From Hope to Hatred

Voices of the Falls Curfew

Andrew Walsh

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780752474809
• eBook ISBN: 9780752493008
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The Falls Curfew of 3-5 July 1970 is considered by many to be the turning point in Catholic-Army relations throughout Northern Ireland and Belfast in particular, and ultimately led to Catholic alienation from the state. The curfew was intended to dispel the violence, it lasted 36 hours during which 4 people were killed, at least 75 were wounded (including 15 soldiers) and 337 people were arrested. Allegations of army brutality towards Catholics and destruction of property have also popularised this belief. However, the seeds of Catholic mistrust were sown decades before. The partition of Ireland in 1922, the subsequent Unionist domination of government and the ignorance of the British government towards the province, ensured that it was only a matter of time that the initial welcome for the army in 1969 faded. This is the story of the Falls Curfew, its causes, and the subsequent polarisation of a community under siege. It is a story many wish could be forgotten, but its legacy still lives on.

1

‘THE IRISH QUESTION’

‘The flame of Irish nationality is inextinguishable.’

Winston Churchill, Manchester, 1912¹

I

On 21 June 1921 George V of England opened the new Northern Ireland parliament in Belfast. The event, marked with all the pomp and splendour associated with such royal occasions, was the climax of a protracted struggle by Protestants to remain under British rule and out of the almost homogenous Catholic state that was taking shape to the south. The king’s speech on that day also reflected the aspirations and hopes of many within the British establishment, who hoped that the Government of Ireland Act of the previous December would finally rid British political life of the ‘Irish Question’. In an address to the throngs of people who packed into Belfast that day, he stated:

I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to forgive and forget, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, and to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment and good will.²

It was a clear enough message, and one that the British parliament hoped would reach certain sections of the population of the new Northern Irish state, who at that moment were engaged in serious sectarian and inter-communal violence along the same interfaces where it had erupted on a number of occasions during the last century and would erupt again in following decades: the Falls and Shankill districts of west Belfast.

The root causes of this violence stretch back hundreds of years, and are a combination of mutual hatred, suspicion and domination of Ireland by the English, a dynamic and harrowing story which cannot be told in full here. England for the past 800 years has, and continues to be, a dominating factor in the taught history of Ireland. Most narratives of Irish history and thus of Ireland’s relationship with England are full of such historical figures as Cromwell, James, William of Orange and Elizabeth I. Students of Irish history, especially in the Republic, would be taught for decades that, beginning in the twelfth century, the movement of Norman soldiers into Ireland was the start of England’s long domination over the Irish. This is a wide generalisation, however. The majority of the lands of Ireland were still under Irish control for a considerable period of time after this. Irish chieftains still held sway over large tracts of land. Ireland, though, was not at peace during this period. Inter-tribal conflict and intermittent wars with the English ensured that the country was in a state of virtual anarchy for centuries. By the time of Elizabeth Tudor’s reign in the sixteenth century, Ireland was still not under complete English control; their limited influence was confined to a section of the east coast known as the ‘Pale’.³ Ulster, the ancient and historic province, was at the time one of the most rebellious areas outside English domination.

In order to quell these ‘unruly Irish’, the English began a series of ‘plantations’, awarding land to various nobles and merchants who were loyal to the English crown. The immediate effect of these plantations was the removal of the native, Catholic Irish further west, confiscation of their lands and a build-up of loyal, Protestant migrants. Many of these were Scottish, and Presbyterian, which would have a major impact on future events. John Darby wrote:

The Plantation of Ulster was unique among Irish plantations in that it set out to attract colonists of all classes from England, Scotland and Wales by generous offers of land. Essentially it sought to transplant a society to Ireland. The native Irish remained, but were initially excluded from the towns built by the Planters, and banished to the mountains and bogs on the margins of the land they had previously owned. The sum of the Plantation of Ulster was the introduction of a foreign community, which spoke a different language, and represented an alien culture and way of life …⁴

Religious persecution in Ireland also became a major issue at this time, and subsequent events have gone down in folklore on both sides of the divide. The Irish uprising of 1641 in which thousands of Protestants died was one major example; walls of public buildings back in England were covered with gruesome pictures of the butchery associated with the rising. In 1649, after seizing control in England at the execution of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, embarked on a journey to Ireland to clear up remnants of the Royalist forces entrenched there since the end of the Civil War. His Puritan faith in God and his own memories of the 1641 massacres also ensured he nurtured a deep hatred for Catholicism. His subsequent violent and brutal sackings of the towns of Drogheda and Wexford in 1649, with many civilians allegedly amongst his victims, ensured that in Irish Catholic eyes English domination, no matter who was in charge, was brutal, sectarian and evil.

