Читать книгу Belfast Days - Eimear O’Callaghan - Страница 11

CHAPTER 1

‘Wish something big would hurry up and happen.’

‘Happy New Year, everybody! Happy New Year!’ As the clocks struck midnight, my parents and I joined friends in a house not far from our own in West Belfast and celebrated being alive. Two doors away from our own home was about as far as we dared to venture.

As the adults clinked glasses ‘To 1972!’, the bombers heralded the start of another year in a way with which we were becoming all too familiar. ‘Happy New Year, Belfast,’ indeed.

Sat, Jan 1 – New Year’s Day

Had arranged to go to Dublin for the day with Suzette and got the 8.00 a.m. train. Had a great day there – an atmosphere of freedom and light-heartedness, completely opposite to the atmosphere of death and fear we left behind us.

We welcomed New Year in down in McGlade’s and it came in with a bang! Eight explosions rocked the town between midnight and 12.15 ...

Aunt Jo telephoned to say she was coming tomorrow – something to brighten up the day. Washed my hair and spent the night playing Cluedo by the fire.

Only one explosion tonight – reported as a quiet night.

Sun, Jan 2

Auntie Jo, Uncle Jim and family came down from Navan and we persuaded them to stay overnight. Huge Civil Rights Association march planned today to Falls Park. (Ban on marches until February). Daddy and Uncle Jim accompanied it. When it reached the barracks, negotiated with the army – and marchers walked by on the pavement. Estimated crowd of 3,000–5,000.

Murky day and we decided to go to have a look at Long Kesh. About 9 miles outside Belfast.

Very desolate countryside – terrible atmosphere of loneliness and security surrounded the camp. We couldn’t see the actual cages – approximately 2 miles inside the main gates.

At the moment, it is 2.00 a.m. Just going to bed – very conscious of military activity up and down Fruithill Park. Puzzled by this because it is unusual in our street.

We were lucky. A row of sedate, solid houses with mature well-kept gardens lined each side of ‘our street’ as it climbed up gently from the busy Andersonstown Road, the main thoroughfare through nationalist West Belfast. On the crest of the rise, the street appeared to merge with the grassy, lower slopes of Divis Mountain, one in the chain of hills that border that part of Belfast. Although right in the heart of a nationalist area, which was seldom out of the news, Fruithill was relatively insulated from the turmoil that was steadily encroaching on the sprawling housing estates all around us.

Internment had changed all our lives and few nationalist districts escaped the violent reaction to its introduction the previous August. It was impossible for anyone going about their daily business in the west of the city to avoid the strife and unrest that had begun to consume the area: the shooting, rioting, stone-throwing, hijackings and burnings.

Although she had lived in Belfast for nearly 20 years, my mother, Maura, was a relative stranger to such a troubled environment, having been reared in the rural tranquillity of the Cooley Peninsula, across the border in the Republic. She met and fell in love with my Falls Road-born father, Jim, while they were working together in the Civil Service in industrial, post-war Belfast. They spent all their married life in Andersonstown, 50 miles and a cultural world away from her family home on the southern side of the magnificent, fjord-like Carlingford Lough.

Over the space of ten years my parents had five children: me first, followed at regular intervals by my four brothers: John, Aidan, Jim and finally Paul. The rest of my mother’s family – her parents, four sisters and one brother, Seamus – all remained in the South. The youngest, Briege, became a nun, joining the Convent of Mercy in Dundalk in the week my mother married. The other sisters left Cooley and reared families in Sligo, Dun Laoghaire and Navan. As the situation in the North deteriorated, they grew understandably more and more reluctant to visit us.

On one of those seemingly interminable days that follow Christmas, we were glad to have her second youngest sister, Jo, and family visiting from across the border in County Meath. I hadn’t seen real daylight since I woke, as a sullen, grey sky hung low and heavy over Belfast. The Christmas decorations, already losing their sheen, looked jaded and out of place but Catholic tradition dictated that we should wait until 6 January, the Feast of the Epiphany, before taking them down.

Our aunt, uncle and cousins’ arrival was a welcome distraction. It didn’t take long though for a dozen adults and children to make our four-bedroomed house feel suffocating. The living room and steamed-up kitchen became uncomfortably warm and crowded.

