This month marks the tenth anniversary of the ratification of the Good Friday Agreement, the catalyst behind Belfast’s recent economic and social transformation from bomb town to boom town.
At the heart of this conflict were the individuals who took up arms and became members of the dense patchwork of paramilitarism that came to define and dominate what is known as 'The Troubles’. Guardian met with three former paramilitary prisoners to discuss their reasons for volunteering, what they think of the current peace agreement and to learn how they have traded conflict for compromise.
On August 13th, 1969 the simmering religious tensions between the Catholic nationalist and the predominantly Protestant unionist communities exploded, and rioting broke out across the country. Some of the most violent exchanges took place in the interface areas of west Belfast where the communities lived side by side, particularly on the now infamous Falls, a nationalist-dominated area, and the unionist Shankill estate. Within this climate of fear and hostility individuals on either side of the religious divide joined militant organisations in an attempt to defend their communities from attack – the troubles had begun.
Pádraic McCotter, a member of the republican movement who served various prison sentences for “IRA activities”, explains that it was a sense of duty that saw him join the IRA: “My father and mother were both republicans and I thought it was a natural progression for me to join. I joined because I felt, along with many from my generation, that we had no other option to get the British out of Ireland. At that time I was 18. I did not have the politics that I have now and I will admit that I had a certain amount of political naivety but I was under no delusions about what I was doing and why.”
William Smith, a founding member of the Red Hand Commandos, a group affiliated with the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), spent 5 years in prison for attempted murder. Like Pádraic, he explains that he became a member because of his upbringing: “Many of us were born into it and when I was 18 in 1969 the Shankill, the street I grew up on, started to fight with the Falls. It was this violence that motivated me to become a founding member of the Red Hand Commandos. We didn’t take a decision to join on a particular day; back then we saw ourselves as reacting to the IRA. It seemed the right thing to do at that time.”
As the conflict gathered momentum, the ranks of loyalist and republican organisations swelled as more and more young men and women from both communities became actively involved in conflict.
Michael Culbert served a 16 year prison sentence from 1978 until 1993 for killing British soldiers. He highlights that while his nationalist upbringing played a major part in his decision to join, it was the events of Bloody Sunday that proved to be the final catalyst for him becoming an IRA soldier: “I joined the Republican movement in the early months of 1972 when I was 23; a decision driven by a basic sense of Irish nationalism – but the events of Bloody Sunday were some of the main reasons for my membership. We were involved in a war against the British army and the forces that supported them. That is what we did and no apology.”
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Similarly, William describes how both personal and community tragedy saw many young loyalists volunteer for active service: “Personal encounters with death stimulated some people to join paramilitaries while others did so because of events like Bloody Friday”. Roughly 6 months after Bloody Sunday, July 21st 1972, the IRA planted 22 bombs across Belfast, killing two British Soldiers, seven civilians and seriously injuring 130 others, a day which became known as Bloody Friday.
From Bloody Sunday to Bloody Friday, 1972 was a tumultuous time in Northern Ireland. Anne Ryan, then a 20 year-old nurse working in the Royal Hospital, located at the epicentre of the conflict on the Falls road, describes what it was like to live and work in Northern Ireland during this period: “1972 was a very difficult and frightening time. You were always careful where you went and what you said. Religion was never talked about openly but as a nurse you treated everyone; what people did or what religion they were did not matter. From the hospital we were able to watch the rioting and people being burned out of their homes, and then you knew that it was going to be a busy night; in fact the Royal was the world’s leading hospital for the treatment of gunshot wounds and bomb blast victims.
“I remember one Saturday afternoon a friend and I were having a cup of coffee in a cafe in the centre of Belfast. We were on our way back to the hospital to go on duty and we heard a bomb go off, then we spent the night treating the 150 people who had been injured. I found out that it had exploded in the cafe we had just been in when I was treating two sisters, one of whom was about to get married, who had been in town shopping for their wedding dresses – they had both had their legs blown off.”
The frequency of such stories has led Bernadette Hayes and Ian McAllister, two prominent academics and leading authorities on the Northern Ireland conflict, to conclude that Northern Ireland is unique within the Western world. “Since the end of the Second World War, no advanced industrial society has experienced political violence at a remotely comparable level to that of Northern Ireland.”
By Franck Martin
Photo: Jim Wilson
