7 JULY 1973, Page 21

L rish dimensional mess

Ueorge Gale IVIonday June 25

Leaving London the evening was fine, In Belfast it was pouring with rain. There had been a routine and rudimentary security check .at London airport; none at Aldergrove, Belfast's distant airport, and a somewhat more than rudimentary frisk at the Culloden hotel where, based on past experience, I had decided to stay. It is a converted Bishop's Palace of nineteenth-century Scottish baronial style, Is a few miles from the centre of Belfast, and used to have a deserved reputation for its food, More to the point, British ministers, senior officials and security and special branch people also stay here and there is indeed now, within the hotel, a special Security 8lock for their benefit, Its cocktail bar is in What used to be the Bishop's private chapel: a step, within the terms of the Irish dimension, in the right direction. Driving in from the airport, I asked the taxi-driver the usual opening gambit of a foreign correspondent — and that's how it often feels in Ulster — " How is it?" " Nothing extraordinary," he said, " a few shots each light, a bomb or two in the day. You get used to it. They never seem to stop it." There were Plenty of bombed-out pubs and shops and Offices, burned-out streets, some devastated areas, Two or three men usually stood outside Union pub. A shop was selling hundreds of

Jacks on sticks, for children to wave. Roadblocks were used as sites for electioneering posters.

In the hotel there were one or two oddities. bespite what it said in its elaborate guide to residents, there was no room service at night rlor any snacks to be had: "the fridges are all locked-up ". Also there was a chap moving officiously from public room to public room Clasping a chattering police-type walkietalkie in each hand.

, People kept coming out of the dining-room looking, given its elegance and priciness, as if they had been eating a bit above their station 4nd sounding as if they had been drinking well above their capacity. "That's no bag, that's my wife " was one noisy remark, from a Youngster who gave his pretty young wife — Who didn't seem to mind a bit — an ostentatious goosing in the process. „ Another large gaggle of young came Inrough, roseate-buttonholed, a post-wedding Party perhaps? Again, both vulgar and flourishing, Is this Irish? Ulsterish? Warrish? Or was it me? Age? The age, manifesting itself in tostentatious vulgarity, loudly declaring itself be richer and coarser and younger than uefore?

The man with the walkie-talkies talked into One of his machines: "What about the bride bridegroom?" There was much noisy ,Ilrewelling and hail-fellowing. The walkies`dlkie man said to one of his sets, "I think I ull°uld wait for the bride and groom to come need to look at all their cases. Roger °Id out," _,:rhe bride now came through rustling and `-f!cittering and fussing in noisy taffeta and tr'llhng flowers. All her cases, all her t ?.usseau, her wedding night-dress had to be lert out and closely inspected for security. received much closer attention than had 's'15' luggage. "Nothing at all," said one of the ,curity chaps, finally ruffling up the last Piece of tissue paper which had interleaved set.ach loving item. A wedding guest happily "outed, "That's a shame, Rose! It's a shame! It's all being examined first, Kosie, isn't it a shame! See you soon. Enjoy yourselves."

The guests departed. The couple giggled their way upstairs. The walkie-talkie man still stalked around. Perhaps there were still guests in the dining-room, two hours after I'd been told the fridges had all been locked up. Why? And why lock a fridge, when there's no staff to serve, and therefore presumably to steal, from it?

Tuesday June 26

At breakfast a couple of plain clothes policemen talked of their difficulties in turning down their bedside radios and how nothing but tepid water came out of the tap. These pleased me, because I had experienced similar difficulties. The only newspaper to be had was the (Dublin) Irish Times. I asked the hallporter, "How the hell do you manage to get the Dublin paper but not the Belfast ones?" "You get that sort of thing happening here," he said.

Keith McDowell, whom I used to know years ago when he was on the Daily Mail and who is now Willie Whitelaw's press officer, said, "They killed Gerry Fitt's agent last night, Senator Paddy Wilson. He was driving home from McG lade's pub [a well-known and excellent place, only bombed once or twice and popular with Catholics and press] with a girl who often drinks there. They left it too late to telephone the papers afterwards; they love to have a new bit of bloody gore across the front page. The murder was about midnight. They'd obviously been following Paddy for several days." It turned out later that Paddy Wilson had been stabbed about thirty times, and the girl — a ball-room dancer and a Protestant — about twenty times. She was probably killed because she'd accepted a lift home.

"The elections," said Keith, "have so far been pretty quiet."

The BBC II am. news told us that the Ulster Freedom Fighters, an extreme Protestant organisation, had claimed responsibility for the murder of Senator Paddy Wilson and his acquaintance. On my way into Belfast the taxidriver was old and nervous, shaking as much as his car. "New shock absorbers needed," he said. I realised that Belfast was far more bombed and devastated than I had thought. We passed a group of policemen and soldiers around an empty car: "Bomb scare," said the driver and drove more quickly. They dislike being stationary at traffic lights or while waiting for their fare. I was frisked, as is everyone, before being allowed into the Europa.