Even at the best of times, there was little to do in Belfast on a cold, bleak Presbyterian Sunday but there was even less diversion available when that Sunday happened to be the day after New Year’s Day. My father, with his mounting concern about the developing political situation, decided that driving out to see the controversial new internment camp, in a disused RAF base near Lisburn, was as interesting a way as any to while away a couple of hours.

As we drove along the M1 motorway in our dark blue Ford Cortina, he slowed the car and pointed out the camp in the distance. Rows of blue-white lights loomed eerily through the mist and drizzle, across acres of flat, forbidding terrain. Huge spotlights burned brightly over the fifteen-foot-high perimeter fences which enclosed the wire cages and Nissen huts where hundreds of men had spent Christmas, interned without trial.

In the weeks before Christmas, I had invariably found myself drawn to detainees’ accounts of torture and ill-treatment which were being published regularly in The Irish News. But even those compelling descriptions of how the men were ‘confined to flooded cages ... with less room than caged animals in the zoo’, failed to prepare me for the bleakness of the scene on that first Sunday in January.

Jim and Paul were only 10 and 7 years old but even they knew all about Long Kesh. As soon as they made out the outline of the prison in the grey, cheerless distance, they started to sing:

Armoured cars and tanks and guns

Came to take away our sons,

But every man must stand behind

The men behind the wire

The ballad was already a huge, local hit despite being banned on official radio stations. It blared out day and night on pirate radio, in taxis, pubs and clubs, and at every get-together across West Belfast. With its emotive images of night-time raids, marauding soldiers, crying children and assaults on all things Irish, the song became an anthem and a rallying cry for a generation of young nationalists.

Mon, Jan 3

There was a mini riot around the roundabout at the bottom of the park – only thing of any interest. I felt depressed all day, the atmosphere of tension and fear of what’s going to happen got the better of me. Decided I wouldn’t go to university in Northern Ireland.

There was one explosion in the afternoon – a lorry with a bomb in it exploded in Calendar Street. As a result, 62 passers-by taken to hospital. Couple of shooting incidents. Daddy apparently just missed the explosion.

Rained tonight, thank goodness – great water shortage.

At about 11.30 p.m. a great flash followed by a huge explosion shook house. Sure Belfast was up in smoke – turned out to be work of God. Thunder!

Tues, Jan 4

Off to a bad start – we didn’t surface until twenty to one (disgraceful)! Had a very rushed lunch, Mammy had to be in work at one o’clock.

In the afternoon I had asked Frankie to come down to break the monotony of the holidays. Since the holidays have begun, I haven’t seen even one person from school.

Wed, Jan 5

Misty and wet all day. We got up fairly early (for a change!). Mammy and John started the day with a row. Mammy had heard that he and Aidan had thrown paint-bombs yesterday – and I’ve a queer suspicion that they had! The two boys looked on it as a joke. Soon however all was peaceful again.

I got my hair cut in the afternoon. I was so embarrassed by it sticking out on end when I came out that I wore a headscarf home and deliberately avoided meeting Michael Ewings, Maurice Murphy etc!

There was ‘The Great Debate on Ulster’ tonight and inevitably, it was on in our house (as in almost every house in Northern Ireland and Eire). It was unusual for 8 politicians to speak peacefully and with respect to each other. However, nothing came out of it all and was therefore a flop to many people.

Four boys took Jim and Patrick McGlade and beat them up (said it was the treatment given out in Long Kesh!)

Thurs, Jan 6

A Holy Day of Obligation, we went to 11.30 Mass. A cold, dismal day suited the dull atmosphere at home. All the decorations left from Christmas were put away and the last traces of Christmas disappeared.

I wanted to go into town but there seemed to be tension in the air. A lot of military activity and a shop blown up. I decided to go tomorrow instead (hoping I’ll get some material to make a pair of trousers). Mammy and Daddy both in good moods.

A huge explosion tonight – have to wait till tomorrow to find out where it was.

Brought the dog out. Very peaceful night, no cars on road, no street-lights lit – very normal here. Another internment camp opens – probably for women.

The ‘normal’ place where I was reared and was happy to live was being grotesquely transformed into the most militarised city in Western Europe. I wanted to go shopping in the city centre but my parents warned me against it for fear of IRA bombs. Soldiers – with rifles at the ready – patrolled our streets in Saracen armoured cars and were bombarded by bricks, bottles, petrol bombs and nail bombs flung by Catholic youths. Minor stone-throwing would degenerate into full-blown rioting, as the security forces responded with baton charges, rubber bullets and even live ammunition.

