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Text
24 November 2014
Interview with:
Eamonn Baker
Venue: The Junction, Towards Understanding and Healing,
Derry/Londonderry
The Memory Project, Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd
File No: 00001406
TC:
00:26:30:00
02:37:04:18
Q: Talk to me about your experiences of the troubles
EAMONN: OK . . . I think in the time that we have got here I am going to be, maybe,
relatively rapid in what I tell you . . . I think the most brutal and in some ways the most
devastating experience I had was the experience of, of Bloody Sunday. And..... I was
twenty... I was a University Undergraduate at Queens and I had come down for the march
and I, for reasons that I am not entirely clear about, I had decided that it would be a good
thing to be part of the rioting group in . . in William street. So there’s still photographs of me
with . . . with. . sometimes a white hankie around my face throwing stones at the army at. .
on William Street and then utter panic when I realised that the army had actually come in
.... I’m, I’m hesitating about using the word ‘invaded’ which is a loaded word but they have
come in so, to escape I need to run back along William street, take my left along
Chamberlain street which takes me at the end of Chamberlain street into a courtyard. .
where already Jackie Duddy has been shot and is dying, so Jackie Duddy is horizontal on the
ground and in some strange way I cannot admit to myself that he has been shot and is
dying. It’s like... or.... my knowledge of such a situation before is rubber bullets so I don’t
have knowledge or maybe don’t want to admit, it’s like some kind of psychological process
of denial, this man, and I see the blood on his chest and I am aware of suddenly switching
into the present tense . . . this, I wouldn’t say he is writhing, I don’t think he’s moving that
fast and there’s people gathered around him and there are people screaming, shouting at
each other and then there is more shots and I run to my left with some. . You know, as a 63
�year old man looking back there is some part of me saying I am leaving a man who’s, who’s
dying, to save my own skin and as I run left, there is a man called Mickey Bradley who’s also
shot in the back and he actually says, in my recall, he says I am hit, you know, having
watched loads of movies I thought when someone was shot they’d be propelled forward
and they’d hit the deck but he didn’t, in my recall, he . . . I would say more stumbled and I
had the white hankie which I would have used then as people gathered around him,
somehow there was this . . thing that maybe we could apply a tourniquet, but then there’s
more shots and we run like hell. So leaving Mickey Bradley. . who didn’t die, lived. . only
died a number of years ago, so he was one of the wounded of Bloody Sunday . . Jackie
Duddy and Mickey Bradley are both Creggan people, I am from Creggan. . and run on left to
get out between the high flats that look out to Fahan Street and the high flats that are
directly facing me as I am running and there is a gap there that I can get out. I know it you
know, I know the area and there ‘s more shots and a man called Pius Mc Carron who was a
neighbour of ours in Creggan, also a Creggan man, ah there’s bullets hit above but I don’t
quite know what’s happening, I think he’s shot but it’s actually masonry has deflected off
the. . or been shot off the wall, hits him and he’s knocked down and as I am running
through this gap a man called, who was the same year as me at school . . . a First Aid man
comes through and people are screaming at him and there’s people shot, down there you
know, get out there and I be thinking why would you go out there and I run this way and I’m
ducked down and because there is some sense that they might be shooting from the walls
across you know, from the walls, and I see, I see Thomas McCarron who’s Pius’s brother
and I say Thomas . . ‘your brother’s shot back there’. And the two of us come back . . to
where we thought Pius was, where I thought Pius was, but Pius was gone and then we
came back, I don’t remember any more about Thomas. I see Thomas frequently, he is a
great Derry City Supporter, he’s now in his late 60’s and then that silence that people speak
about descended and . . . . I walked home.
Q: At what point did you, were you aware that they were actually shooting bullets. A lot of
people talked about, they weren’t, they didn’t believe it!
