TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE NORTH

“I saw a new born baby with wild wolves all around it

I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it

I saw ten thousand talkers, their tongues were all broken

I heard one hundred drummers, their hands were a-blazing

And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.” – Bob Dylan, 1963.

“I don’t know whether I can pick up the pieces. I don’t have many pieces left in my life.” – Christine Quinn, mother of the late Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn, 13th July 1998.

I am sitting in a parked car on the forecourt of a garage in Ballymoney. In the ten minutes I have been here, a steady stream of people have emerged from a nearby shop bearing bouquets of flowers. They are going to a house, just a short distance away, where three young children were murdered twelve hours ago.

I have just come from the scene of that appalling crime. There, neighbours had peeked out through their curtains at the charred remains of the family home in Carnany Park where Christine Quinn’s sons perished. Understandably, few of those neighbours were willing to speak to the media. Three teenage boys proved an exception. They talked falteringly, all youthful bravado stripped away by their palpable shock at what had happened to a family they knew well. One of them, like the Quinn boys, was the product of a mixed marriage. “I just can’t believe it,” he repeated. “I just can’t believe it.”

Some flowers had already been laid. On one of the accompanying cards a message was written: “Safe in the arms of Jesus. Sleep tight little ones. xxx I’ll miss you.” The ink on the card had begun to run in the rain that fell relentlessly, it’s pitter-patter and the occasional crackle from a police radio the only sounds which broke the silence.

I am listening to David Trimble, speaking on radio. “The only way in which the Portadown Brethren can dissociate themselves from these murders is to come down off the hill and return home,” he says. Elsewhere in Northern Ireland, his words fall on deaf ears. The response of the leadership of Portadown District Orange Lodge to the murder of the Quinn boys is blind and unbending. They decide to continue the protest at Drumcree Church “indefinitely.” And so later in the evening the area around the Garvaghy Road and Drumcree Church crackles again with tension and the threat of violent confrontation.

Looking back almost a week later, with the benefit of hindsight, it seems that the terrible events which took place during that twenty-four hour period may have opened the way for an historic shift in northern society. In the aftermath of a previous Drumcree, David Trimble was asked why he did not distance the UUP from the Orange Order. He replied, “and if I did, would you find me a party to lead?” He has now committed himself to that process of un-linking. It is a mark of how much the political landscape has been altered that he is likely to maintain majority support within his party for such a move.

If this is true, then perhaps we are one step closer to the creation of a new Northern Ireland. The tragedy is that it took the murder of three children in their beds before that inevitable and vital step into the future was taken.

It is virtually impossible for a stranger to fathom what happened in Portadown. Why were Loyalists prepared to go to such extremes to force an Orange parade down Garvaghy Road? Why were the residents so entrenched in their response?

The ill-feeling between nationalists and unionists in the town is rabid. Each side routinely refers to the other as “those bastards.” In some ways, this is not altogether surprising.

Portadown lies at the heart of what is known as Northern Ireland’s ‘murder triangle.’ It was formerly the heartland of Billy Wright, who is believed to have organised the slaughter of around twenty Catholics in the area. In the sectarian nightmare of Northern Ireland, numbers are important. Protestants vastly outnumber Catholics in the Portadown area and as a result the Catholics who are in the area feel permanently under siege. Last year, Robert Hamill, a young Catholic man, was kicked to death in the town centre within yards of an RUC landrover [see Hot Press 22/11] without intervention by the officers inside the vehicle. There is a feeling that even the law is on the side of loyalist thugs.

Some members of Portadown’s minority nationalist community have, in the past, taken matters into their own hands. Breandan MacCionnaith, spokesperson for the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition, for example, was jailed in 1982 for his part in an attempt to blow up the local British Legion hall.

The ongoing ‘war’ between the two communites is not primarily about culture, tradition or heritage, as some commentators have suggested. It is about territory.

