back up to the higher class. While everyone including my Headmaster congratulated me on my efforts it was to no avail, I was on a slippery slope.



Almost every day I would be involved in a fight, and if trouble did not find me I would find it. I remember one day when I was not actually bothering with anyone, a much older boy attacked me, he gave me an almighty beating, he was very big and very strong. I suppose he had seen me fighting all the time and decided to challenge for the title. However, this was no competition of equals, he slaughtered me. I remember he was wearing very hard shoes and he kicked me in the head several times. One of the male teachers who had witnessed the attack from the staff room window ran out to pull this big fellow off me, however, by the time he arrived it was all over.



After the lunch break that day I was called to the Headmaster’s office, when I walked into the Headmaster’s office the fellow who had beaten me was standing there. The Headmaster asked me if this was the person who had beaten me. I would not answer. However, the Headmaster knew well that he was the fellow who had assaulted me and the Headmaster gave him a good knock about and asked him how he liked being beaten by someone bigger than himself. The boy was well shaken and never bothered me again.



Still I learned nothing, my constant fighting and bad behaviour seen me in the Headmaster’s office almost every day. It was not always my fault, however, as I would not tell on other people I usually became the fall guy. By now I was getting physically strong and was a regular player on the GAA football team in my home town and the school team. I always played in the position of left half back; this was a well-chosen position as few ever got passed me, even if it meant a fist fight. At this time I also played darts in one of the local pubs, while I was only about twelve years old I had spent most of my childhood in the pubs and I was a good dart player as a result of all the practice.



On one occasion I organised a Million and One darts marathon to raise money for the victims of the Cambodian flood disaster at that time. We raised a great deal of money and gave it to a charity working with the victims in Cambodia. By the time I was fourteen years old I was simply buying my time until I left school. I was certain that I would be joining the IRA as soon as I left school. While I had been reared in a Protestant area and my best friend was a Protestant, I had been geared towards the IRA. I suppose when I look back now I was simply looking for comradeship and security in a life that had been everything but secure.



As a child in the 1970s my father and I had often walked across the border into the Irish Republic on a Sunday morning to attend Mass. The Chapel which we attended was at the heart of a community in which my family had lived for hundreds of years. The local Sinn Fein Cumman (political wing of the IRA) was named after one of my uncles who was a senior member of the IRA. On those Sunday mornings I would find a copy of the United Irishman or later An Phoblacht (papers promoting the IRA) and read about such matters as Internment (Catholics imprisoned without trial) and other such matters. I had also been aware that members of my extended family had been interned including uncles and cousins, some of my cousins were only fourteen years old. One of my uncles had been tortured during interment and he died very young as a result of this torture. My uncle had been buried with full IRA honours and it was a massive funeral.



Senior members of Sinn Fein spoke at my uncle’s funeral including the Vice-President of Sinn Fein at that time Marie Drumm (she was later shot dead by loyalists in 1976 while she was in a hospital bed in Belfast). The President of Sinn Fein at that time Ruiri O Bradaigh also spoke at my uncle’s funeral. Following my uncle’s funeral we all went to the local pub and people were very angry about the way my uncle had died and been treated by the British during internment. Internment and other ill-considered measures introduced by the British simply forced Catholics into the ranks of the IRA. Our heads were filled with stories of my uncle and others being blindfolded, taken up in helicopters and dropped to the ground. While they were only several feet of the ground they were being told they were hundreds of feet off the ground. The psychological aspect of the torture took a heavy toll on many good and innocent men. My uncle was one of the few men tortured who was actually IRA.



Following my uncle’s funeral my Protestant friend told me that I seemed to have changed. Although I had not discussed my uncle’s funeral with my friend I knew it would only be a matter of time before I was in the IRA. My Protestant friend and I had done everything together, we had went fishing, cycling and so forth, but we both knew that something was going to change. Indeed there were times when my friend had taken the wheel off his good bike to put on my scrap bike so that I could cycle when he was away on holidays with his parents. We played together every day and night, however, when the annual twelve of July parades came each year things changed. The twelve of July is a date marked each year by Protestants in Ireland, it marks the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. This battle was between Protestant King William (Billy) and Catholic King James, William being the victor.



Around the twelve of July each year my friend would start to distance himself from me and when other Protestant lads were about he would be aggressive towards me. Finally when he was sixteen years old and I was fourteen he told me he was joining the RUC (Protestant police) cadets. He asked me, “If you were in the IRA and I were in the RUC would you shoot me?” I did not hesitate, I said, “Yes”. We shook hands and that was an end to our friendship. I would some time later carry out my promise, this will be dealt with in a later chapter.



