The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  On the 15th of the month, Sergeant Dennis ‘Tom’ Dooley (26) of the King’s Regiment died in hospital a few days after his fatal injury in an RTA. Sergeant Dooley, also known to his Kingo comrades as ‘Long Tom’ was an easy-going and generous soldier and was from the Kirkby area of Liverpool.

  On that same day a row which had started two days earlier between the UDA/UFF and their equally mad dog fellow paramilitaries the UVF erupted into further violence and three UFF members were shot. The trouble had started on 13 March when accusations were made by the UVF about UFF involvement in the shooting of one of their members Joseph Shaw in May of the previous year [see also Sir, They’re Taking The Kids Indoors by the author]. After simmering for 48 hours, several masked UVF gunmen entered a well-known UDA/UFF haunt, the ‘Alexandra Bar’ which was situated on the corner of Limestone Road and York Road, close to Belfast docks. They opened fire and killed John Fulton (20) and Stephen Goatley (19) both of the UFF and seriously wounded another member. Two further Loyalist paramilitaries were killed later; one in December of this year and the other, the following January.

  Bomb blast in Belfast. (Mark ‘C’)

  Meanwhile in Westminster, Merlyn Rees, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, was making frantic behind-the-scenes plans to formally end the violence. The Public Records Office revealed in late 2006 that he was in regular contact with ‘all parties’ concerned. A note by Rees deals with plans for the Constitutional Convention; the election to which was held on 1 May 1975.

  The UVF was turning March into a month of bloody sectarian killings and the leadership appeared to be revelling in the slaughter, which generally then resulted in counter slaughter, as a game of murderous tit-for-tat took control of mainly Belfast. The leadership of both the UVF and UFF shed crocodile tears at the killings of their own innocent Protestants, whilst at the same time upping the stakes with more attacks on Catholic bars and innocent Catholic individuals, fully cognisant that this would simply invite further reprisals.

  Evidence of this was to be found 24 hours after the two deaths in the ‘Alexandra Bar’ when they targeted the Catholic-owned ‘Ormeau Arms’ in Bangor which is situated some six miles to the east of Belfast. The UVF threw a bomb into the bar which had a mainly, but not exclusively, Catholic clientele. Ironically, the one fatality was an RUC Reservist, PC Mildred Harrison (26) who was the mother of two small children. She had been a member of the RUCR for only a short period of time and was the first woman police officer to be killed in the Troubles. That she was killed by fellow Protestants mirrors the case of the first male RUC officer to be killed in the Troubles who was also slain by members of his own religion. PC Victor Arbuckle was shot dead by Loyalists on the Shankill Road on 11 October, 1969.

  On 6 December 1922, the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom. The secession occurred in accordance with the agreed Treaty, which was given legislative effect in the United Kingdom by the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922. Following independence the southern state gradually severed all remaining constitutional links with the UK Northern Ireland and the British monarchy. In 1937 the Free State was renamed Ireland which was a reflection of the fact that the Irish state then claimed sovereignty over the whole of the island. In short, it was embedded within the constitution of the Republic that Northern Ireland was not recognised and that all efforts would be brought to bear to ensure the ‘return’ of the north to the Irish fold. This has in effect given the IRA the ‘legitimacy’ to attempt to reunite Ireland by whatever means necessary.

  Conversely, this also gave the same feeling of ‘legitimacy’ to the Loyalists, in the sense that Ireland did not consider that the North was part of the UK and would do all it could to ‘bring it back into the fold,’ including armed invasion. This would be seen as justification by the Loyalists for acting against the aims of the Irish Government. Further, the Government of the South along with the Roman Catholic Church advised those in Ulster who opposed separation not to take part in the institutions of that country – RUC, Army, Civil Service etc – and to effectively indulge in a form of civil disobedience. This merely added to the siege mentality of the Loyalists which may have accelerated and perpetuated the discrimination in many walks of life which was practiced against the Catholic population of the North. Of course, the Loyalist paramilitary reaction which ‘started’ in the very early 1970s cannot be simply explained nor justified as a ‘Protestant backlash.’