Patrick is a seventeen year old living just off Garvaghy Road. “They talk about ‘the Queen’s highway’. There is no Queen’s highway. This is Ireland,” he said. There is not much chance of finding common ground between him and a Scottish Orangeman who asked me indignantly: “If McKenna and his crowd don’t like it, why don’t they get the fuck outtae it? It’s our country, not their country.”

Make no mistake, for pure hatred Portadown is the place to be. At the height of the standoff, Hot Press’s photographer, Peter Matthews, was walking among the crowd on the Orange side of the army barricades. A group of young loyalists were keen to provide an analogy with which Peter, as an American, could identify.

They asked him what he thought of the recent case in the deep south of the US, where three whites tied a black man to the back of a jeep and drove off, dismembering his body in the process. Peter expressed his disgust. “Well, maybe,” said one of the loyalists,”but here it’s like this: we’re the KKK and those bastards over there [gestures towards Garvaghy Road] are the niggers.” One of his companions drove the point home further: “What happened to yer man in America would be too good for McKenna,” he said.

H H H H H

The situation in Portadown has repeatedly been described as a “microcosm” of Northern Ireland. and in some ways it is. The feeling that they are permanently under threat notwithstanding, nationalists have become more confident in the assertion of their rights there, as they have done throughout the six counties. Unionists have long feared that behind this so-called “equality agenda” lies an attempt to corral them into a United Ireland against their will.

As a result the Loyalist’s own “siege mentality” is at it’s most virulent in the mid-Ulster town. Loyalists are convinced that they are victims of a conspiracy in which nationalists of all hues, governments in Dublin, London and Washington, and even the media, are complicit. They believe they are going to be forced out of the place they proudly refer to as the “citadel” of Orangeism.

When the parade set off for Drumcree Church on Sunday 5th July, the inchoate anger of Portadown loyalists came into the open. “Tell the truth!” one woman shouted at the press. “Not like you did last year!” Another jeered, “What are yous doing here! Why don’t you go up to Garvaghy and look at them ones.”

The parade made it’s way past Protestant estates, with gable walls bearing slogans like “No Talking to McKenna’s Bigots” and “Smash Pan-Nationalism – Forward Brethren!” A short distance from Drumcree Church, the Orangemen passed one end of Garvaghy Road. A group of residents, including Breandán MacCionnaith, had gathered to watch, curious to see the strength of the opposition ranks. The security forces had deployed barbed wire fencing to keep the factions apart.

Two women were walking behind the parade. “What are you doing?” one shouted at the residents. “It’s alright for you to come and watch us now, is it?” A barrage of abuse between her and a male resident followed. It concluded with the woman telling him to “Go and fuck off!” She continued down the road for another few yards before turning to her friend, a smile of exhilaration across her face. “This is great,” she said, and began to laugh.

H H H H H

When the Parades Commission decided to ban the march from going down the Garvaghy Road, there was a feeling among Nationalists that they’d seen it all before. The decision was one thing. Enforcing it would be a different proposition entirely. The residents braced themselves for another drubbing. This time, however, unlike in previous years, the forces of the Crown held the line, in defence of nationalists and in defiance of unionism.

Both sides found this difficult to come to terms with. “They’ll hang us”, one Garvaghy resident told me early on in the standoff. “They do it everytime.” Later, when almost all observers had concluded that it was inconceivable that the parade would be forced through, this man was still doubtful.

Given the north’s troubled sectarian history, his attitude was hardly surprising. It takes a considerable leap of faith for nationalists to believe that the soldiers of the Parachute Regiment, infamous for their deeds on Bloody Sunday, might now be their defenders.

The disorientation that the security operation caused in the unionist psyche was even more pronounced. Orangemen were thwarted by barricades erected against them by an army that some of them had fought for. The world’s media relayed pictures of uncomprehending elderly faces framed by barbed wire.