On another occasion in or about this time I was playing darts in the pub up the street when we heard gun shots outside on the street. When the shooting stopped we ventured outside the front door to see what was happening. The British army were all over the street shouting “Get back in, get back in”. Later we would be told by the army that the IRA had just carried out an attack on the RUC. It was about 1am before I was finally allowed to go home. As I walked down the street I could see an RUC car full of bullet holes, it was like a sieve. As I walked past the car an RUC land rover pulled up beside me and the RUC man who was known to me said, “Get to fuck out in the middle of the road away from the car”. The RUC car had been fired on by the IRA as the RUC men had went about clearing the pubs after closing time, as was routine.



As I made my way along a dark side street three RUC men in uniform caught up with me as I walked quickly, they had their shirt sleeves rolled up, and they called to me. I turned around to face them and they became abusive to me, “Provo (slang name for IRA) bastards” they started. They said that the IRA had run away from them that night. I told them to “Fuck off” and dared them to shoot me, I was about fourteen. One of the RUC men put his revolver to my head, and said that eventually every Provo would be dead. I again told them to “Fuck off” and dared them to shoot me. The next morning our school bus was diverted, as the town centre was sealed off. The small circle made by the RUC man’s revolver was still clear to be seen on my temple the next morning, due to the pressure he had applied to the gun when threatening me.



I had seen many people shot dead and brutally injured by both loyalist and republican paramilitaries. The British Army and RUC had also engaged in murder and abuse and so it was that no one was without sin, except the mainly innocent people who were murdered. Murders, hi-jackings, bombs, mutilation and torture were part of everyday life at that time. On many occasions the IRA would hi-jack Lorries and block roads in order to lure the British army and RUC into an ambush. So roads could be closed for weeks as the Army cautiously dealt with such illegal road closures.



It was during one such road closure by a hi-jacked lorry that the British army abandoned their permanent checkpoint in our town as there was no traffic on the road. Beside the hi-jacked lorry there was a rucksack which allegedly contained a bomb. I decided that this bomb was simply being wasted on the side of the road. A Catholic friend and I simply walked out the road to the hi-jacked vehicle and I put the rucksack on my back and carried it back to my home. I told my friend to go home before I began to examine the rucksack; I wanted to see what a bomb looked like. I took the rucksack out to the coal shed and began to open it very slowly. However, the potential bomb turned out to be some tourist’s clothes, including underwear and condoms. I was extremely disappointed. The morning after I had removed the rucksack, my father and I were walking past the hi-jacked vehicle. My father immediately noticed that the rucksack was missing, he turned to me and said, “It was you that took that”, I said nothing, I just walked on. The night after I took the rucksack I returned to the unmanned British Army checkpoint and used black paint to write IRA all over its galvanised walls.



Life at home continued as ‘normal’ although I remember my father getting an old car from his boss on the pig farm, and this meant that on a couple of occasions we went to the seaside for days out, usually on a Sunday. I also stopped going on my holiday to the west of Ireland as the people I had always stayed with had died. I still had loads of family down there but these two people whom I had always stayed with were special and I just wanted to remember things the way they had been. I continued to get into trouble at school and had by fourteen come to the attention of the RUC for painting pro-IRA graffiti around the town.



In or about 1978 I won a very important dart competition in the town; it was an individual darts competition during festival week. I had beaten some of the best adult players to win this competition. These players had come from all around the county to compete for the fifteen pounds first prize and the title of county champion. I had beaten both Catholic and Protestant players and in the final I had beaten a very important Protestant in the town. This did not go down too well with some. In order to collect my fifteen pounds, my trophy and get my picture in the local paper I had to attend a disco that was run by the RUC. This was an attempt by the RUC to be more involved with both sides of the community. On this night I had worn my new school uniform as they were the only good clothes I had, I also had some change for a can of coke and a packet of crisps.



After I had received my prizes and the disco was over, some of the older Catholic lads told us all to leave together so that we would have no problems. There were many more Protestant lads in our town than there were Catholics. When I went outside I asked where one of my Catholic friends was, I was told that he had went on down the road, however, I was sure I had seen him go back into the hall. I went back into the hall to look for my friend but he was not there. When I came back outside the hall again I could see dozens of Protestant lads gathered, all the Catholic lads had gone away. I just started to walk down the long drive in front of the hall. I knew I was being watched. I just knew I was in trouble.



As I walked out onto the long dark main road I could see a car parked in the distance, I assumed that it was some of the Catholic lads as the car was familiar. Then a white car pulled up beside me and the Protestant lads inside starting calling me sectarian names, I told them to fuck off. The care stopped and they all jumped out, the car that was parked along the footpath and which I thought contained Catholic lads reversed back to me, it was another group of Protestant lads. I was in serious trouble, there was nowhere to run and I don’t think I would have run anyway. I was kicked and beaten several times, but I kept getting back up on my feet. There was so many of them beating and kicking me I was being saved by their sheer eagerness to inflict damage. Eventually a car drove into the middle of the gang and I was saved. I had a broken Adams-apple and other lesser damage. I never told my mother and eventually I would get each one of the main instigators that night in one on one fights over the following months.