  THE ORIGINS OF DISCRIMINATION

  Mark ‘C’, Royal Artillery/7 UDR

  I have read loads of books on the Troubles and particularly the British Army’s involvement in what I believe was a war; in the vast majority of these books the author has nearly always referred to the discrimination against the Roman Catholic (RC) population in jobs etc., as a major cause of the growth of Republicanism which led to the situation in 1969. Even the official Army report on Op Banner mentioned it, but none or very few have tried to understand or comment on why some Unionists did discriminate especially in the job market. So I would like to put forward what I believe was the rationale behind it.

  As every reader on Ireland knows, the animosity between the two religions goes back hundreds of years and I won’t dwell on that. I believe the main problem arose when the state of Northern Ireland was established in 1921 after the Anglo-Irish Treaty. At that time the RC/Nationalist population believed it would be a short term event with a United Ireland following in a couple of years. To that end the RC Church and Nationalist politicians refused to get involved with the running of the new state and told their people not to join the new RUC or the Civil Service although a third of places had been allocated to them. So immediately the two cohabitants, Unionist and Nationalists, were at odds and many Unionists took the view that all RCs were out to undermine the country and indeed they were – a sort of fifth column out to destroy it at every opportunity.

  This was further borne out in the IRA campaigns of the 20s, 30s, and 50s but particularly the bombing campaign they undertook during the dark days of the Second World War in Ulster and on the mainland. This to Unionists was evidence that Nationalists wanted the state brought down and would even help the Nazis at a time when British cities including Belfast were suffering during the Blitz.

  So to sum up; I agree there was at times outright bigotry which led to discrimination and that was completely unacceptable. But readers have to be aware of the pressure Unionists have been and still are under to stay part of their beloved United Kingdom; a Kingdom they have shed blood for, from Waterloo, the Somme, D-Day, the Blitz through to our own war, a war which I believe is still ongoing, albeit in a smaller capacity, and that, I believe, was the main reason discrimination took place more than just religious hatred.

  The government of the Irish Republic had somewhat of an ambivalent attitude to both wings of the IRA for at least most of the bloody course of the Troubles. There were of course, several high publicity trials where men wanted for murder or escapees already convicted of murder were tried for the paltry crime of ‘membership of the IRA’ and found guilty and handed down the most severe (author’s own italics) of sentences generally six months to a year. There was always the suggestion of connivance and chicanery on the part of the Gardaí Siochana (Irish police) and the usual ‘nod and a wink’ to the terrorists who used the convenience of the porous border to escape legal retribution. The next Troubles-related death was that of Thomas Smith (28) an IRA member who was shot by the Irish Army whilst trying to escape from prison in the Republic.

  Hugh Jordan, in his very readable Milestones in Murder: Defining Moments in Ulster’s Terror War (Mainstream Publishing, 2002) wrote: ‘How could the Irish government allow a terrorist organisation to use its northern counties as a safe haven from where it could spring murderous attacks?’ (p42). This author wholeheartedly endorses those eloquent words and if the Irish politicians past and present who allowed such a scandalous situation to prevail cannot recognise their own culpability, then they know no shame.

&n
bsp; Desmond Hamill, in his ground-breaking Pig in the Middle quotes from one greatly disillusioned officer and his frustration at the Irish Government’s attitude to Republican terrorists: ‘I chased one group down to the border. I was in a helicopter and we had two vehicles following on the ground. They made it across just ahead of us and then they got out of their vehicle, with their weapons and waved. One of my men had been shot and I was damn certain it was this lot who’d done it.’ (Methuen Books, 1985, p.232)

  On 17 March, in a well-organised mass escape from Portlaoise Prison, several IRA prisoners attempted to break out of the high security jail. Power to the jail had been sabotaged by IRA members and several vehicles had been set alight in the vicinity in order to distract the prison staff. IRA gunman kept up a withering hail of fire in order to keep Irish soldiers from intervening and then explosives were used to blast a way into the prison. Finally, an armour-plated lorry bludgeoned its way in before Irish troops finally surrounded four escaping prisoners who were forced to surrender. The body of IRA man Thomas Smith, a convicted murderer, was found during the clean-up.