Few of our car journeys were completed without us being stopped and questioned at army checkpoints. Huge coils of barbed wire denied us access to once familiar streets. I was terrified that my father, like dozens of other innocent West Belfast men, could be arrested and interned at any time.

The IRA, the army and loyalist paramilitaries became more deeply embroiled in their bloody conflicts. In the seven months before internment was introduced in August 1971, around thirty people were killed across Northern Ireland. In the last five months of the year, 150 died.

As 1971 passed into 1972, the life that I longed for as a 16-year-old – the world I read about in Jackie every week – seemed to be slipping further and further beyond my reach. Our lives had changed.

As the end of the Christmas holidays approached, I was more preoccupied than ever with the episodes of violence, upheaval and political bear-baiting being relayed to us night after night on television. My fascination with such matters, though, was nothing new. In the summer of 1969, a month after my fourteenth birthday, I started to compile my first Troubles scrapbook; pasting black-and-white images of civil unrest and Catholic homes ablaze on to its pastel-coloured pages. It was only when Suzette gave me a new diary – its pristine pages begging to be filled – that I felt inspired for the very first time to commit my thoughts to paper.

Once inside my bedroom, tucked away at the end of our narrow, wood-panelled landing, I turned the key in the solid wood door and insulated myself against Tito’s noisy yelping and the pestering of my four brothers. I stuck cuttings in my scrapbook and confided in my diary. With the transistor turned up loud, I sat cross-legged on the floor to do homework, my back pressed against the Dimplex radiator for heat. On other nights, I stretched out contentedly on top of my single bed and lost myself in the latest book I was reading: Once There Was a War, Anna Karenina, 1984 and Persuasion, to name but a few. Given any opportunity, I would turn to the Singer sewing machine at the end of my bed, and while away the hours turning out simple garments for my mother or myself.

Suzette, who lived just a couple of doors away, was my most regular visitor. Having already left school, she relished being free from homework and revision and we spent hours in each other’s houses – gossiping, listening to music on the radio or playing vinyl records, if I succeeded in commandeering the family record player for my own use. Surrounded by clothes, records, magazines and books strewn untidily about the room, we consumed gallons of tea. Whatever I was doing, I insisted the boys had to knock to get in. When distant plumes of thick smoke signalled a vehicle or building on fire, I would peer out the window guessing at its source, until a news bulletin confirmed a riot or an explosion. Sometimes I sewed; anything to relieve the dreadful boredom of those dismal January days.

Within the first few days of the New Year, it was depressingly clear that the temporary respite provided by the Christmas celebrations had been just that: temporary. As my teenage world continued to contract, the obligation to update my Collins diary became a vital part of my daily routine.

Fri, Jan 7

I wanted to go down town today but not allowed, I go down to Suzette’s, she’s home for the weekend. Bored in their house – only talk of nursing and holidays.

Went over to the Co-op with Mammy, heard all these stories about men being lifted by army – is very frightening. Daddy could be lifted any time.

Mammy and Daddy went to visit Aunt Alice and Josephine – they weren’t in. They had a terrible interrogation at a roadblock by army – names, addresses, occupation, where they were going and why, and then they had to wait to be cleared from army headquarters.

I intended doing some studying for the exams but I just can’t be bothered – will do it tomorrow (or some other time).

Sat, Jan 8

Got up to rain and cold and went into town with Mammy. Town was deserted – the same as it was before Christmas – almost as many soldiers as people. I got a letter today from Agnes. She says she’s having a great time in the Shetlands – so peaceful and normal.

Last night was a bad night. I was sewing all night. It passes the time instead of sitting watching TV. I can’t wait to get back to school on Monday.

Today’s exactly one week since New Year’s Day. It seems so long since we went to Dublin.

Sun, Jan 9

Dense fog. Went to Mass in St. Michael’s new church. Beautiful church, although very plain. We went to an Andersonstown Civil Resistance meeting in the afternoon – a marvellous meeting. John Hume, Paddy Devlin, Jock Stallard (English Labour) and Michael Farrell all there.

Mrs E. came over and we spent the night playing records of the Civil Rights Association.

Shudder at the thought of school tomorrow again. I’ve a lack of interest in going back for the first time. I can’t even find my pencil case. I hope to get half day – if so, I’ll be able to get done some of the work that I intended to do over the holidays.