For some, this final betrayal was too much to bear. One man wept uncontrollably on seeing “British forces opposing British citizens.” Ronald McConnell, a twenty-two year old Orangeman from Kilkeel, was less distressed, but equally angry: “I think we are more loyal to the Queen than they are, and more loyal to the Crown than they are. You see the Crown on that sash? It’s worth ten of the crowns on a policeman’s hat any day of the week.”

As time went on, loyalist frustrations increased. Their disgust was articulated in ever cruder terms. On one occasion there was a brief respite from the night’s rioting. A drunken loyalist took the opportunity to hurl verbal missiles instead.

“Call yourself Protestant? You’re fenian scum!” he screeched at the lines of army and RUC officers. “Do you know what we do with Lundys [traitors]? We burn them! You’re the fucking Irish Republican police force! What are you doing protecting them bastards! We’ll see if you’re still here when your house is in flames!”

He went on and on, occasionally pausing to gather his thoughts before sallying forth again. The man was on the verge of hysteria. But he was not alone. All week, others came to the frontline to shout similar views. Their rage was exacerbated by their impotence in the face of the military machine which contained them.

H H H H H

The possibility of a violent confrontation between Orangemen and the Security Forces persisted all week. Catholic homes, meanwhile, were being firebombed throughout the North. Inevitably, it seemed, the pressure for an armed Republican resonse would mount.

The murder of the three Quinn children changed everything. For days afterwards virtually the entire population of Northern Ireland was in shock. A sombre Breandán MacCionnaith was clearly shattered. “I am not going to shirk my responsibilities in all of this,” he said. Gerry Kelly, Sinn Fein assembly member for North Belfast, and a convicted bomber, lost his usual powers of articulacy. Fluent in explaining the wider political issues, he struggled when talking about the triple killing: “You know, I have children myself. I mean, how could anyone not be affected? It’s just . . .” He couldn’t find the words. Nor could anyone else.

Reverend William Bingham, chaplain to the Orange Order in County Armagh, was the first to put his head above the parapet on the loyalist side. A few days previously, at a press conference on the eve of the march to Drumcree Church, he had been forthright in his defence of the Orangemen. He called for the state to respect their “basic civil rights”, and delivered a personalised attack on Breandán MacCionnaith.

One week later, it sounded like a different man speaking: “A 15-minute walk down the Garvaghy Road would be a hollow victory in the shadow of the coffins of three children. No road is worth a life.” He called on the Orange Order to abandon it’s protest.

David Trimble was not far behind. Unionist political unity, already fractured by the Good Friday Agreement, was beginning to crumble.

A parallel process seemed to be taking place in the wider community. Radio shows were inundated by Protestants declaring their abhorrence at the idea of continuing to stand on principle, if murder was the result. The Orange Order leadership claimed that they could not be held responsible for the deaths. Many people disagreed. Although the Order had been explicit in it’s condemnation of violence, it was widely perceived to have created the atmosphere in which violence took hold.

On the previous Tuesday the Portadown loyalists most vocal supporter, Rev. Ian Paisley had warned that the Government would be “far better” to let the Orangemen proceed along their traditional route before 12th July. He warned that this date would be “settling day.” Asked exactly what he meant by this phrase, Rev. Paisley roared back, “Use your imagination!” In the early hours of settling day, someone used their imagination, and murdered the Quinns. It was hard to escape the conclusion that the blood of these children was on Ian Paisley’s hands.

The Orange Lodge could still have escaped the opprobrium of a section of the population had they handled events with a modicum of sensitivity and made the decision to de-camp from Drumcree. But these men were not for turning.

Their intransigence, aside from being morally unforgiveable, was an act of breathtaking political stupidity. It had already become clear, even before the murders, that the chances of a parade on the Garvaghy Road were minimal. The Order were handed the perfect opportunity to back down without losing face. Instead, their refusal to compromise confirmed every stereotype of them put forward by their opponents.

A cartoon in the following day’s Guardian summed up the mood. It featured a solitary Orangeman following a signpost marked, “Traditional route to destruction via bigotry and intransigence.”