EAMONN: You know, you know I think, I think one of the things that. . hasn’t been
mentioned here today is the word trauma. And so that 20 year old, who’s me 43 years ago,
this is a trauma. And somehow that trauma is not admitting this reality. . when I get home, I
am the second eldest of eight children, and when I get home, at least half my family were on
the march, the Civil Rights march and. . so in the house, then already the army are
beginning to get their story out and there's this story that there's a riot and they respond
and there's a story that they’re being shot at and they respond and it’s already coming out
that maybe, I think maybe, early reports that three people had been killed. . so at that point
you know, we as a family in a small council house in Creggan, are becoming aware that
there’s . . there is death here. . not, I didn’t really get that when I saw Jackie Duddy , Jackie
Duddy’s by the way. . older brother Billy would have been a virtual contemporary of mine, I
would have played football with him. . the Duddy family lived directly opposite the Bishop’s
Field from us. Bishop’s field is where the march started from and such high hopes. . so we’re
all, including my Brother-in-Law, are all in this kitchen and everybody is through other . . .
and I think one of the other bits about, you know, I can feel this as I am speaking to you,
Oliver, I can feel this in my body, this recall . . . and I have stopped myself being tearful here
but I want to tell you one other thing . . because I think going back to your question about
�storytelling, there is a, there's a formula which I like, it’s in storytelling, there’s what I am
willing to tell, there is what I might tell, and there’s what I might never tell, so in each
storytelling occasion people are working through what, what am I willing to tell, what might
I tell if I'm safe enough, and what will I never tell. And for years I never told what I am about
to tell you now, but I started to tell it about 2009, which is, if you can imagine a small
kitchen with 11 people in it, that’s including my Brother-in-Law, my daddy witnessed me
throwing stones and . . .he said to me, something, my Daddy was a quiet man but he said . .
what were you doing down there and I didn't hear it like as a, a search for facts because he
knew what I was doing, I heard it like an accusation because already the news was saying
British army responds to riot, I was part of the riot so already some part of me was feeling
some guilt and when he asked me that question I exploded and I thumped my Daddy as
hard as I could thump him, which led to a . . . a massive squealing, roaring, I have four
sisters, my Mother, my Brother-in-Law is saying . . you want to fight, fight me. Come
outside, my Brother-in-Law was a tough man God Bless him, he’s dead now as well, and my
Daddy who was 51, he was 51, he was 12 years younger than I am now but I thought he was
an old man, he said I’m not staying here to be assaulted by my son and he put his coat on
and he left the house and I run down the street after him and I said ‘Daddy don’t be going
down there, don’t go down there’ and he says ‘I can’t stay here to be beat up by my own
son’ so part of this story is you know, you asked the question and Maureen answered the
question about victims and perpetrators, suddenly I went from being a pictim, victim . .
pictim’s an interesting word, to being a perpetrator. And what I didn’t know, what I didn’t
know was, y’know, y’know, y’know as an adult speculating, is that my anger towards the
army, to what I had seen, the trauma of what I had seen, and where I dumped it was on my
poor defenceless Daddy. And the first place that I ever told that story was in Theatre of
Witness . . that’s the first time I had the balls to say, ‘here’s a very . . significant addendum
to this story of working class Catholic niceness attacked by a British army . . and the utter
shame of it, the shame of being around funerals and thinking ‘I beat my Daddy up, I became
like the British army in my own house ‘ . . .
Q: Do you want to stop?
EAMONN: No I don’t actually . . so one of the things about that story is this, that if you
went to Creggan and you arrived in Creggan in, in February ’72, everybody was incensed,
that I knew, and the only story, you know they say the only . . the only show in town, the
only story in town, the only story in Creggan which was a big, big estate was ‘this is what the
paratroopers done’ and then the next bit of the . . ‘this is what the British Government
done with Widgery’ . . so it was like . . a classic . . this is my story, this is what happened
but somebody tells you this didn’t happened, the state says ‘this didn’t happened’ so your
story is squashed down and it would have been really, really healing if the British
government had the balls to say we did a wrong here, it would have saved so many lives . .
and I think . . part of my, in the 70’s, would have been smitten by the contagion of that
story which meant that even though I didn’t . . take up a gun, I didn’t speak out against men
and women who did, so you got a community. . like me and I’m not really meeting, you
know people, there’s a mythology that at University you meet people from other
communities . . my sense of University was I hung around with Derry people, not
Londonderry people, Derry people who, and we told each other the story . . so storytelling
becomes healing when you hear the other story and when the others hear our story and
�then we can maybe have one story . . And one of the most significant moments for me in
that journey was hearing Maureen’s story, which was in February 1992. I was 41, it was 21
years later . . when Maureen said to me that on her, on the first day of her husband’s work
as an RUC officer, he was shot by the Provisional IRA, very first day of duty. He went into
the, into the RUC having worked for the Housing Executive, so he was about 26 or 27 and
suddenly you think, my God here’s someone telling me the impact, you see, it was almost
like schizophrenic, I was throwing stones at the British army but I don’t think I was taking
account of what would happen if one of those stones hit somebody so what was happening
when those lead bullets hit people, a lot of the killing that was done in the city, men took
cars . . hijacked cars and then they drove them back into Creggan where I grew up and
actually still live and I did not have the empathy to understand that this damage, this
trauma is being done from our community and other people . . Maureen said ‘I was eight
and half’ . . she didn’t say it here but she was eight and a half months pregnant, this is in
the public domain and that really . . . ‘eight and a half months pregnant I am stood beside
my husband who’s lost his left arm’, he’s in intensive care, and she’s, she’s the first child
and suddenly it arrested me that this is the impact of this, this is, so in terms of the story of
the Troubles that’s a big moment where I start to see a truth other than the, the narrowed
truth that I was, sharing . . exporting.
