Memories of the Troubles

I remember seeing Gordon Wilson interviewed. It wasn't my earliest memory, but it was the first time I felt really affected and angry.




I remember as a very young child going on holidays on the boat to England, and my mother telling me to keep quiet or the English special branch will ask us to take everything out of the car (which took ages to pack in the first place ).

As a child hearing about my friends Grandmother being killed by a provo bomb on a train and years later a workmate telling me bout his cousin being shot dead in the North aged 19 , she was the first greenfinch ( female UDR ) to die in the North.

God lots of very vivid memories. Maggie Thatcher and Haughey, Ian Paisley roaring about the Pope or the southern government. I still remember watching him in a cherry picker putting up an Ulster says no banner in front of Belfast city hall to a baying mob. Tom King or Tom Cat as Paisley called him getting heckled and almost assaulted by Unionist protestors. Peter Brooke being forced to sing by Gaybo on the Late Late and having to resign shortly after. Mo Mowlam's wig, God rest her, a wonderful woman. Not being able to hear the Shinners voice on TV or radio and watching them talk while an actor spoke the words was strange. The Gibralter shootings, the whole shoot to kill issue, the Enniskillen slaughter, Greysteel, Jerry McCabe, Tim Parry, Manchester, London, Belfast bombings. That funeral and the two corporals horrific murder or the lunatic Michael Stone lobbing grenades in a grave yard. Gordon Wilson on the Late Late and the parents of Tim Parry. They had/have strength and depths of forgivness most of us will never know or possess.

When I think back about it probably one of the main thing that I remember was the RTE nightly news from that era reporting the latest "Tit for Tat" killing. As a young fella the term "Tit for Tat" always struck me as weird. More so as a way to describe the indiscriminate slaughtering that went on because of your Religion at the time. And it was every single night for a long time, those reports came about innocent Joe Bloggs types just going to work or out for a pint getting shot or blown to bits. It was absolute fúcking madness when I think about it now but back then it was normal.

We have come a long way but have a way to go yet as can be seen by the views of some people on this thread, Boards.ie and life in general. There are still a lot of people out there with very twisted views. Apologist, sycophantic arseholes trying to defend the indefensable. They are a lingering unwanted memory of the troubles for me.

Unfortunately have too many memories of it all having returned to my border town in 1978.

One of the nice ones, but one that opened my eyes to the humanity of the situation was Christmas day when I was about 6 or 7 years old going to my granny's in Tyrone. We were going through the check point in Aughnacloy and a solider, probably in his mid 20's leaned in the window to ask my brother and I what Santa had brought, chatted away to us for a few minutes and then gave us a bag of boiled sweets each. I remember being delighted but a while later down the road, my mum changed my view point forever by telling me that she thought by the look in the young soldiers eyes that he probably had some children at home in England missing him and he would have loved to have been giving them the sweets he gave us.

I never looked at them as scary guys with guns again, just as people working in a crap job.

Until I was about 11 I didnt get my dad to check under my bed and in the wardrobe for monsters, he had to check for IRA men! I was terrified that our house would be "hijacked" and used as a base for an attack as we were only 3 miles from NI.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

One event that really sticks in my mind is the Holy Cross school dispute.

I remember seeing on TV frightened girls walking to school being shielded by soldiers with protesters screaming abuse at them.

Pretty disgusting scenes.

Thats the one I was going to post about. Probably one of the more disturbing things I've seen in recent times up there. People throwing balloons of piss at kids going to school, horrendous stuff.

I grew up on the border, i remember out playing with my dog when about 10 RUC soldiers jumped out of the hedge pointing guns at me. I was only about 6/7. As we were south of the border, they had no right to be there. I ran screaming down the lane and my dad came running up and told them to get the f$ck out of there. When I think of it now its lucky they didnt shoot him for that!!
My mother was also in the pub in Monaghan the day of the bombings. She told me she went running home because she wanted to watch some programme on the tv, the bomb went off about 10mins later. Only for that programme, I wouldn't be here.