  BORDER FIREFIGHT

  Fusilier Ronald Francis, Royal Welch Fusiliers

  We were sent in to the Border region to search for PIRA gunmen and bombers. Our Battalion snipers were placed under the cover of darkness to take out crossborder infiltrators. We also went in early and arrived in Saracens to begin a sweep and search. As we arrived, myself and another lad ran over to the school to cover the other lads before the search began. We began searching the school itself as the Provies were not beyond storing arms and explosives even in places where kiddies were. Anyway, we found nothing and exited but just as we got outside, IRA gunmen opened fire on us.

  We ran and dived for cover underneath a low-lying wall as rounds passed over our heads. On that day, we had air cover as well as an armoured car – a Ferret – and a Royal Marines spotter. Despite all this, the gunmen kept up a steady rate of firing and rounds continued to whizz past us. Suddenly, I spotted a shape which I knew was a man just over the border and I fired one round at him. The noise was tremendous and you couldn’t hear yourself breath over all of that noise. An officer screamed at us to cease fire and told me to get up and run along the wall and cross the road to a stone bridge where the Ferret was firing at targets over the border. I have never run so fast in my life and I slammed into the corner of the bridge and took aim. The Royal Marine told me later two seconds after I ran to the bridge that a round had smashed in to the wall where my head had been! Initially I laughed it off and told him that what he had said was bullshit, but he convinced me that what he said was true; my lucky day.

  As we were leaving the area there was an incident that really was quite surreal; we were covering each other and leaving as the shooting had ceased and two women in doorway were chatting one said to the other: ‘What is going on?’ Her neighbour replied: ‘Oh, just someone shooting at the soldiers!’ It was as though it was just a normal part of their lives that a firefight was going on all around them!

  As we reached the edge of the village we were accosted and sworn at by some of the locals shouting ‘English bastards!’ There was a young woman and she threatened to release her Alsatian on us. I told her to get it right: we were ‘Welsh bastards!’ and if she released her dog, I would shoot it! We had a good laugh afterwards, but we were young men and we were on a ‘high’ after the day’s action. Little did we realise that there was still more to come from that area.

  On Tuesday 18 March, Marion and Dolours Price were transferred from Durham Prison on the British mainland to Armagh Prison following a long protest campaign. The Price sisters had been convicted along with several others from the IRA’s ‘England team’ of causing explosions in London in March 1973. They carried out a car bombing of the Central Criminal Courts – the Old Bailey – on 8 March 1973. The explosion injured over 200 people and likely caused one person’s death of heart failure. The two sisters were arrested, along with eight others, on the day of the bombing as they were boarding a flight to Ireland. They were tried and convicted at the Great Hall in Winchester Castle on 14 November. Although originally sentenced to life imprisonment, which was to run concurrently for each criminal charge, their sentence was eventually reduced to 20 years.

  On the 23rd, David Halliday (60), who had been shot during a failed UVF bank robbery the previous November, passed away from his wounds. The UVF had raided the Northern Bank’s Crumlin Road branch and the gang had been captured by the RUC, but not before badly wounding Mr Halliday who was employed in the bank building. On the same day, proving that NDs (negligent discharges) were not the sole domain of the British Army, a young PIRA member was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head which was clearly from point-blank range. Robert Allsop (15) a member of PIRA’s youth wing was either killed by a colleague or by himself, probably as a consequence of horseplay.

  On the following day, in what was clearly a PIRA ‘come on’, the Head Postmaster of Newry, William Elliott (52) was shot and killed in Silverbridge, Co Down. The local post office had been raided and an armed gang lay in wait with machine guns hoping to catch investigating RUC officers off guard. Mr Elliott was in Post Office uniform and was clearly mistaken for a police officer. He was hit several times and died very quickly after the shooting.

