Starry Plough Flags

emergency “May Day’’ message — from a British Army helicopter on the Louth border. It had been hit by ground fire from the Provisional 1.R.A. and was forced to make a crash landing in a field. Yet not a word was heard about it on radio or T.V. or in the papers. During the course of the interrogation the Parents were asked about their political persuasions. When both refused to commit themselves, they were informed as to how they had voted over the issue of the Border Referendum in March 1973!

Who says that Orwell was a ficticious writer??

FLAGS. Full size ‘Starry Ploughs’ 5’ x 3’ - £1.00 UNFREE CITIZEN We regret that the Yearly subscription rate to ‘‘Unfree Citizen has been raised to £4.25 per year. This is due to increased paper, printing and postal costs.

For over 5 years now the people of the 26 Counties have been listening to the day by day account of the war going on in the North. Every news bulletin carries an account of some incident which has taken place in an area in one of the 6 Counties. Places like, Andersonstown, The Falls, Bogside, and Creggan are nearly as familiar as O'Connell St., Henry St., Ballyfermot, Coolock etc. to the people in the 26 Counties. But most people in the south have never been to the Falls, the Bogside or Andersonstown.

“Unfree Citizen’ over the next couple of months will be carrying a series of articles on some of the Catholic ghettos at war in the 6 Counties, written by P.D. members living in these areas. This is an attempt to show what life is like in areas where the people have taken up the struggle against British Army occupation and Loyalist terror. It is an attempt to show geographically through the maps and illustrations where these areas are situated in Belfast in relation to Loyalist areas. The Press, Radio and Television in the South are completely controlled by Conor Cruise O’Brien and the Government, therefore the reasons for the war are constantly being hidden and overlooked in the decision by the State to concentrate only on discrediting those who are daily risking their lives ‘in their fight for justice and equality.

The first articles of this series is written about St. James’s which is situated off the Falls Road.

St. James’s is a small working class army thugs in whatever way they can. area just off the Upper Falls Road in It is very fashionable to say that Belfast. It is hemmed in by the M1 the people of the North thrive on motorway in the South which also rubber bullets and riots. It is NOT a separates it from the Loyalist “Willage’” game that is played, people don’t area and the Falls Road to the face up to lethal weapons for nothing; North, Donegall Road to the East children don’t throw stones at the and the Bog Meadows to the West. British Army for nothing. — |f your father or mother, brother or sister, High unemployment are rotting in some British hell-holes This area like all other Catholic ghetto they call prisons, and you have been areas has always had a high exploited and trodden on, then unemployment rate. Like so many every riot and stone become political other depressed areas the people had © weapons. They are a symbol of the resigned themselves to their fate — working classes struggle for justice. unemployment, emmigration, the an end to that frame of mind. The been launched against the area by the I youth were determined not to accept UVF/UDA. The sheer fire power of the servility that their parents had their attacks gives a lie to the British had to. army claim of impartial arms The early civil rights marches searches. During the U.W.C. (Ulster politicised the people of St. James's Workers Councif) Loyalist strike, as indeed it has the people all over arms were openly displayed behind the North. The curtain was torn the erected barricades on the UVF/ from the evil face of Orange UDA side. politics. They saw before them clearly During these attacks the B.A.s role for the first time, the monster that was to fire into the Catholic area had to be destroyed. The people of St. James’s from behind — thus the St. James’s have played their part Catholics were caught in a cross fire. in the struggle to do just that. But despite this extra difficulty the area was always successfully Cost of the struggle defended without loss of life. From the five small streets that comprise the area-almost fifty men Murders and Tragedy are behind bars, some interned, As | write this article the Royal Green others serving jail sentences. This Jackets are moving in for another has been a heavy price to pay for tour of duty in the area. This such a small area but it has not regiment was responsible for a crushed the spirit cf the people — particularly cold-blooded and brutal they continue to resist the daily murder. This was the murder of (hourly) harrassment of the British

young Daniel Rooney as he stood on the street corner with his friend. An unmarked car with plain clothes soldiers in it shot him to death at point blank range. His friend who was with him was also seriously injured. The regiment’s commanding officer said that his men were responsible commenting ‘’They got their just deserts’’. Of course the British propaganda machine both in England and the 26 Cos. poured forth the lie that the boys had been armed, but the people of St. James’s know that this was not true. They know murder when they see it and that is what it was.

Sectarian murders Sectarian assassins have also murdered two people from St. James’s, both young boys. The first was a youth named Watterson whose mother had a small shop on the Falls Road at the junction with the Donegall Road. He was standing outside his mothers shop when a car sped past and sprayed the boys with bullets. Young Walterson fell mortally wounded and his friend was also shot and seriously injured. The car sped down the Donegall Road and into the nearby (‘Village’) Loyalist area.

There have been a number of other attempted murders from cags but fortunately no one has been hurt. But it leaves the people in the area living on their nerves, in constant dread of being assassinated. Loyalist gunmen seem to have a free hand to roam Catholic areas heavily armed. The British Army seem to conveniently disappear during the time these outrages are perpetrated but are soon back harrassing the people as is their normal procedure.

The other young boy who was murdered in the most ghastly way was called Anthony McGrady. Not long left school Anthony McGrady. Not long left school Anthony was working in his first job as an apprentice motor mechanic in a small garage on the Cliftonville Road. The assassin’s entered the garage shot dead Anthony and two other men, then tied their bodies to a car.in which they planted a bomb.

This type of sadistic murder has been the fate of hundreds of Iwa { Catholics in Belfast. Murders and “ tortures, so gruesome that the details have never been made public. The people who carry out these murders are the ‘‘friends” that Some organisations claiming to be er socialist and republican, want to talk to and compromise with. What they would talk about is something that could be wondered about.

One other death in the area was that of a young newly married Provisional Republican supporter, Francis Liggett, who was shot dead inside the Royal Victoria Hospital, after a robbery in the hospital. The Royal Victoria Hospital must have the rare distinction of being the ay only hospital in the world to have more armed scldiers in it than patients. Of course it has always been British policy to build their barracks in schools, hospitals or in densely populated areas. The idea being that they cannot be easily attacked in these places.

The spirit of St. James's The people of St. James’s have endured much, particularly over the last few years. The daily harrassment goes on day in, day out, designed to wear down and break the spirit of the people. But the spirit of the people in St. James’s, as in all the’ beseiged Catholic areas in Belfast, is a proud, defiant spirit — they will not crack under the pressure and the B.A. now realise that fact. That once boastful army that came to the North to put down a “‘few troublemakers” have seen that their tactics, which they have used.all over the world, are not working. ° They are a beaten army whose ranks have been depleted by low: recruitment, men buying themselves out, desertions and the pressure is on to withdraw to save face.

St. James’s is an area where people have risen up to fight the injustice that has kept them second class citizens for so long, the people there realise that the system under which they have lived is rotten and must be destroyed. It can be truely said of St. James's that ‘’ Resistance Lives’.

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