Now, a great renewal of acquaintances, including Ray Moloney, not encountered, I think, since the Congo. Many new young faces, chiefly earnest. For some time a man ostentatiously listened to a talk Moloney and I were having, until we noticed him and quietened down.

Later there were heated and noisy arguments between myself and a crowd of journalists and others, all Irish, some from the north, some from the south. There was a good deal of reluctance, I thought (and said) on their part to come out openly and say what they think. One man took my notebook and wrote in it: "I believe that the only hope for Northern Ireland is that the Protestant population should recognise that their only hope of fulfilment is by taking their rightful place in a new Ireland,"

Wednesday June 27

An excellent lunch with Liam Hourican or Radio Tel efis Eireann and colleagues together with a delightful Ulsterman from the Information Office. We had a lengthy conv.ersation turning on the responsibility a man had for turning in someone on his own side, I arguing that as long as IRA people had a safe refuge with Catholic areas, they could never be defeated and violence could never be eradicated. But some said that they could never shop a Provisional. I then said that, were a united Ireland to come about and were the extreme Protestants representing the new Protestant minority to form their own private army directed against the state, would the same argument apply to them, and would they defend Protestants who would not shop their terrorists? The argument became difficult and embarrassing for the southern Irishmen who took the most extreme ' anti-shopping ' view; for while all of us were ready to understand such an attitude among ill-educated and ignorant people when it was a matter of ' betraying ' young Seamus from the house next door, it was different coming from an educated man who proclaimed his repugnance of violence.

Roy Bradford joined us for a few minutes. I had not seen him since the British-lrish Asso.ciation's initiatory meeting in Cambridge at Eastertime. He was in most ebullient form and was dressed with the greatest panache. After he left I gave it as my opinion that he is the most improved politician in Ulster, and the one best equipped to talk with all sides and whose mind is both good and open. There was surprising agreement.

I had to leave to catch Rawle Knox, who was to drive me across to Londonderry, at Aldergrove airport. His view is the most direful, and perhaps the most realistic, if I have understood it correctly: his is the 'bloodbath theory ', which declares that things will have to get worse before they get better and that the shedding of blood on a large enough scale is needed to bring peace. I see the intellectual force of this position. I flinch from adopting it, He is not entirely pessimistic; he concedes the possibility of the English approach working. It is also his view that there is very little real enthusiasm for a united Ireland among the Catholics of the north.

He took me on a tour of Londonderry. We drove across the bridge and as far into the centre as we could go. We stopped and walked a couple of hundred yards into The Diamond, once the shopping middle of the city. It was still possible to see from the ravaged, destroyed face of the place a style and a beauty that once had been. Londonderry was once an elegant town; and this makes its present hideousness the worse. Also, the scale of its destruction is far larger than Belfast's. It was becoming very slowly dusk. A few shops, like odd teeth in the face of a man who has taken his false teeth out, stood. There was a boutique. No one but us was around. It was like after a war in which everyone had gone. We went back, into a bar, beside the walls. It had not long to go: it was due for demolition. The owner hoped it would be blown up before it was demolished: the compensation is better that way. He was a pleasant man, whose life had been his pub, but now he had had enough and he didn't know whether he would apply for a new licence when the redevelopment was through and done.

Life goes on. So do death and destruction. In another bar I was introduced to a Spectator reader who said, referring to the Ryder article on the dangers of forced integration in the United States, "I think a lot of that applies to Ireland. We want more ghettoes. Why force people to live together?"

We drove into the Bogside proper, the roads all litter, few people on the streets. We took a false turning and found ourselves on a road which led nowhere, things in front of us being broken up. We slowed down. A car overtook us, and a man in it motioned us to stop. It was a large black Mercedes. A man got out of it and walked back towards us. The two men in the back of the Mercedes had turned round and were looking — aiming? — straight back at us. The man put his head in at our window and said, "I was in England a few months ago. 1 used to be in the RAF. What are you doing here?"

We said we had lost our way. Rawle ex— — — plained that he lived across the bridge. The man said, "I would not advise you to go any further. I would definitely advise you not to go any further. In fact, I'd advise you to get out of this area in a hurry."

He said all this with great authority, not as a man prepared to consider discussing the matter. We turned back at once. I had felt, for the first time, a very definite frisson. We drove then to the Creggan estate.

We talked to a woman in a terrace house. She pointed over the way where, beyond a stretch of grass, was a row of council houses. She said, "Look at the tunnel in the middle," referring to the passageway that led to the back doors of the terrace. "They keep a bazooka or something in there." I wished she'd stop pointing. She pointed to some grass. "A major was shot there. He was in a pool of blood all over the grass." She called her daughter: "Come and tell the gentlemen about the soldier." A little girl of about eight told more or less the same story, but pointed to a different piece of grass. Behind her was a wrecked factory, its girders torn and twisted and rusted. Beside the factory was a dead tree, pale grey and white.