A great escape bid from Crumlin Road jail was foiled last night by the discovery of 3 underground tunnels. S. Kelly, a neighbour and welfare worker, was lifted on Friday and not released after 48 hours. Interned on the Maidstone – shocked to hear this.

At sixteen and a half, I was midway through my Lower Sixth year at St Dominic’s Girls’ Grammar School – a diligent student, proud of the exam grades I achieved the previous summer. The start of the autumn term had seen me happy to concentrate single-mindedly on the English, French and Maths I was studying for A-Levels. But, as the world I knew began to disintegrate, I became easily distracted.

With class tests imminent and A-Levels just over a year away, a conscientious voice in my head told me that I should be applying myself seriously to homework and revision. Instead, I was becoming more and more obsessed with what was happening around us.

My father, like many working-class Belfast men of his generation, left school at 14 and was self-educated. My mother, by contrast, had the benefit of a full, convent-school secondary education in Dundalk. What my father lacked, though, in terms of formal education, he more than compensated for through his passion for literature, history and politics, and books were always present in our home. Ensuring that my brothers and I got the best education possible was a priority for both my parents. My father especially urged us to read newspapers, to take an interest in and listen to ‘the news’ and care about what was happening in our troubled city.

He self-deprecatingly described his job in the Post Office as that of ‘a minor civil servant’ and claimed the position prevented him from ever becoming publicly involved in party politics. I suspect it suited his modest personality to commit himself instead to decades of unpaid, behind-the-scenes involvement in politics, civil rights and social justice issues.

He and my mother were involved with the constitutional, nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party – the SDLP – since its inception in 1970, and he was a member of the Citizens’ Defence Committee – the CDC – for roughly the same time. The latter organisation, which included local business people and members of the Catholic clergy, set itself the tasks of highlighting nationalist grievances, and campaigning peacefully for civil rights and an end to internment.

Night after night – sometimes dodging bullets to get there – he attended meetings of the fledgling SDLP or spent hours with his CDC colleagues in their cold, draughty offices at the bottom of the Falls Road ‘trying to keep a lid on things’: intervening with the security forces when their behaviour was excessive; recording allegations of army harassment and brutality; detailing sectarian attacks by loyalists; supporting internees’ families; and helping to re-house families who’d been intimidated from their homes.

I was proud and excited to accompany him, at the beginning of January, to my first political rally. Both of us were equally curious to hear at first hand, and see in the flesh, some of the public figures who were making the news.

Mon, Jan 10

Back to school but we got half-day. Spent afternoon in the house alone, terrified in case someone should attempt to break in. It was bucketing all day and freezing cold.

There was a big explosion and fire in town – Talbot Street. Building went on fire – just got a slight mention on the news, so commonplace now. Oh! In Derry, 157 pairs of army trousers and 160 flak jackets were stolen from a drycleaners – and then the following day, a riot begins where rioters fired CS gas at the army. Very suspicious!

Denise F. came into school wearing an engagement ring – at least, so we thought. She was only messing by wearing a ring on the wrong hand – gave us all a bit of a jolt.

Tues, Jan 11

The fellow who was shot last week is buried today, so the buses were taken off. It was pouring rain and we had to walk home. We were soaked to the skin, even the lining of my coat got wet.

An explosion shook the school this afternoon but turns out it was only a 2lb bomb at Campbell’s shop on the Springfield Road.

Sister Virgilius gave us the cheerful news that our exams start on the 4th. We nearly died of shock but at least we will have half-days off in between them (something to look forward to).

At the moment, I should be attempting to do some revision. I’ll have to force myself to do it before it’s too late.

Dragging myself out of bed on those dark, dank mornings, to don my maroon-coloured uniform and go to school, was invariably a chore. The prospect of having to make the two-mile journey to or fro on foot, because the bus service was withdrawn, made it ten times worse. There were many such occasions in 1972.

Our 100-year-old convent school, St Dominic’s, graced a sprawling site on the front of the Falls Road, the main thoroughfare from the city centre to West Belfast and the cockpit of much of the unrest. At the first hint of stone-throwing, rioting, hijacking or burning, Belfast Corporation withdrew its buses to protect both passengers and vehicles.