These events were thus enshrined into the collective Irish consciousness, leaving an indelible mark, and have passed down the generations, albeit with a certain amount of the usual elaboration. The very name Cromwell still evokes strong passions in Ireland, while at the same time a statue to his memory stands outside the Houses of Parliament, an example of how one man can evoke such conflicting emotions on both sides of the Irish Sea. Cromwell’s time in Ireland stands for brutality; he himself wrote of the suffering he had inflicted on the town of Drogheda in a letter to parliament: ‘I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches.’

But was the campaign by Cromwell as violent as many historians make out? Cromwell himself said that he did not target civilians, although many were invariably caught up in the maelstrom. Such were the rules of war in the period. Richard Aldous and Niamh Puirsell, however, add to the debate by stating that:

Some contemporary accounts suggested his men killed every soldier, priest and civilian they came across. The level of violence was shocking even for the times. Perhaps most infamously, St Peter’s church was razed and the 100 people who had sought sanctuary inside were burned alive.⁵

Other historians attest that the church was full of the remnants of the Royalist forces in the town. This is a clear example of how history can be used to form a myth about an event.

How many civilians died at Drogheda will never be known. What is known, however, is that many of the civilians were either forcibly moved to Connaught, in the west of Ireland, or shipped off to other English territories in the Caribbean.⁶ Thus Cromwell left an imprint on Irish history that cemented a hatred for England that has lasted many centuries. For no matter what Cromwell’s legacy is to the English, his name will forever be associated with Ireland.

By 1688 the ‘Glorious Revolution’ was underway in England, with the Catholic King James dethroned in favour of his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange. Protestantism was in the ascendency in England and was also making major inroads into Ireland, especially in the north-east. The polarisation of the two communities in Ireland had now begun, but it would be hastened with an event in 1690 that is still remembered amongst Protestants in the north of Ireland as their victory over the ‘Papists’ (a derogative term for Catholics).

James decided to make a stand in Ireland, and ultimately win back his throne. It was not to be. His armies were routed at the ‘Battle of the Boyne’,⁷ and William and his Protestant dynasty were now firmly in control in England. Although this was not the last battle (James’s armies did not fully surrender until the following year), it is this battle that has gained mythical status amongst northern Protestants, who were keen to manifest their assumed rightful superiority over the ‘native’ Catholics, and which has subsequently gone down as such from generation to generation.

Over the next 200 years, Catholics in Ireland suffered greatly at the hands of the ruling English. A system of penal laws was enacted,⁸ designed to persecute Catholics and keep them out of public life, and they did much to breed ferment within Ireland towards English rule. The establishment in England viewed Catholicism as dangerous; indeed, as Rafferty suggests in Catholicism in Ulster, it was viewed as ‘traitorous’.⁹ Many of England’s overseas enemies were Catholic nations; the ‘unruly native Irish’ were therefore seen as a sort of ‘fifth column’ within their midst, ready to help England’s enemies at any given moment.

In Ireland, it is suggested that every generation has risen up against the English. While this is clearly an exaggeration, many generations of Irish did indeed rebel against their English masters. The Rebellion of Ulster in 1641, in which the native Irish attempted to regain their lands after the Plantations, the advent of the ‘Whiteboys’ in 1760, who destroyed Protestant landowners’ crops and livestock, followed by the ‘Ribbonmen’ and Wolfe Tone and his ‘United Irishmen’ in 1798, are but a few examples. All these events created a sense of defiance, identity and belonging amongst the native, Catholic Irish. Protestants in turn formed the ‘Orange Order’ in 1796, in order to celebrate the memory of William of Orange and his defeat of James II. More ostensibly, though, it was an anti-Catholic organisation, dedicated to upholding the Protestant tradition.