The woman said, "We would move, but we've worked and paid for this house for twenty years and we'd lose it if we moved," She kept on wanting to talk. We wanted to leave. She was on the edge of tears. She said, "The boys from Cork came through here not so long ago. They came in right through the front door here, and through the room then into the kitchen and out the back, carrying their gelignite with them. What could I do?"

Her face was worn; her eyes were wet and red; her face had aged more than the rest of her. She stood fingering her beack, and rubbing her carpet slippers up the side of her legs. Her daughter, who had not smiled, walked away. "Blood everywhere," the woman said, "and the troops came and carried him away. I thought you would believe the little girl, even if you wouldn't believe me."

We left and drove a few miles into Donegal, into southern Ireland. There was a smart hotel by the sea lough, with sailing boats bobbing below, and a bunch of young priests drinking pints of Guinness. It was very relaxing; and Donegal evening was beautiful. It was ten o'clock almost. We drove home to Rawle's house.

During the trip we'd been stopped about half a dozen times by British army roadblocks. On each occasion the army's behaviour was impeccable.

Back at the house, eating some marvellous salmon mousse we heard crump-crump noises. In the morning we learned that in all probability shells had been fired from the tunnel we'd been pointed out. There were some fine' Lely copies on the walls of the house; elegant furniture, a fine staircase, a huge Irish wolfhound of the most placid disposition. I slept that night in a room filled with gilt furniture.

Thursday June 28

Drove back to Belfast: a quiet journey, a couple of road blocks. I saw Ray Moloney who recalled the incident of the man overhearing our conversation in the bar of the Europa. "He telephoned the office, asked to speak to the television reporter and said to me, 'I was listening to you in the bar. You were talking crap. You ought to meet some of us.' 'Who are you?' I asked him. I'll introduce you to Gus Spence." That'll be difficult, I know where he is,' I said. 'I can still get you to him.' 'Then who are you?' I asked him. 'We are the Freedom Fighters,' he said. 'Then call me back,' I said. He hasn't, though. You get them."

Such men are a by-product of sensation; they prey and eavesdrop upon journalists. They are an obvious symptom of a nasty condition. Occasionally what they say is the truth. Much excited argument going on, partiL about the press and its relations with till' army. I think many British journalists he rE are biased against the army from the wo go.

There is a new rumour — or new to me. Ii may be old. I heard of a sergeant chargth with shooting people up when in plain-cl h thes, using a tommy gun (he was acquitt k the next day) who — according to this hec th , tale — was part of a conspiracy going rig tl the way up, way beyond his company co ei mander, "right to the top, although of cou

Uncle Willie will know nothing of it." Ii

The theory is that there is a kind of Cl operation (which may well be true) using c tam n trained military people (which may al, tl be true) to use excessive violence to obt s intelligence. It is true that military 11 telligence is far better now than when I Wilt here last. si The Belfast Telegraph has a leader co ti demning the destruction by the IRA of 80,0 ti books in the Brooke Park library in Londo p derry; and I remember that I saw a man si ti ting in the window of a shop front now se ti ing as a public library, ostentatiously I h t 'thought at the time reading a book. It had n 0 occurred to me that he may have been m ing a brave demonstration.

Friday June 29 '1;

Talked with some extreme right-wing Unioss ists in the morning; then with Roy Bradford (

Saw the Secretary of State for half an hod ii after lunch. I had not before seen Willie whil r elaw in a more sombre mood. The count wst going on; but there were no indications at tilt 5. time we talked of what the outcome woul be. The news came through of a bomb at A dergrove airport.

Later, to the Information Centre, in a cod verted sports pavilion. The elaborations 0 the single transferable vote system of pro, portional representation gradually becarli clear to me.

The evening wore on. A weariness corr bined with a sense of disappointment begar to be prevalent: Alliance was doing badly, anti-Faulkner right-wing Unionists were rur ning stronger than had been expected. BO" the SDLP had done well.

I said to a man who had voted Alliance "The chance must be that the movement which take place after the results are move ments towards the centre and not away fror them."

" You are absolutely right," he said, addira: " It is left like this. If the politics in the posi election period grows centrifugal then til centre will not hold and anarchy will IY loosed. If, however, the election proves after a week or two — as I think it very may, that the political force at work is centr petal in effect, if not always in expressior then we'll be spared the blood-rimmed alT, archy from being let loose and things will nr; fall apart and some centre or other will hold

Saturday June 30

Tremendous security at Aldergrove. Londe very very beautiful.

Londonderry Letter