Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 19, 1979, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free july t where the dead console the living Irish Are known for their open acceptance of writes Belfast born poet and journalist Jack hol who now lives new in this reflection about the unhappy dec Ade that began with the August 1969 riots in Holland writes about people and events in Mother ire his country he is that it is now a society in which the dead console the by Jack Holland before the summer of 1969 few people had heard of Northern but after August 1969 it could not be ignored it had become a matter of life and during that month there had been riots in they had spread to Belfast where sectarian mobs went on the and the guns had come Belfast and Derry were big the worlds press had discovered the Northern Ireland situation for a while at any now when people asked where you were from and you replied instead of asking perplexed they really which part the Falls Catholic or the Shankill Many in jail by this stage Many of the boys with whom i had spent my childhood were in jail or on the run As wanted Ira my academic which i had blithely mapped out without reference to the Northern Ireland Situa was jettisoned in favor of that of a Dublin based a Job which took me Back to Back to those desolate streets id once sworn had seen the last of what follows Are some of the things and people that touched me during those All of in one Way or have been involved with the violence of that sometimes tragically d c d the children of the Falls Bel used to celebrate the size of their in song the funny wee washed his face in the frying combed his hair with the leg of a the funny wee my aunt Agnes had 12 children by the age of two died and the other 10 were somehow or other i could never imagine How packed into the two tiny bedrooms that constituted the upstairs floor of her Only in Belfast apart from the she had a room at the Back and one at the front of the the front facing the was Given Over to the daily activities like sitting crawling space for the to watching but the Back invaluable space i was Given away by the kind of irrational Good nature that i always associate with Belfast it was mainly occupied by the who had the room More or less to by 1969 half of Agnes eight surviving and one of her had left during that year the boys who remained became aware of them the deaths by violence since 1969 have made acceptance of death seem like a weakness rather than a strength selves As second class four years her son aged went to sentenced to 18 years for offences against and As a member of the provisional since he has been in the Maze prison once called Long Kesh his father has As has his and an elder brother in when the judge sentenced he described him As a desperate and dangerous the last time i saw him was in february at his mothers Funer he was Given a Days parole to attend after the Gerry returned to the Back to the prison huts filled with he has never known the luxury of d d d detective sergeant Miller not his real name sat Down in one Corner of a suburban Belfast hotel and started sip Ping an Irish he looked up suddenly As i walked ten years ago detective sergeant Miller could probably have popped into his local on the Catholic new Lodge Road near his old police for a pint without much but As a member of the Rol yol Ulster constabulary there Are few places in Belfast where he could safely go for a the which since 1969 has killed More than 100 of his As Well As 300 British sol Diers and hundreds of would regard Miller As a prime target he is one of the organizers of the crack terrorist busting the innocuously named regional crimes the squad was set up at the express command of the British government in to break the Paramil it has since put out of action one of the most dangerous of the protestant paramilitary the Ulster Volunteer Force in its Pursuit of the it has been followed by allegations of ill treating prisoners Dur ing our talk resumes we were talking about Mcgurk he said resuming a conversation we had earlier started Over the in december a rundown Catho Lic bar near the new Lodge Road in North Belfast called Mcgurk was demolished by a loyalist bomb that killed 15 women and children the highest number so far killed in any single explosion in Northern at the time i was researching a Book on loyalist and was looking into the which was then still whom i had already agreed to fill me in on the Progress of the he lifted a Black folder he always carried with look at that what we he said and passed it across the it contained a series of color photographs of the victims old men and a Young a Mother with her Young Daugh Ter who had just popped in to speak to her husband on their Way Back from evening their talk about the coming Christmas had been silenced by 50 pounds of gel ignite placed at the Side door by a Young Man in a Long Miller watched me As i turned the my eyes running quickly Over the queer look of the last agonies before the rigid i didst really want to a murderer has a fearful intimacy with his an intimacy that is shared by the reporter who often is made privy to the last moments of the victims i helped dig