The Rebellion of 1798, in which both Protestants and Catholics participated, and especially the threat of invasion from France, persuaded the English that something had to be done to pacify the country. In 1801, an Act of Union between the parliaments of England and Ireland came into law. Ireland was reduced, as Robert Kee states, to a component part of the United Kingdom.¹⁰ The collaboration between Protestant and Catholic in 1798 was short lived, however, and mutual suspicions and animosity returned. Protestants after the Union saw their position in Ireland as secure, their feelings of superiority over Catholics increased by the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the increase in wealth in the industrialised north-east of the country, which held the majority of Protestants. Irish members of parliament returned to London were Protestant, as Catholics were not allowed to run for election. Control over the Irish by the English establishment was virtually complete.

There were still seeds of discontent amongst Catholics, however, and it was quickly realised that a political agenda was needed if Catholics were to gain any rights within Ireland. Daniel O’Connell with his mass meetings was the first in a long line of people who attempted to awake the Irish psyche politically, and thus enable Irish people to agitate for more freedoms from the English. His grasp of the concept of peaceful mass protest and popular support enabled him through his organisation, the Catholic Association, to win emancipation for Catholics in the 1830s. This removed any legal aspects left over from the old Penal Laws, enabling Catholics to become more politically aware and take seats in parliament. Moreover through this, the Repeal of the Act of Union became a mainstay, and goal, of Irish Catholic politics for the rest of the century.

Perhaps the most enduring aspect of ill feeling between England and the Catholics of Ireland was the ‘Great Famine’ of the 1840s.¹¹ Robert Kee somewhat surprisingly suggests that this event had the same effect on the Irish national consciousness as the ‘German “Final Solution”’¹² on the Jews in the 1930s – a strong statement. It certainly holds an important place in Irish history today, and is still remembered with bitterness and sadness within Irish society. It is Ireland’s greatest catastrophe. The Potato Blight¹³ hit the crops of the peasant farmers of Ireland for three years running. Conservative estimates say that at least a million people died from starvation in this period. At least another million more were to emigrate to America and Britain. Although the British established relief committees, these proved to be a failure. As Aldous and Puirsell suggest: ‘What turned shortage into famine … was the fiasco of inadequate relief mechanisms to deal with the effects of the crises.’¹⁴

The British imported cheap maize from the United States, but this in itself was not enough, as exports of cattle and other foodstuffs were still in progress from Ireland and the maize was in most cases inedible. British ignorance of the suffering of the Irish was firmly etched into Irish minds. Niall Ferguson, in We Declare, said: ‘Not even the most jingoistic Brit could deny that in the mid–1840s the British not only failed to alleviate, but actually exacerbated, one of the great catastrophes of the 19th century.’¹⁵

It could hardly be classed as a Famine, though, in the strictest sense. There were plenty of foodstuffs in Ireland, from corn and maize to livestock. This, however, was not made available to the starving peasant farmers; it was exported for foreign consumption at their expense.

The population of Ireland, approaching 9 million just before the Famine, was down to just over 6 million by 1852, and continued to drop well into the next century. Forced emigration from Ireland also had the effect of exporting a hatred for the British establishment that fostered numerous organisations abroad, especially in the United States, dedicated to the removal of the British from Ireland. While the worst years of the famine were over by 1850, emigration was still a mainstay of Irish life. For those who could not afford to emig...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Danny Morrison
• Foreword by Ken Wharton
• Foreword by Sir Gerald Kaufman MP
• Preface
• Quotes on the Curfew
• Introduction
• 1 ‘The Irish Question’
• 2 The Falls Road, Republicanism, Pogroms and the British
• 3 British Ignorance and the Rise of the ‘Provos’
• 4 Curfew?
• 5 Aftermath
• 6 The ‘Stickies’ Eclipsed
• 7 Legal or Illegal?
• Conclusion
• Explanations of Groups, Organisations and Terms
• Appendix A: Chronology of Major Events
• Appendix B: Contemporary Sources
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plate Section
• Copyright