Ireland (2)

Gun law and a bishop

Rawle Knox

LondonderrY We are back this month with the difference, between the word and the deed, a universal divide which grins more nastily in Irelancid because of the horror of so many deeds an the wonder of the words. Jack Lynch, leader of the opposition in Dublin, has called for an all-Ireland peace conference, rather as, in his old hurling days, he might have appealed t° the Gaelic Athletic Association to settle a provincial row about who broke what rules. Lynch also asked for scrutiny of the Britisll Army in the North by an independent tribnaa "preferably with international presence." It goes very well-to say that "institutional violence is always more shocking ... than the activities ... of the street guerrilla." If you are a British soldier on the receiving end of a, half-brick heaved at you by ,a ten-year-01' child, you may momentarily become a bit hazy about those Marquis of QueensberrY rules Jack Lynch was speaking of. The find' ings of independent tribunals are, anywaY' selectively published in journals of your ' choice, giving just another reason for hating to those who wish to hate.

Lynch's were just some of the words, though never to be disregarded. There were others from Dublin, darkly musing that the perfidious Brits were dragging their feet no ratification of the Sunningdale agreement; from Basil McIvor, NI Minister of Education, warning that to argue the proposed Council of Ireland could be a vehicle for a united Ireland was, for most Northerners, to give it the kiss of death (too true; if only Dublin really tirl' derstood that!); from Oliver Napier, another minister in the NI Executive, and the mildest of Protestants, a sombre reflection that the

Catholic hierarchy still, in effect, denies the

right of one million Protestants to be Irish.; from many quarters, doubts that the report 0' the Anglo-Irish Law Commission will reallY solve the problem of the criminal who flits

across the border and then washes his black deed white in the holy water of political motive.

Meanwhile, around me, small things were ,"aPPening which are worth Writing medium ;arge. The Creggan Estate Post Office, high on perry's western hill above the River Foyle,

Isn't much different from other such establishments throughout the United Kingdom,

Pf which, amazingly, Creggan is still a part. It

iS a sub-post office, with a chemist's shop attached, and has served the locals with or

dinary modest usefulness. On April 4 it closed

dis°wn. Sub-Postmaster Eugene O'Hare had '.'ad enough. His till had been robbed six times

In the past two years; he and his staff had

suffered innumerable roughings-up and verbal threats. After the GPO had negotiated with hle Provos for three weeks it was understood eY agreed to guarantee that if the office

eopened its staff would not be hindered from carrying out its services to the people °f the area." Then came a volte-face, or

ether a discovery by the Provos that they ad been 'misrepresented' by the media. They Wished to say categorically that their action W,.as "concentrated against the man in charge 1,(3‘f the post office who is also the proprietor of ,ne chemist's shop." It appeared that O'Hare 'lad "on several occasions interfered with ?Perations by the Provisional IRA"; and `InYway, "we regard the PO as a British institution and as such we cannot guarantee its immunity from our operations. The onus of Providing this facility (sic.) is on the Post master-General and not on us." (Sick again).

I have quoted this guff at length (though nothing like the length the local paper was °bilged to print it at) because I want to take lYtou behind the words again. Eugene O'Hare is „"own as a good man, in the broadest sense 1`3'fe the compliment, known as such well

Yond Creggan (which may in part be the cause of his misfortunes. At the moment of riting the Creggan Estate PO is still closed. the time this is in print it may well be open Igain, and I would place a fairly solid bet on 'He name of the new postmaster. Someone has

sLuggested himself, as they say, and the Provos

rve no objection. The PO will still presumaulY be a British institution — it will certainly

sptill be paying pensions to relations of the rovos — but it will have conformed to local

ng law. This is the gun rule of the Wild est, with the sheriff ridden out of town.