Regardless of the weather, hundreds of students from St Dominic’s, St Louise’s and St Rose’s girls’ schools, and St Mary’s and the Christian Brothers boys’ schools would be left with little choice but to trek up or down the road. We would set out from school in groups of five or six: those of us living in the West, like me and my classmates Eleanor, Oonagh, Maire, Liz and Frankie would head up the Falls Road towards Andersonstown; others, like Agnes and Jackie, who lived in North Belfast would head for the city centre.

Hordes of bedraggled teenagers, in maroon, brown, navy or black uniforms, trudged along wearily, weighed down with books, files, bags and sports-gear. Our outdoor shoes and staid gabardine overcoats would be heavy and sodden from the icy downpours.

On only our second day back at school after the Christmas break, transport was withdrawn because of the disruption likely to be caused by the funeral of a young IRA man, shot dead in a gun battle with the army a few days earlier. We completed our journey on foot, as we would many times that year.

Week in and week out funeral processions passed the front gates of St Dominic’s on their way to the vast Milltown Cemetery, halfway along the road between my home and school. There were funerals of IRA men, killed by the police and army or by their own bombs exploding prematurely; of men, women and children shot or blown up by the IRA; of innocent civilians shot dead by the security forces in disputed circumstances, and of victims of loyalist bombers and assassination squads. The coffins might be draped in the Irish Tricolour, buried beneath mounds of plain white flowers, or adorned with colourful family tributes. As the mourners dispersed, it wasn’t unusual for a full-scale riot to erupt, especially if the deceased had been killed by the army or the police.

Sometimes we were lucky and succeeded in waving down one of the dilapidated London Hackney cabs which were introduced to the local transport scene around that time by a group of entrepreneurially-minded republicans. Soon there were dozens of these clapped-out vehicles ferrying men, women and children up and down the Falls in droves – to Whiterock, Glen Road and ‘Andytown’, with drop-offs everywhere in between. As young and old alike embraced this unique, innovative and cheap transport system, ‘the black hack’ became the most popular and dependable means of transport in and out of West Belfast.

It was not unusual for eight people, laden with bags of shopping, to pile into one vehicle. Friends and relatives sat on each other’s knees and toddlers were placed wherever there was room. Three people would squeeze onto the two, fold-down backwards-facing seats, with one of the trio straddling the narrow gap in between. The driver would cram another two people into the single passenger seat beside him. Two or three baby buggies would dangle precariously from the gaping boot, but as long as the doors could be slammed closed nobody complained. The gossip and banter, always witty and often edgy, never ceased.

Unlike the buses, the ‘black hacks’ had no official ‘stops’; passengers simply called out, or used a coin to rap the sliding glass partition separating front and back, when they neared their destination. The most hazardous part of the journey was having to clamber across up to half a dozen people and their bags of shopping, while trying to retain a modicum of decency.

Those journeys were not for the faint-hearted. Winter or summer, the air inside the cabs was thick and stale as odours from sweaty bodies, babies, cigarette smoke, damp clothes, food and alcohol combined in a fetid mix.

The drivers, many of whom had been interned or in jail, knew every twist and turn in the road, every side street and short cut in West Belfast. Regardless of disorder and weather, their battered vehicles trundled through the debris of street battles, negotiating their way around burnt-out vehicles and makeshift barricades. Few incidents, bomb scares or obstacles deterred them from reaching their destinations.

Wed, Jan 12

Oonagh didn’t come in today, neither did Eleanor or Jackie. Agnes rang to say she’s just back from the Shetlands but will be in school tomorrow. We were trying to arrange our holidays in France – we need something cheap!

Mrs Mc Glade called in tonight and there was one huge explosion – only a mine, although we thought it was in the front garden! I went to bed quite early because I felt miserable and tired – but I read away until one o’clock. I know I’ll pay for it in the morning.

Then Daddy told me about man being shot dead on the Falls Road. This morning, a 16-year-old boy shot himself accidentally – and I felt all I wanted was to get out of this place forever.

Thurs, Jan 13

Agnes was back – I was glad to see her, with so many being absent at the moment. She gave me a lovely leather purse from the Shetlands.

Oh, we all had bright ideas about France. Have decided to go to work in the Shetlands for 5 weeks in the summer, can earn £15 a week gutting fish and then we’ll go on to France. I suppose it’s all very well to dream.

Tonight Mammy made me change from ‘Top of the Pops’ to the film on the other side. I just left the living-room, came upstairs and sat crying my eyes out – not over TV – just boredom, (fear of exams), and tension.