them Miller said the new Lodge people were there were bad boys among them All right who gave us a lot of after seven years Miller had suspects the there was a lot of controversy about he at the and when i mentioned it to him he that i Deal with the end Resit the dead like most his experience of poli tics is As far away from the abstract theories behind the act of violence As it is possible to for him there was Only the overwhelming reality of the end he left clothing his Black like an Albatross of guilt that he has volunteered to carry for the people of Northern Ireland and to reveal to any naked without my Xinhua by Jay Mathews peking the chinese have taken away my Xinhua and they wont say when there going to give it one Day it was near my room at the Minzhu clattering away happily and spewing Forth the latest statistics on Lily bulb production in the next Day it was leaving a void in my please dont think in Over dramatic ing we foreign correspondents try to cultivate a dashing covering China has its occasional romantic to but what those of us writing about the Peoples Republic really do much of the time is huddle near our Xinhua wondering what Tell us when Premier Chou Menlai when chairman Mao Tseung when Washington recognized peking and when China invaded it was the informative Little Xinhua Tele Type not any peking Wal poster or state department that slipped us the Here 1 am in chivas ancient a newly minted peking correspondent symbolizing the new Era of sin american and they wont let me have my a even in my i feel Xinhua Means new it is Chin watchers shorthand for the offi Cial new China news in world news capitals like Hong Kong and and in the offices of most correspondents the Agency teletype machines provide official government news bulletins in these often appear Long before we read the same news in chinese in the Peoples daily and in More reliable form than we can hear Over the official the Xinhua in their re ports on the disgorged the most extraordinary array of statistics seen Here since the they told us everything from the actual size of the National budget for 20 years a state secret to the latest count of the Peoples sheep this excited economists though a bit inspired news yet the four reporters now accredited As permanent correspondents Here had no immediate Access to this and the situations been getting on our i asked an american colleague How he was reporting the National Peoples Congress without a Xinhua i have a Friend who is a longtime correspondent and he lets me look at it after Hes written his my col league he didst Tell me who his Friend we learn quickly from our new chinese friends How to keep a i also have a longtime correspondent who generously lets me come look at the machine in his apartment and copy Down the latest production target often i arrive but like some foreigners living Here in compounds guarded by chinese soldiers with he leaves his door i tiptoe past his bedroom hoping not to Wake him and wondering Why i have to behave like a cat burglar to get a the Washington Post one who will and with the Stom Ach to one year after our a Mem Ber of the uhf was convicted of the Mcgurk and went to jail for Millers Albatross was somewhat enter Uda chairman bespectacled and very he sits behind a desk in an old victorian House in the loyalist Ghet to of East on his desk Are several telephones of different his name is Andy and 10 years no one in Northern Ireland had Ever heard of he is chairman of the protestant Ulster defence association at one time the largest of the paramilitary organizations in Northern in 1972 its membership of about made it one of the largest in the ten years Andy Tyrie was a raising a family on the Edge of a big Catholic development in West then came the riots of August and Tyrie organized a local Vigi Lante group to help evacuate frightened protestant families from the fringe of the Catholic area into the Safe loyalist Shankill Road District out of vigilante groups like his grew the and by 1973 Andy Tyrie was running the Uda was a product of the confusions and hatreds of the working class Northern Ireland it lashed out at whom it saw As the enemy the catholics and in the process became the most successful murder machine in Northern though it has probably been responsible for As Many civilian deaths As the it has never been banned by the yet Tyrie had made some real he has explored some other solutions and to the Northern Ireland situation which depart from the old slogans of Ulster will fight and Ulster will be and not an Tyrie headed a Uda delegation to America to meet Paul Odwyer and various Iris american groups to see if they would be interested in supporting an Independent Ulster d d d it was a cold october morning in the autumn sunlight had the Clear look so typical of the North of a fresh Breeze blew Down from the nearby through the narrow Side Ruf fling slightly the Flowers on the wreaths being held by the girls in the funeral was proceeding slowly up the Falls behind the funeral the Brothers of the dead Ira Man shouldered the behind them came the Young wife hardly Able to walk with and behind her the dark uniformed of the marching their arms stiffly at their he was