My Life Story – Chapter 4 – Playing With the Big Boys

So determined was I to join the IRA that I left school when 16 years old with no qualifications. I immediately left home and moved from my home in Northern Ireland to a town just south of the border in the Irish Republic. I began work in a factory and found myself a bed-sit (small flat) that cost seven pounds per week to rent. My wages were thirty-eight pounds per week. I quickly settled into my work and was able to obtain jobs for other Catholics from my home town. Due to my willingness to work hard and often long hours I was quickly promoted to hygiene supervisor.



I was soon spotted by IRA ‘talent’ scouts. These men who were mostly men from Northern Ireland who were ‘on the run’ (this meant that they were wanted in Northern Ireland for some ‘offence’) were constantly looking for young people that they could take under their wing and train to be terrorists. I was quickly taken into the ranks of both the IRA and Sinn Fein (Sinn Fein is the ‘political’ wing of the IRA). I also became active in my trade union when I was 16 years old. I was not afraid to speak my mind and I was elected to the position of shop steward and fought many hard battles for fellow workers.



In 1980 the first of two hunger strikes began. The first hunger strike has been conveniently air brushed out of Irish history as it was viewed as a failure. This hunger strike had been led by IRA prisoners who were held in the H- Blocks (Maze Prison in Belfast). Initially the IRA prisoners had been accorded political status; this simply meant that they could wear their own civilian clothes and have free association. However, this changed and IRA prisoners who viewed themselves as ‘political’ were being forced to wear prison issue uniforms or go naked. The IRA prisoners choose not to wear the prison uniforms.



This denial of political status had first lead to a ‘dirty’ protest by the IRA prisoners. IRA prisoners refused to wash themselves or their cells; the best book that I have read about this period is One Day In My Life by Bobby Sands. Bobby Sands would later lead the second hunger strike and die on that strike. Eventually the dirty protest escalated into the first hunger strike, several IRA prisoners went on hunger strike lead by IRA prisoner Brendan Hughes. On the night that one of the IRA prisoners was about to die a senior British Civil Servant offered the IRA prisoners a deal. However, that deal was withdrawn after the hunger strike had been called off and IRA prisoner Sean Mc Kenna resuscitated.



This double cross by the British meant that a second hunger strike would follow. The second hunger strike was led by Bobby Sands (probably the most widely known of the hunger strikers). Bobby Sands was serving a short sentence for IRA activity; however, Bobby Sands was determined not to be double crossed by the British. Bobby Sands would be one of ten young Irish Republicans to die on the second hunger strike. I worked tirelessly to highlight the hunger strikers demands and I also worked night and day for the many parliamentary elections in which the hunger strikers were put forward by proxy (this meant that even though they were in jail their names could be put forward for election both in Northern Ireland and the Republic).

Eventually the second hunger strike ended with the deaths of ten young men. Political status was granted and the IRA prisoners were able to wear their own civilian clothes and have free association. Other concessions were also granted. During the hunger strikes Ireland had been awakened to what was happening in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein had benefited greatly from the hunger strikes as public sympathy fell in favour of the hunger strikers. It could be said that the hunger strikes gave Sinn Fein the political muscle to move forward and gain political legitimacy. Prior to the hunger strikes Sinn Fein was very much the republican tail being wagged by the IRA dog.



During the early 1980s there was a great deal of violence on the streets of Northern Ireland (the north). That violence had poured into the Republic during the hunger strikes but both republican (IRA) and loyalist (UVF/UDA) remained focused in the north. The people had become immune to the daily bombings and murders, nothing surprised anyone anymore. The fact that the population had become immune to the death and destruction meant that the terrorists had to try harder and harder to carry out spectaculars, attacks that would grip the attention of both the political establishment and the general population.



During the Hunger Strike period I had been blooded by the IRA, This meant that I had to be trained how to kill and also trained in anti-interrogation techniques. We were often taken to a mountain range and taught how to use guns and make bombs. Animals were used so that we could see what happened when you shot a living creature up close. Goats, sheep, even cattle were used. We were given both small arms and rifles to use on the animals. I was once told to shoot a goat in the head with a hand gun (browning) however the bullet deflected off the goats head, one of the adult IRA members stepped up to where the goat was and shoot it in the side of the head with a shot gun. I was covered in blood and the goat was dead. This is how we were blooded. We were told that we must get used to the smell of blood and the sight of guts.



While I attended the camps ‘voluntarily’ many lads were there as they had been forced to join by older members of their family such as fathers, uncles and so forth. In order to test my metal my first assignment was to carry out an attack on my Protestant child hood friend who was now in the RUC (police). Ireland is a small place and my IRA bosses knew that I had grown up with this Protestant lad; they wanted to make sure that I was prepared to kill anyone and not just strangers. I carried out the attack and my friend managed to survive, but the IRA was happy that I had done what I had been told to do. I was eventually captured and had to spend some time in jail, I was taken into the wing of the jail that housed the IRA prisoners and it was a scary experience.