What does the army do in Creggan? That question is becoming harder and harder to

West (harder, I guess, for the soldiers too). 'west of the Foyle," as the army punctiliously r,Puts it; which means mainly in Bogside and ;-reggan, there are three battalions. •I'wenty,our hours a day they patrol the streets, and some of them are mean streets, some of them good. "Only two houses shut the doors in our silreet the other day when the army came," a

,Ggside woman told me virtuously. That is rcause in the bad streets, and many of them

Creggan, front and back doors will always fLe open in case the Provos want to run

,Trough, but all will be slammed tight when ,gte alarm comes of an army patrol. There are

'fish politicians (not of the first order) who Lvill tell you that the British Army in the "cuth is the worst thing since the Nazi concentration camps, and because of all that Irish ?creamery it becomes easy to believe none of 't. Take a look at a few of the things I believe are happening: I. At school opening and closing times army vehicles are driving up to school gates and Picking up boys at random for questioning 1.1is when examinations are just due to begin.

, say at random, because I do not believe that any British battalion can within a couple of Months train its soldiers to recognise 'wanted men' from a mass of photographs; and the Proof is that almost all the boys are released after a few hours' interrogation. 2. One young man I know who was sent by his family to America for a year to escape the atmosphere of Creggan has come back — he could get no extension of visa — and within the first six weeks of his return has been arrested four times. Nothing has been found against him. He has also been asked by patrolling soldiers, as have his friends, the question: "Are you still in the Movement?" That ranks, I'd say, with: "When did you stop beating your wife?"

3. A boy whose parents I believe, and who believe their son, says he and a friend were followed by three plain clothes soldiers, who jumped them and beat them up. The boy had eighteen stitches put into him in hospital. A week later, out again, he was arrested on the street and taken to Ballykelly where the Special Branch do their interrogation, not always gently. (Of that I have other evidence.) As I write, five days after the arrest, the parents do not officially know where their son is. Relations of this family recently had their homes searched by the army. One of the sons, who had patiently waited in the hall for the soldiers to come to him, was told to empty out his pockets. He did so. A soldier then put his hand into one of the boy's pockets and brought out a live round of .22 ammunition. For that he is now on remand in custody, due to be sent up to a Belfast court. His family swears the bullet was planted; that there was no kind of reason for anyone to have a single round on him, and that anyway this boy had plenty of time to be rid of it before the soldiers reached him. The case is sub judice, so that's that. Neighbours say that neither of these related families were ever involved with the Provos; in Creggan and Bogside, neighbours almost always know better than the army.

In a town (city; I'm always forgetting) as small as Derry, as emotional and emotive, even a dullard can catch current feelings. What I have related above comes only from a few, but there's a bitter belief among those who live in Creggan and Bogside and emerge into other areas of Derry to do their respectable jobs, that army behaviour has been getting increasingly worse over the past two years, and especially in the last six months. I know that soldiers get browned off with the stupid, dangerous jobs they have to do in Northern Ireland, but I can't believe they all get bloody-minded simultaneously. It has got to be bad officering or intended policy,and neither should be permissible. Roy Mason, was, of course, right in what he said. The British are ghastly weary of having their army shot at and spat at in Ireland. One wonders why he and his fellow ministers did not take more notice when the new Catholic Bishop of Derry, Dr Daly, put forward his own peace plan. Dr Daly has suggested that the Provos should prolong and enlarge the ceasefire they voluntarily called during last month's annual Brigade Festival, and that the British cease their house raids and arrests, which he considered, only encouraged fresh recruitment to the IRA. The British should also begin a release of Derry internees from Long Kesh and also, presumably provided things in the city remained quiet, gradually withdraw troops to barracks. The bishop foresaw a possibility of vandalism during this process, and to my mind he was suggesting it mildly. But he felt this could only be cured in the context of a future policing programme, which is still unresolved.

No one seems to have taken Bishop Daly very seriously. That seems a pity to me, since I believe that a pilot peace scheme could be started in Derry to see how it works. If it failed the only person who stands to lose anything is the bishop, because everyone else would merely revert to the state of dreary battle we are in at the moment. The bishop, they tell me, hasn't lost heart, and may make another big pitch early next month on the Feast of St Columba, Derry's special saint. Next time, perhaps someone will be listening.