“Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times” seminar, October 2009

Letterkenny based republican ex prisoner group Abhaile Aris held a very successful seminar last week entitled “Ordinary Lives in Extraordinary Times” The seminar was one of a number of seminar’s that Abhaile Aris are funded to carry out under Peace111 programme in Dealing with the Past and was held in the Ramada Hotel Letterkenny this particular seminar dealt with the Civil Rights era and the impact it had on the lives of people who had lived through that era.

Speakers at the seminar included Jackie Mc Donald a leading loyalist from East Belfast, Sean Murray a former republican prisoner from West Belfast, Bill Rolston an academic and Lecturer at University of Ulster and Declan Carroll former Commanding Officer of 28th Batt Irish Defence Forces.

The seminar was opened by Gerry Mc Monagle Abhaile Aris Outreach Worker. He welcomed the guest speakers and also those from the wider community who had taken the opportunity to come along and take part in the discussions and talk about their experiences and memories of the events that led up to the Civil Rights Campaign.

The scene for the seminar was set by the showing of a short DVD outlining the background to the Civil Rights Campaign and the changes that were introduced as a result of that campaign.

Bill Rolston was the first speaker of the day and put the Civil Rights Campaign in the context of what was happening globally at that time. He outlined how 1969 had many memorable dates some famous others infamous. He talked about Martin Luther King and the campaign for Civil Rights for Blacks in America. The invasion of Prague in 68. The protests in America at the Vietnam War all of these he said set the conditions for protests here in Ireland for Civil Rights. That Civil Rights were being abused in the North of Ireland he said was indisputable the Unionist regime at that time practised discrimination in all its guise’s. People were denied their right to vote, to work, to have proper housing and equal opportunity. This he said was a recipe for disaster and proved to be that. Britain eventually sent in its Army and took control of the reins but by then the conflict had worsened and we went into a conflict that was to last the best part of 35 years. He welcomed the fact that we were now in a time of change and urged the political parties not to squander the opportunity that was there to help build the bridges between the two communities. He seen today’s seminar as proof if proof was needed of the new dispensation we found ourselves in whereby republican and loyalist can come together and discuss the past without any fear, but better still to talk about a future together where everyone is treated equally.


Sean Murray was the second speaker and he talked about his first memories of that time. He remembered he said the awful conditions that Nationalist had to live in at that time and the discrimination that was rife throughout the North with many nationalist unemployed and living in squalid and over crowded housing conditions. He recounted how in August 1969 loyalist mobs from the shankill came and burned down many streets in his neighbourhood forcing nationalist to abandon and flee their homes in fear of their lives. “This was nothing new he said they had suffered these pogroms before in the 20’s and 30’s so it was not a new phenomenon for Catholics living as they did adjacent to the Shankill Rd to be attacked in this manner”. He talked about helping families flee their homes with only the belongings they could carry under a hail of bullets that was directed at them from RUC and Loyalist’s in the nearby Shankill Rd two people were killed that particular night one an off duty British Soldier who was visiting his family on the Falls Road and another a young republican who was helping to defend the area from attack.

Sean told the seminar how the Civil Rights campaign made him more conscious of how Catholics were being discriminated against by the state and the need for reform. He could not believe the response to the call for civil rights from the state. Marches were banned and any marches that were allowed to take place were attacked by the police which resulted in widespread rioting across the North. The police he said had clearly come down on the side of the protestant majority and were in fact the armed wing of Unionism. This he said led to the conflict that we have had for almost 35 years. He went on to describe how his experiences of that time let him make a conscious decision to be come involved in that conflict and played a leading role in defending his neighbourhood and joining the IRA. He was imprisoned in the mid eighties in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and he used that time to reinforce his politics. Sean was a major advocate of the IRA ceasefire and supported Sinn Fein’s Peace Strategy. He told the seminar how he now put’s all his energy into building relationships with his former adversaries and currently is Chairperson of the Six County Executive of Sinn Fein. Dialogue and politics is the only way forward he said. We should never allow people to go back to the bad old days of discrimination and inequality. Equality for all is what we must strive for. Catholic Protestant and Dissenter must come together to build a better Ireland and Ireland that is free from the old discrimination’s of the past. He concluded by thanking Abhaile Aris for inviting him and for giving him an opportunity to tell his story.

The next speaker was Jackie Mc Donald a leading loyalist from Belfast who outlined his memories of growing up at that time. He said at first he was oblivious to the Civil Rights Campaign and was only interested in getting on with his life, but eventually as things heated up he became involved in defending his area from the over spilling of catholic areas of Belfast into traditional protestant areas. He joined the UDA and was involved in protecting protestant areas during the rioting. He was a main player in the UDA and became disillusioned with the main stream unionist parties as he felt they were ignoring and misrepresenting ordinary loyalist. Jackie also outlined that working Class Protestants were just as marginalised as Catholics were on the Falls Rd. A point that Sean Murray agreed with. He said a lot of people that he knew had died needlessly some of them were good friends like John Mc Michael who was the leader of the UDA and had been killed by the IRA. John he said was a man of vision someone who was trying to bring the UDA away from sectarian violence unto a path of non violence and working class politics. It took a long while after his death for this to come along. The IRA ceasefire of 1994 made it possible for him to lobby for a UDA ceasefire and to seek a path of non violence for the group. He said the relationships that he forged with republicans like Sean Murray and others made this task easier. He talked about the need for young people from both communities to work much closer together to ensure that we don’t make the same mistakes that were made in the past. He said we have a great opportunity with the Peace Process to make politics work and that he personally would invest as much time as he has to ensure that working class loyalists invest in the Peace Process. He thanked Awhile Airs for the invitation and wished them well in the future.

Last speaker of the day was Declan O Carroll who gave a few personal anecdotal stories of his time serving in the ranks of the Defence Forces. He talked about the Field Hospitals and Refugee Centres that had been opened up by the Army in places like Finner Camp and at Letterkenny. He had some humorous stories to tell of some of the refugees who were catered for at Finner and of treating people who had been injured during the rioting in Derry. Fort Dunree in Inishowen was also opened up for support for those nationalist who needed it and was visited by the politicians of the time from Derry.

The conference was then opened up to the floor with some very interesting comments and personal stories from the audience. Some questions were then directed at the panel of speakers which delivered some very good debate and discussion.

Abhaile Aris Outreach Worker Gerry Mc Monagle brought the proceedings to an end by thanking the SEUPB Special Programme Funding Body and CFNI for making it possible to hold such a conference he also thanked all those who had participated in the seminar.