While in jail my training continued. On many occasions I was instructed to smuggle in materials for my IRA leaders. This was done in a number of ways. The visits were held in a supervised area, yet under the table you could pass things to your visitor if you were careful. Also it was possible to have someone visit you and swop shoes during the visit. The heel of the shoe would be hollowed out and messages, explosives, gun parts and all manner of things could be in the shoes. I was also assigned to gather intelligence from time to time. I would be asked to change cells now and again and monitor the prison guards who were positioned on the perimeter wall. I would have to make a mental note of the times that they changed over, how many were on duty and so forth.



The IRA wing of the jail was run by the Prison staff, however, the IRA ruled over their members with an iron fist. If a prisoner was even suspected of informing (passing information) to the prison authorities or the police they would be beaten or they would be executed by the IRA once released back into the community. The IRA watched everything and everyone and if you broke their rules you would get something broken.



When I was released from jail I returned to the ranks of the IRA and Sinn Fein, I worked tirelessly for both. It was possible to be both an active member of the IRA (terrorist) and an active member of Sinn Fein (political). The IRA was viewed as the muscle that would bring about the political goals of Sinn Fein, those goals being a United Ireland and the removal of the British from Ireland. In the mid-1980s Sinn Fein decided to take their seats when elected to political office, prior to this decision Sinn Fein had an absenteeism policy. Absenteeism simply meant that Sinn Fein would run for election but refuse to take their seats in political office as they viewed those political positions as being illegitimate without a United Ireland.



The decision to drop absenteeism as a policy meant that Sinn Fein could now build upon the support they had gathered during the hunger strikes. Some members of Sinn Fein did not agree with this dropping of absenteeism and they set up a new organisation, however, their significance is minor when compared with the role of Sinn Fein and the IRA. In 1986 the IRA leadership also adopted a more overt policy of targeting members of the Protestant community. Up until this point the IRA had used the ‘political’ card to shoot members of the British security services such as the police and army, any innocent civilians killed were simply dismissed as casualties of ‘war’. Now however those innocent civilians were to be deliberately targeted.



With this tactic of “ethnic cleansing” officially adopted by the IRA Army Council, cleaners, bread men, milkmen, postmen, coal men, oil suppliers the list was endless, became legitimate targets. This fully adopted tactic meant that ordinary working Protestants could ‘no longer’ feel safe from the IRA campaign. In the IRA’s Green Book (IRA training manual), and from which I received instruction, it is stated that the IRA must get their defensive action right before pursuing their offensive action. So for example, they would release a press statement through An Phoblacth (weekly Sinn Fein paper) stating that a Protestant killed by the IRA was in fact a cleaner for the police (RUC), meant that Sinn Fein’s own constituency believed the IRA had killed a legitimate target. This lie was useful for the international audience also, as the IRA were very dependent on American Dollars at that time to buy guns and explosives from Libya and other international supporters. At all times the IRA and Sinn Fein leadership had to sell their campaign as one based on politics and not sectarianism.



This became for the IRA a very useful tactic, where large numbers of Protestants could be killed ‘legitimately’ and forced out of large geographical areas. Ethnic cleansing was most successful in south Armagh. Particular focus was given to Protestant families who had only one son, so that their land could not be handed down from generation to generation as was the Protestant tradition. The mass murder of eight Protestant workers blown up in Tibban in County Tyrone in 1992, the mass murder of eleven Protestants in Enniskillen in 1987 shows this tactic at its most successful for the IRA. In another incident a man, his wife and baby were blown up as it was alleged the man was a part time cleaner in a police station, they were all Protestants.



In or about this time the British had also adopted an Ulsterisation/normalisation policy. This was a policy that seen British soldiers being taken off the streets and replaced with the local UDR and RUC. The UDR were a regiment of the British army but were mainly Protestants from Northern Ireland and the RUC was the police service of Northern Ireland that was also viewed as Protestant. The British intention was to normalise Northern Ireland, to show that the IRA were a criminal gang to be dealt with by normal policing and not a political matter to be dealt with militarily. The possibility is that the British simply wanted to localise the conflict and stop the constant flow of body bags returning to the UK mainland. To take the Northern Ireland conflict out of the British public’s consciousness. Whatever the British intention, they simply provided the IRA with more ‘legitimate’ and soft Protestant targets.



We the ordinary people will never know the real thinking behind any of these decisions, what we do know is that many innocent people were murdered by both sides. The political spin doctors had access to the media and the victims as always had nothing.



Chapter 4 ends. Chapter 5 is a work in progress, and will be published soon.