Another 3 explosions tonight. Another man shot dead.

Fri, Jan 14

Last night, after I wrote my diary, there was a terrible incident outside. Going to bed, 11.30 – heard huge bang and thought it was a nail-bomb in the street. Opened the door and saw and heard the army. A Saracen had crashed into a neighbour’s car and wrecked it completely. She was injured and taken to hospital.

Daddy and Mr McGlade began giving off to the soldiers, only to receive ignorance and insolence in return – and were threatened with being ‘lifted’. Soldiers drove off, no one bothered about the girl or the car – and that was it!

Had to walk home from school today. IRA funeral, therefore no buses. Suzette is home for the weekend – as usual she was up to see me. Stayed for few hours, then I went down to her house for half an hour or so. I never realised before that I was so nervous till Mrs McGlade told me – every little noise made me jump. Talk about being jittery!

STILL trying to arrange holidays.

I was delighted to see Agnes back from her short holiday. She was my closest school friend at that particular time and her deceptively ‘saintly’ demeanour made her a favourite of the nuns. Our friendship, though, extended little beyond class times and phone calls, as she lived in the north of the city on the Cavehill Road. Occasionally, we spent a night in each other’s homes but crossing after dark from her part of Belfast to mine, or vice versa, was too fraught with danger for us to do so with any regularity.

By the end of that second week of the new year, when she returned to school with enviable tales of her visit to the Shetland Islands, seven men had been shot dead in separate incidents in Belfast. I realised that despite all my dreams of 1972 being my year – when normality would be restored – it was going to be no better than the final months of 1971. The possibility of getting away grew more appealing every day.

I wanted to go to France more than anywhere else and to practise the language I was learning for A-Levels. Regardless though of where I might end up, I needed a part-time job to pay for it. I already knew that the chances of an unqualified 16-year-old like me finding work were slight; my reluctance to work in certain areas reduced them even further.

IRA bomb attacks in the city centre meant that my parents preferred me to look for work locally or in the safer outskirts of the city where we shopped. Working in a staunchly ‘Protestant’ area was out of the question. I, meanwhile, would happily have settled for a working holiday, if it took me out of Belfast. I was becoming so desperate that even the previously utterly repulsive idea of gutting fish in the Shetland Islands, where Agnes’s brother was living, began to look attractive. Some girls at school were considering fruit-picking in Norfolk as an option but even fish-gutting appealed to me more than such back-breaking work. Besides, I didn’t want to go to England.

Sat, Jan 15

Didn’t even stir before twenty past eleven. It’s a horrible day, raining and foggy and cold. Bought a record this morning by Congregation, ‘Softly Whispering I Love You’.

Last night was quiet, only a couple of incidents.

Mon, Jan 17

A boring day. I hate Mondays because we have double classes of everything.

I was speaking to Agnes today. She broke it off with David today because he has been warned what would happen to him if he was seen with her again. (He’s not a Catholic).

At about 8 p.m., soldiers arrived outside and searched cars in Kennedy Way. We guessed something was going on – we were right.

On 9 o’clock news, hear that 7 men escaped from the Maidstone and swam to shore, then hijacked a bus (in their underwear) and drove to The Markets. Hope they’re not caught.

Mammy rang Auntie Kathleen. She sent us a bouquet of flowers but we never got them.

Tues, Jan 18

Men from the Maidstone still not caught. According to the news, one of the escapees went to a bus driver, told him he had fallen into water and asked for some clothes. Driver brought him in to the fire, gave him his jacket – and then the escapee collected the other 6 and they went off to freedom in the hijacked bus!

Shock announcement today that Faulkner has extended the ban on parades for one year – therefore, no 12th July for the first time ever. Great anger in Orange Order circles.

A man was shot dead tonight. Don’t know why yet.

Concert on in school (Thurs) so we have free afternoon. Everybody in school concentrating on our Fancy Fair – no work being done.

Have nearly decided to go on a course to France.

Still trying to get a job somewhere but prospects are rather hopeless. I don’t want a job in a shop in town because I wouldn’t feel too safe.

Wed, Jan 19

We were making jewellery for Fancy Fair. At lunch-time, we had a ‘record session’ up in the classroom – charged everyone 1p to get in. Amazing how many people turned up.

I have almost definitely decided now to go on the course to France – at least I hope to go.