blown to pieces in a Prema Ture explosion while trying to Plant a like the coffins of so Many of their that which the Ira now followed is filled with rocks to give the impression of a body weight the impression that there is something left to at the graveside there were the speeches from the and the firing of the Volley Over the coffin As it was Laid to rest in the in spite of the marxist rhetoric adopted by some of the younger the political and emotional base of the iras Campaign is still the Republican nation Alisa it has always it is a embittered and hardened Over Many dominated by a cult of death the cult of the while Ireland holds these ire land unfree will never be proclaims a favorite Ira in it has often seemed that the Ira have been fighting and killing for the dead to make the deaths of own members seem Worth the Sacri the death of an Ira Man is the birth of a a propaganda another reason to continue the flock to cemeteries the Irish Are known for their open acceptance of and their deep attachment to the when Spring comes to the North they flock to the cemeteries to tend the Graves of their it is a Day out More popular than going to the they Weed out remnants of clean off the rust from the Graves railings and repaint usually a Bright i often spent a sunny sunday doing just that at my grandfathers we brought along soda and and Pic nicked among our the deaths by violence since 1969 have made that acceptance seem like weakness rather than a the tragedy of Northern Ireland is that it is now a society in which the dead console and the perhaps the ramp have too Many jobs police forces exist for two one is the Protection of la abiding the other is the apprehension and control of to most there seems Little doubt As to what should take it of the Protection of the ramp Force in Manitoba has Many it primary responsible for the enforcement of Federal since it is a Federal in the ramp in Manitoba operates As a provincial police and is paid by Manitoba tax payers through a separate contract for this members of the in Many have additional responsibilities because of municipal it is a heavy Load for a Constable who May find himself responsible for everything from policing municipal garbage bylaws to the in Fred Cleverley for Cement of Canadas official secrets in some such As provincial the Force is automatically responsible for everything from policing the consumption of liquor in camping areas to the enforcement of water safety at Falcon for the yellow police boat can often be seen with members of the Force checking boats for life jackets and other safety often to the Benefit of the boaters although the checks Are Seldom perceived As being beneficial by those who Are the subject of the problem of operating on and on sometimes helps mix up the priorities of Protection and an this past showed just How mixed up priorities can be a boating Accident took the Lone occupant of a not a Young person by any was tossed into the witnesses on helpless because of the Lack of any Means of getting to the individual in telephoned the emphasizing that a boating Accident had taken and that help was the police but in an Auto police officers said they under stood that another boat was and decided to attend on another boat was but it was not the Large suitable to both Rescue and that was available to by the time the police the occupants of the other boat had managed to hold on to the individual in and bring him to but if they had simply held waiting for they would have discovered that the police were just As helpless As those who had appealed to them in the first what the police did not mention was their policy regarding the it is never left in the even during crowded in Case it is Vanda it is kept on a trailer near the police this Means that if it is the boat trailer must be hooked up to a police Cruiser and the boat taken to the nearest launching if the police Are and the ramp is the boat can then be but anyone familiar with larger boats knows that launching is a bit More complicated than simply dropping the boat into the water and taking senior officials in Winnipeg say there is no Standard procedure for the opera Tion of boats at it is easy to see How any individual in charge of a resort detachment could become concerned about the red tape that would Fly if a new police boat was but one needs Only to count the number of boats on a resort Lake such As Falcon to realize the potential for a weekend residents can be lulled into a false sense of Security when they see the police boat out making its but this feeling of Security is quickly shattered when any one realizes that boat patrols have a Low and that the boat is not at Quick for what should be its primary that of perhaps it is just one More instance of loading the ramp with too Many last year the new provincial government got itself into some hot water by attempting to Cut Down on the number of lifeguards at the government backed off when the Situa Tion became potentially dangerous poli perhaps it is time to make sure that Rescue equipment that is already in place is made available it would be Small Consolation to anyone who has lost a relative to be told because of prudent the boat had not been ;