Q: I look at . . I have in my time been through something similar but not as big as that, being
shot at and I was about 12, 13. I remember it didn’t feel real I’d never been shot at before
and I’m curious because I’ve heard this story many from many different aspects, I’ve
listened to Kay’s story of her experience or listened to her experience through her brother.
EAMONN: Kay Duddy?
Q: Kay Duddy. Yeah. I’ve heard others, I’ve actually edited programmes on it, and was one
of the few programmes after Widgery to actually show , so I’m curious that no one’s ever
explained that and I think in some ways it comes to the point of why you got so angry with
your dad because you had never experienced being shot at before.
EAMON: I’d never experienced seeing someone on the ground, these are streets that, I’m a
Derry man who loves his city and seeing someone on his back gurgling blood, never seen
anything like that before. I’d seen riots before, I’d participated in riots before but I never
seen anything like that. I never seen Mickey, Mickey Bradley shot in the back, I thought Pius
McCarron was shot you know, I’m 20 years of age, I have, I have no great knowledge of
psychology, so what I imagine is that, that there is a, it’s like when there’s grief, part of that
process is denial and there’s part of that process is anger and so there’s some kind of instant
denial, is this, is this. . can this be happening and then there’s a whole history, there’s a
whole history you know, when my Daddy asked that question, there’s all the twenty years
previously of the relationship with my father and mother, is, is evoked, you know, some
sense that I was the Black Sheep of this family even though I was in other ways you know
the great White Sheep, the great white hope up at university, first person ever from my
family right across the family being at university, you know. I, I, every time I meet Billy
Duddy, I . . we played football together, we talk about football but I have the greatest of
regard for him and the Duddy family, I know Gerry as well, I know the niece Julianne
�Campbell who’s a great, was a journalist, it’s very webbed into what it means to grow up in
our area. It, it was not just Jackie Duddy, there was William Nash for example, shot dead,
his father shot, so I think in total there was five people from Creggan shot but for me that,
y’know, watching the funerals, we lived very near the church but also having a sense of my
own family, that this 20 year old has gone on such a violent attack on his Da and my Daddy
was a quiet man, he wasn’t a, he didn’t do corporal punishment, physical punishment.
In the Theatre of Witness process I got to share this story, not in a, to an audience but to the
people in the, in the class I was in. And Teya Sepinuck invited me to reflect on what was the
medicine in my story and one of the things that’s in this, is that when I was a child, my
Granddad grew up in the Bogside, oh no, he don’t grow up, my Dad grew up in the Bogside,
my Granddad grew up in Donegal. I used to go from school to meet my, meet my father
who worked in a laundry in a low paid job, he’d come sweaty to me Granddads and then me
and him would have walked, walked to Creggan and sometimes we would have stopped at a
wee, a wee huckster shop and I would get, he would give me thru pence and I would get,
and I would get Rowntree’s Fruit Gums and we would share them on the way home to
Creggan, on the way home. . . So I would .... maybe prefer to remember that time.
Q: Do you not appreciate that you were actually traumatized by something you had not
experience before , you had no idea what you were facing, you were a young lad but you
were pretty innocent then?
EAMONN: Yeah . . well you see . . that whole, many, many people, Maureen, Jim, I am
sure know that many, many people would say that the word trauma and response to
trauma and counselling services, psychological support, therapeutic support, didn’t exist . . .
