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The
Short Strand where much of the present street fighting
is taking place occupies a privileged space in the
mythology of Provisional republicanism. It is 32 years
ago this month that a spirited defence of the small
Catholic enclave enabled the Provisional IRA to stake
a strong claim for recognition as serious defenders
of vulnerable nationalist communities. In the words
of Jim Gibney who lived in the area at the time: ‘had
the IRA ... not been on the streets, then I believe
Short Strand would have been razed that night.’
While
it may not have been at the forefront of the minds
of Belfast's emerging alternative republican leaders,
the looming battleground on which loyalism and republicanism
were butting heads would also prove vital in the internal
republican struggle over who would come to clasp the
torch of legitimacy. The somewhat chauvinistic leadership
of Official republicanism under Billy McMillen and
allies such as Jim Sullivan regarded the six month
old Provisionals as mere pretenders to the republican
throne; fallen angels with a band of camp followers
comprising urchins, upstarts and Glasgow Celtic supporters
who needed manners put on them.
The
Provisionals were scathing of their former comrades
whom they believed had decommissioned IRA weaponry
at a critical juncture by giving them to the Free
Wales Army and were now planning on reforming the
Northern state and abandoning traditional republicanism.
Bums on Stormont seats at the top of the Newtownards
Road rather than backs against Short Strand walls
at the bottom of it seemingly the preferred strategic
option for Official republicanism.
On
his drive from west to east across the city on the
evening of the 27th June 1970 the Provisional IRA's
Belfast leader, Billy McKee, noticed an abundance
of British troops and RUC sitting just outside the
area. The thought struck him that they were holding
the ring and were not prepared to make any intervention
to prevent the massing crowds of loyalists overrun
the Short Strand. He suspected that the cynical game
plan was to allow both communities to sicken each
other with violence and when they had their fill of
it would, out of exasperation, turn to the military
for relief.
Earlier
in the day there had been a loyalist bands parade
and the blood was beginning to boil. The British,
eager not to have Chichester Clarke toppled from within,
refused to accede to demands to have the parade rerouted.
In the inevitable ensuing armed loyalist assault on
the Short Strand a number of attackers were shot dead
by the IRA entrenched in the grounds of St Matthews
Chapel. The church was the first and last line of
defence. While the British Army would justify its
standing idly by approach on the grounds of being
‘so chronically overstretched,’ the IRA
was hardly bursting with personnel or resources which
it could rapidly muster and easily dispatch. Nevertheless,
its volunteers were not for retreating and one of
their number, Henry McIlhone, lost his life in the
grounds while Billy McKee was wounded by loyalist
gunfire.
On
the very same night at Ardoyne the local Provisional
IRA shot dead three loyalists in similar circumstances
and suffered no fatalities. According to Martin Meehan
‘every door in Ardoyne was opened’ to the
IRA after that. Billy McKee felt likewise and would
later claim, ‘a lot of people joined the Republican
Movement after St Matthew’s. It finished the
business of IRA equals ''I Ran Away''. If that trouble
had not have broke the IRA was dead.’
In
working class nationalist consciousness a link was
being forged between Provisional IRA armed resistance,
the willingness of its volunteers to risk their lives
and sustain casualties, the prevention of armed loyalist
incursion, and the successful defence of the Catholic
church. While there may have been no attachment other
than residual within that general consciousness to
the ideology of 1916 the Provisionals moved into pole
position bearing the number plate 1916-1969 because
of their relevance to the moment. A powerful symbolism
was coming into being - one which cast the Provisional
IRA as the phoenix rising from the ashes of destruction.
A
week later the British made them even more relevant
by pouring fuel onto the embers already nourishing
the new phoenix when the incoming Tory government
under Ted Heath and Reggie Maudling ordered a curfew
on the Lower Falls and sent in British Army search
teams to capture republican weapons. The troops enjoying
the culture of immunity created for them by their
government went on a murderous rampage. While most
of the weapons lost belonged to the Official IRA the
psychological impact on working class nationalism
was electrifying. A perception had taken hold which
saw the British as depriving nationalist communities
of the very weapons which only the week previous had
been the one firewall preventing a nationalist area
being over-run. It was the take off point from which
the Provisional IRA was thrust into the face of the
Northern Irish state, firstly disfiguring it and then
re-arranging the parts.
Those
who battled that night a third of a century ago may
pause to reflect that the imperative of community
defence, which fed the growth spurt of Provisional
republicanism, has never really gone away and is now
the guiding logic shaping the armed street skirmishing
with loyalists in defence of nationalist communities
in a British controlled North of Ireland. And while
they may feel we no longer have a 'sectarian state',
this shall be tempered by awareness that we have merely
replaced it with a state in a very sectarian society.
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