On the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast, the Ballynafeigh lodge seemed happy to join their Portadown brethren on the road to nowhere. In the aftermath of the children’s deaths, the nationalist Residents Committee had abandoned plans to block the march. Instead, they chose to line the route with black flags, while also calling on the Orangemen to voluntarily desist from proceeding along the road.

Ballynafeigh took no heed, and walked through Lower Ormeau in compete silence, save for the beating of a solitary drum. Prominent members of the lodge had pledged that they would be sensitive to the situation. That message hadn’t got through to some of the bandsmen. The point where the march returns into Protestant territory is well within earshot of the nationalist residents. When that point was reached one of the band members turned to his colleagues. “Right, let’s hear yez!” he roared. They launched into a triumphant rendition of “The Sash.” The next band followed with an equally raucous “No Surrender.” Gerard Rice, spokesperson for the residents, was apoplectic.

H H H H H

On my final night in Portadown, I watched Ian Paisley address the crowd gathered at Drumcree Church. The following day the Quinn children were to be buried. Paisley arrived at eleven o’clock. A spotlight illuminated his face in the darkness, while a Union Jack flew defiantly nearby. Over the past thirty years, the DUP leader has addressed innumerable gatherings like this. The difference this time was that the crowds were thinner, their cause increasingly out of favour. Earlier in the week, Paisley had predicted that 80,000 people would show up in support of the Orangemen. There were about 2,000 present to hear him speak.

His words came as no surprise. “There are certain people who think that Ulstermen and women are just going to lie down and surrender. Well, those people have another thing coming to them,” he thundered. “This is a battle for our personal liberty. Is this country going to be ruled by Dublin !? [The crowd roar “No.”] Is this country going to see the Protestant people wiped out as they have been wiped out in the south of Ireland !? We are here to stay!!”

Fewer and fewer though, were ‘here to stay’. At the time of writing, it seems likely that the Unionist protest at Drumcree will be manned by a steadily dwindling number of fanatics, their presence a crumbling monument to political blindness. This year’s events may prove a milestone of sorts. The inevitable split between unionists willing to embrace the future and their neanderthal counterparts has been hastened.

Northern Ireland, though, is not going to suddenly awaken to a bright new dawn. The bigotry which has wormed its way through the six counties like a cancer has not yet been halted, much less eradicated.

Some people are trying to cast it off. One young mother, watching the Belfast Orange parade assemble on 13th July, told me of her reaction to the Ballymoney atrocity.”I just sat there and cried and cried. I was ashamed to be a Protestant. I have three daughters, and if anyone touched them, I don’t know what I would do. The only reason I am here is because the girls were excited about the bands. They don’t care what it’s all about.”

In the same field, though, stalls sold baby’s bibs bearing the legend “Proud to be a Baby Prod.” Others stocked tapes with edifying titles like “The Ballad of Michael Stone” or “Up to Our Necks in Fenian Blood.”

In Portadown, meanwhile, both Garvaghy Road residents and loyalists predicted an outbreak of violence once media and military leave the area. Linda O’Neill, a 23-year-old resident, seemed to accept this as an inevitabilty.

“We will not be able to go into the centre of town. We’ll just be sitting ducks here. This is LVF country and there will be serious consequences for us,” she reflected.

Some nights previously, I had been standing on the loyalist side of the security-force lines. A married couple, the husband wearing a sash, were talking to two younger Orangemen. They gleefully anticipated the mayhem to come. The middle-aged man giggled that “all McKenna’s ‘Hail Mary’s’ won’t be much use to him when this is all over.”

One of the younger men agreed, adding, “I think more than him will suffer in the end. I think all of those ones [on Garvaghy Road] will suffer.” The Orangeman’s wife, apparently the epitome of ‘respectable loyalism’, turned towards him. “Aye, and so they should, too,” she said bitterly. “So they should.”

Welcome to the new Ireland? Not yet. Not by a long way.