I mean I went back, I was at Queens. I went back to Queens the next day and lots of the
people from Creggan were drinking heavy, we were involved in a protest, there was a big
meeting in the Whitla Hall, I remember being surprised that a friend of mine . . he’s now
died as well Seamus Hegarty died, just a couple of years ago from leukaemia, I remember
him standing up and protest . . speak and I thought, Jesus I never saw Seamus Hegarty
speaking at a big public meeting before. I remember, we, we drank, we protested, we
picketed the English Department. I remember being so angry that Professor Braidwood
went on doing lectures on the Monday and we were out, outside, Queens with a placard
saying ‘University should be closed down’, something like that. We occupied the eh, was it
the Vice Chancellor’s office, we were angry, but I didn’t know the word trauma, I didn’t , I
just felt an enormous shame that I had, y’know, I didn’t see it in a context that this may be
happening in other homes, this may be happening around the town. Actually what comes to
mind is in the November before Bloody Sunday, I was home from Queens at the weekend
and I was writing a paper on, believe it or not, on the Baroque influence on Chaucer’s early
poetry, so I’m sitting in this working class house in Creggan writing this on a Friday night,
this is Free Derry and the, the horns go and they say, the horns means that there’s some
incursion from the army or the police and I drop my quill, haha, and we run up Iniscarn road
because that’s what people did to be involved in a riot which would keep the army out and I
run and I got, and the army had gone. I got to this point and the army had gone and then
we’re stood about y’know with bricks in our hands which are now redundant, that’s not
quite y’know, we dropped the bricks and, somebody said it’s terrible about that woman, it’s
terrible about that woman and I say, what woman? They say there’s a woman shot dead
�and so I had the neck or the curiosity or something and I went into the house and somebody
said you know the woman’s laid out dead on the sofa and I remember sitting on the bottom
step sort of like a no man’s . . I can’t go in there, I don’t have the courage to see but I’m not
ready to leave and then her son came in who had been at a dance, it was a Friday night and
he knew and his body all contorted, he did something and he came in. I got out. The house
was identical to our house stairs, come in the door, front door up the stairs, I think maybe
what I didn’t have was the skills, the vocabulary to say in a way how that impacted on me.
That was November the 6th, 1971. Kathleen Thompson was the person who was killed and, I
went back up to Queens and read my fucking seminar paper on the . . . and I, instead of
saying Baroque, I just said brock because brock is a word we use locally for food scraps that
we would gather and my tutor, it’s not her fault, like, how was she to know. It was Edna
Longley, Edna Longley, wife of Michael Longley and I just kept saying brock because I
thought what is this got to do with the price of chips and again maybe it means that I didn’t
know how to communicate it and there was no one around saying what’s that like to be in a
house where someone has been shot dead in the back yard. So there may be a connection.
That was November, Bloody Sunday was the end of the following January, I think I might
stop there now.
Q: Definitely?
EAMONN: Yeah.
Q: So you’ve just told a very strong story, a very important story to you. Is that storytelling
for you important and if so, why?
EAMONN: I, I think Maureen spoke some of what I, what I think about storytelling, that it’s,
that it’s almost like storytelling is part of who all of us, it’s in our DNA, and it’s like our blood,
that that courses through our veins and when there’s a blockage in the blood moving
through our veins we need to find a way to release that blockage. And I have found, as
someone reared in a family where, communication in at a deep level or at a, even at a, at a
middle level was not overall encouraged or supported, to find myself in places where
someone says what has happened in your life? What has been troubling you and then they
listen with authenticity and they’re listening for what you or I can share, and my, quite
usually my experience of that is, that I feel a bit lighter and going back to Bloody Sunday, if
the only story . . the only show in town, the only story in town was the Bloody Sunday
story, and the paratroopers did this, somehow, somehow it seems to me that us people in
Creggan didn’t quite realise that there were people with guns and bombs, getting bombs
ready and loading guns and going down and killing other people, it was like, I don’t know if
you would call it a double think, but we are the victims, this army is the Army of Liberation
and we don’t see the havoc, the devastation, the trauma that’s been inflicted on people like
Maureen . . so there’s a monocultural story, if I went up to, my local bar’s called The
Crescent, its round the corner from me in Creggan and I said to someone tell us about . . . do
you remember the Kingsmill massacre and I’m guessing that most men and women would
say ‘what was that? What was that? When did that happen, I don’t remember that? If you
were to say, what do you think of the UDR, burning bastards, they were involved in . .