I heard someone shouting in language which wasn’t actually very refined – and I knew soldiers were in the area. Looked out and they were being stoned out in Fruithill Park. Fired one rubber bullet and went off. I got my new insurance card today although I’m not even working – however, I keep hoping. Big search down the Falls today – found nothing.

Thurs, Jan 20

Slept in this morning. I couldn’t be bothered getting up, it was freezing and very icy. We had a Lower Sixth concert today at lunchtime. A few girls performed, and the grand finale was when Mr Garvey, our Science teacher, sang his own composition about the escape of the 7 men from the Maidstone. Many people say that the actual number of escapees was 16. Supposed to have been an attempted break-out from Long Kesh but papers say it was no more than army propaganda stunt.

The soldiers were in the street again tonight. Up and down on foot, and then called in to McGlade’s to ask if it would be ok to have a bottle of beer – on duty, too!

Hope for snow, to brighten the place up.

The dramatic escape from HMS Maidstone – the prison ship moored in Belfast Lough to house internees – was the sort of exploit we only saw on the silver screen. The daring, night-time swim to freedom through the icy waters caused a sensation and was celebrated by nationalists across Belfast and beyond. I cut the escaped prisoners’ photographs out of The Irish News – along with articles and a cartoon celebrating their breakout – and pasted them into my scrapbook. Nobody I knew wanted the men to be recaptured.

For a brief shining moment, the escapade elevated our messy conflict to the stuff of films and provided some respite from the dreary, grey monotony of that energy-sapping January. Day after day I switched on the lamp on the locker beside my bed and pulled back the curtains on yet another cold, misty morning. It was black dark when I got up at eight o’clock and the nights were already closing in by the time I returned home from school. The hours in between dragged by.

A surprise bouquet of flowers would certainly have brightened my mother’s day but it wasn’t to be. Her oldest sister Kathleen, who lived in Sligo and whom we seldom saw any more, arranged for some flowers to be sent with love, for no particular reason other than as a surprise, but a riot, hijacking or some sort of disorder obstructed their planned delivery.

Meanwhile Agnes, who lived in a religiously ‘mixed’ area, was grieving over the break-up of her new romance with, what was for us, the rarest of creatures – a Protestant boyfriend. Their relationship ended abruptly when members of his own community threatened him for dating a Catholic. I never got to meet him.

A loving, sisterly gesture and a teenage romance between a Catholic and a Protestant: both thwarted. Given the extraordinary circumstances in which we were living, there was nothing remarkable about either of these happenings, despite how much they were to be regretted.

Fri, Jan 21

Went to school as usual, not a bad day. There was a ‘fashion show’ at lunchtime, given by the Form 4s for the Fancy Fair.

Big explosion at Workman’s on Springfield Road, 18-year-old soldier killed on Border. Soldiers were out in the street again tonight, sat there for more than 2 hours. Apparently, they had broken in to the White Fort Inn, wrecked it and arrested 9 men. Shooting and whistle-blowing all night.

Stayed with Suzette tonight – soldiers were going up and down all night and I began to get jittery ... It’s away after 1 o’clock at the moment and I am dying with sleep.

Sat, Jan 22

Decided to go to Derriaghy but the car refused to start, so we spent the afternoon pushing it up and down the street in the pouring rain and we were the centre of everyone’s attention. The 2 big anti-internment marches at Magilligan and Armagh went off quieter than expected, although there was rioting at Magilligan.

Brilliant pictures of army brutality on TV. There’s to be an investigation into the picture where soldier kicked a man – lying on the sand – in stomach.

Sun, Jan 23

The seven men who escaped from the Maidstone only crossed into the Republic last night. 2 more anti-internment marches today – minor trouble after both.

I spent the evening at what was supposed to be studying but I simply wasted my time doing I don’t know what and I’m no further on with my revision. Soldiers up snooping around Fruithill again tonight.

I’m just after applying to Stewarts Supermarket at Derriaghy for a job on Saturdays so must keep my fingers crossed from now on.

Mon Jan 24

We all slept in so I decided only to go to school for half a day. By the time 12.00 came, I decided to stay off full day!

Spent the afternoon supposed to be studying but I got none at all done, simply wasted my time.

Today, I’m wearing the jeans which I dyed blue yesterday with my shortie jumper and, for once, I feel that I look well. The only snag is there’s no one here to see me!

