Remembering the past does not mean supporting violence today |
LAST week, I visited the impressive ‘The Falls – Where the Troubles Began’ exhibit in the St Comgall’s – Ionad Eileen Howell building on Divis Street in west Belfast.
It outlines the growth of the working-class Catholic area since the 19th century, but the pre-eminent theme retells how it was at the epicentre of the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s period when the last conflict erupted in Ireland.
The RUC’s assault on Liam McMillan’s election office on Divis Street in 1964 to remove a tricolour (banned under the unionist regime’s draconian Flags and Emblems Act) is included, as well as civil rights marches.
The summer of 1969 features prominently, with eyewitness audio accounts sharing the experiences of local people. Videos show the burning of whole streets, with residents carrying pieces of furniture and other items they’d salvaged before fleeing their homes.
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The RUC played a critical role in endeavouring to suppress the civil rights aspirations of nationalists.
In a handful of weeks in the summer of 1969, the RUC and B Specials killed seven Catholics across the north in different incidents, including nine-year-old Patrick Rooney, killed in his family’s flat in Divis Tower. Needless to say, no RUC man served any prison time for these killings.
In April 1972, two young student teachers, Frank McGuinness and Patrick Magee, were shot by British soldiers as they walked by St Comgall’s Primary School. Magee was killed at the scene and McGuinness seriously wounded.
The ambulances carrying the men were hijacked by........