  Some mystery surrounds the death of a female soldier in Shipquay Street, Londonderry on the 25th. Lance Corporal Roberta Thain (19) of the Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC) was shot accidentally and killed as she helped in search operations close to the Foyleside in Londonderry city centre. Sources close to the author indicate that Lance Corporal Thain, who was close to her 20th birthday, was accidentally shot by a fellow soldier. The exact circumstances and any further details are not available for publication.

  On the same day, amid the highest security and at all times surrounded by armed personnel, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson flew into Northern Ireland for a meeting at Stormont. He announced that an election to the Constitutional Convention would be held in Northern Ireland on 1 May that year. At approximately the same time, senior members of the Ulster Defence Association began a three-day meeting at a hotel in Holland in order to discuss political strategy for the future. One wonders if that same conference discussed the murderous sectarian behaviour of their ‘military wing’ the UFF?

  As the month finally came to an end, two more British soldiers would die in tragic road traffic accidents. On the 29th, Private David Bonsall (27) of the Royal Pioneer Corps was killed, and two days later, Staff Sergeant Ivan Moore Nixon (57) of the UDR was also killed.

  In all, 18 people had died; of these, five were British soldiers, all of whom had died from various causes and one was a Reserve Policewoman. Eight were innocent civilians including five Catholics, and three Protestants. Two Republicans had been killed and two Loyalist paramilitaries. The UVF were responsible for six of the 18 deaths that month and INLA had involved itself in a sectarian killing.

  4

  April

  All Fools’ Day or April Fools’ Day is traditionally celebrated in most western countries and is generally funny; perverse but funny. The events of that day in 1975, in Portadown, Co Armagh were anything but side-splitting. Mrs. Dorothy Trainor (52) a mother of 10 children and her husband – Malachy – had left a social club in the town and were taking a short-cut through one of the town’s parks in the early hours of All Fools’ Day. It is at this precise moment, amongst the last seconds of her life, where matters become hazy. What is certain is that a UVF murder gang opened fire on the couple at close range and killed Mrs. Trainor and severely wounded her husband and the pair slumped to the ground. He later recovered in Craigavon hospital. What is not certain is whether or not the UVF gang followed the couple from the social club or whether they lay in wait for a sectarian target of opportunity. There is of course, a third possibility; Mrs. Trainor was a Protestant married to a Catholic and that ‘crime’ would be enough for the UVF’s perverted sense of duty to decide upon her �
�execution.’

  The attack was later linked to the ‘Glenanne gang.’ The gang was allegedly a loose alliance of Loyalist extremists who carried out sectarian attacks in the 1970s against the Catholic community. Most of its attacks took place in the area of County Armagh and mid Ulster referred to as the ‘murder triangle’ by journalist Joe Tiernan. The estimable Lost Lives further mentions that two of Mrs. Trainor’s sons would also be killed in the Troubles. Ten children had been left motherless and soon more misery would follow for the Trainor family.

  Later on the same All Fools’ Day, one of the Loyalist murder groups – neither the UVF nor UFF claimed responsibility but the killing bears their hallmarks – killed an Indian-born former sailor at his home in Carrickfergus, Co Down. The market town sits on Belfast Lough and is some 10 or so miles north-east of Belfast. Patrick Cachcart (36) and father of three was an aspiring politician, representing the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) and was married to a Catholic woman. Before dawn, and only hours after the murder of Dorothy Trainor, he let an unknown man into the house and when Mrs. Cachcart joined them, the man shot Mr Cachcart dead and fired and missed at Mrs. Cachcart before fleeing the house. The dead man was a Hindu and it seems that his ‘crime’ was to have married a member of the Roman Catholic faith. There was also a lucky escape for a Protestant man who was fired at from a car containing an IRA murder gang in the Short Strand area. The unnamed man had just left the Cozy Bar in Omeath Street when he was attacked. Although the RUC gave chase, the gang abandoned their car and escaped on foot. There were also incidents in Newry, Co Down and Portadown when RUC cars were fired at by separate IRA gangs; there were no injuries.