The 7 men who escaped from the Maidstone are in Dublin today and gave a press conference – all very amusing.

I can’t think of anything else to write tonight, (3 explosions today, no one seriously injured) – just shows what a boring day it has been.

I’m really fed up at the moment and wish something big would hurry up and happen soon.

I longed for a fall of the thick, white snow which the weather forecasters were predicting, to dispel the dinginess of our cityscape and relieve the tension and tedium of our existence. But despite the chill wind and the plummeting temperatures, the grey laden skies obstinately refused to yield.

The violence and disorder continued unabated. Around a dozen people were shot dead or killed by explosions in the first few weeks of the year; anti-internment protestors persisted in defying the government ban on marches and parades, and clashed violently with the police and soldiers, while the security forces continued to hunt for the elusive Maidstone escapees.

The tense, turbulent and brutal way of life to which my friends and I were becoming accustomed distinguished our existence from that of 16-year-old girls in every other city in Britain and Ireland. The growing threat from the IRA, and the security measures brought in to counteract it, paralysed our movements. There was more upheaval and unrest in my home town than in any other European city at that time, yet I complained that my existence was ‘boring’ and wished that ‘something big would hurry up and happen soon’.

Tues, Jan 25

Back to school and I don’t seem to have missed very much. Ma Murphy had been over to complain about John and Aidan talking to ‘bad boys’ who stone the army etc., because soldiers were up the street.

Mammy and Daddy went down to Granny’s. When Mammy came home she began discussing France and where I’d get work. She said she would make sure I got there and she would give me money. I felt like hugging her.

Mrs Gordon came up and told me she’d enquired about jobs in the Bank Buildings – I have to go down on Saturday. Went to bed in high spirits, thankful to be alive!

Wed, Jan 26

Usual drag at school. Afterwards, I went up to the library and wasn’t what you would call in the best of form getting home. I hardly spoke all evening except to give off about not getting out at night. Selfish.

Suzette sent home from work. She has conjunctivitis so that’s the end of the nurses’ disco for us.

IRA were hard at it today – 16 explosions – Belfast, Newry, Newtownabbey and Castlewellan, where a man was killed planting a bomb.

Thurs, Jan 27

Bitterly cold day – arrived in school, hair blown all over the place and a drip on my nose! We aren’t getting half day tomorrow as I had expected. Very disappointed. I still haven’t any revision done for tests and I don’t care!

Two policemen were killed today in Derry. 16 explosions during the night. Tonight, there were five huge explosions one after the other – loudest ever, our very house shook.

I couldn’t do my Maths tonight and I sat and cried, feeling sorry for myself. But I feel terrible, fed up, in depths of misery. Went to bed at 9.45, I’m so miserable.

Tomorrow’s Friday, thank God. Maybe I’ll go down to Bank Buildings on Saturday and beg for a job. Keep fingers crossed.

Fri, Jan 28

Went into school hoping for a half-day, due to the feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas. When Sister Virgilius asked for a better way of celebrating than one day off, we suggested 2!

Went over to the Co-op with Mammy after school, came home and watched the news – a policeman was shot dead while fixing his car on the Oldpark Road.

Lots of soldiers around tonight – more soldiers arriving and security being tightened for Derry march on Sunday.

Sat, Jan 29

We were up early. Mammy, Daddy and the boys went to Dunmurry and bought me a new waistcoat. I was really pleased.

I rang the Bank Buildings in nerves and asked about a job. Swiftly told by some snotty creature to write first and I might be considered for an interview.

Decided again to do some studying but Suzette arrived up, naturally, got none done.

Went to bed late. Snowing.

NICRA protest in Dungannon today went off considerably peacefully – turnout of 600. A few CS gas canisters, petrol bombs and rubber bullets fired – but that’s normal here!

‘... that’s normal here!‘ The rumble of a distant explosion, rattles of gunfire, street riots and a steady succession of funerals – that was our life in West Belfast through the winter of 1971 and the early weeks of 1972. But as the snow that I yearned for finally began to fall, in the last weekend of the longest January I could remember, everything was about to change.

From 30 January onwards, thousands of ordinary nationalists, like my family and me, suddenly became afraid that we were all in the line of fire. Events would leave me scared to go to bed that night, and ashamed of myself for writing, just six days earlier, that I wished ‘something big would hurry up and happen soon’.