collusive killings so if those people up there have had the opportunity to meet someone
from the UDR community or meet someone from Bessbrook who says this was what it was
�like, this is what happened in January, I think it was 1976, so the storytelling becomes a
vehicle for people to tell their . . as Maureen put it, their narrative truth, or their subjective
truth and as I, as we hear each other, then something different happens, and I just
sometimes wonder is it psychological healing or is it healing of the mind in a way that I’ve a
different perspective, so there’s a line that’s change the way you look at things and the
things you look at change, so I am deeply privileged to hear from Jim in this very room last
Wednesday, we had a woman who was in the UDR for 23 years, her husband David was a
Commanding Officer in the UDR unit that was blown up by an IRA bomb, he survived though
he was injured, his sister Heather, Heather Kerrigan was blown up and killed, and his
colleague and friend Norman McKinley was also blown up and killed. Most people in
Creggan and this may be a crass generalisation but it’s how I see it, would not know that,
they would not know the suffering that Irene has endured, that bomb was in July 1984, she
said here publicly, so I’m not talking behind her back, she said ‘I’ve lived for years with a
husband who has post traumatic stress disorder, I have lived in the shadow of his sister who
was killed’. So storytelling when people from diverse communities come in and they’re
willing to go deep you know, so go back to that, you know, what you’re willing to tell, what
you might tell if the situation seems okay and what you will never tell, it might be that
where we want to be is what you might tell because there’s risk involved and even . . I never
told, never told anything about attacking my Da on the bloody night of Bloody Sunday, I was
so ashamed so, a situation where you might bring, go deeper, that’s when I think it can be
healing and people can leave a room and they say, you know what, let’s make some actions
that will make this a better place, maybe just one thing, two things. And we don’t . . y’know
we don’t, we don’t present ourselves as therapists so if you . . came and you told a story
and there was a sense that maybe (you) would need to go to a counsellor or some kind of a
therapist, as we would say, there is that facility, there is that opportunity, we maybe don’t
have the money for it but there are organizations like Wave just up the street who are able
to provide that service for you and that’s why, I would see my job with Towards
Understanding and Healing, in a way, it’s like a vocation, it’s not, I would do this job if I
wasn’t being paid but it’s good to be paid at the same time, yeah.
Q: But is it, are there people out there who don’t want the stories to be told?
EAMONN: There are people out there for example former paramilitaries who can only tell
what they’ve been convicted for because if they were to say, well actually I killed those four
people as well then they would immediately, I guess there would be a process where they
might be before the courts again. There were people, my Daddy, I’ve said this a number of
times, he was a quiet man, he wasn’t the kind of man who was up for sharing his soul, and
that’s how I was brought up.
Q: Sorry, there’s interference on the radio again . . you were just saying about your dad,
who was a quiet man?
EAMONN: Well . . your question was . . are there people who don’t want to share their
stories.
Q: It was more . . . are there people out there who don’t want stories to be told?
�EAMONN: I think, I may be wrong, that there’s an agenda where, for example, Republicans
don’t want the story of their war to be told in this dirty detail because they present
themselves largely speaking as a war of liberation and so some of the dirty detail is, where
republicans killed nearly 60 percent of the fatalities. And I wonder is that also true of the,
the number of people who were injured, it was like forty thousand, sixty percent of forty
thousand, so there’s you know, there’s this talk of contested history. There’s talk of
revisionism, there’s the fact that, so many murders, I think it’s something like two thousand
or maybe more murders are unsolved and the people who are the perpetrators of those
murders, largely speaking are, are not saying I will give you the truth, that’s why in here last
Wednesday we had Irene Kerrigan because the broad picture is she’s unlikely to get the
truth of what happened in July 1984. Who, who triggered the bomb that killed her sister inlaw Heather, who...that killed Norman McKinley and, and injured her husband, and many
other deaths in the Castlederg area. She’s not going to get that truth and what I’ve learnt is,
that’s her Bloody Sunday, but it wasn’t a Bloody Sunday ‘twenty minutes of shooting’, it
was ‘we’ll take this man out, take this man out, take this man out, we’ll kill this woman’ and
it was systematic over a number of years so that people, were saying who’s going to be next
so she came in here and spoke to about forty, forty five people including Jim and she said
this is my truth, this my testimony. I’m not going to get it in the courts but this is what it
feels like to be me in this marriage with our children now and I’m not likely to get justice so
we’re setting up situations where there’s the possibility that she could get some healing, it’s
not going to solve the problem when she goes back and her husband David is still
traumatized and acting out and volatile and she said all that here so I’m not betraying her
confidence, that it’s a moment of significance for her and there are people who don’t want
to hear that, because their position is and I think it’s a position, if you change the way you
look at things, things you look at can change, their current position is UDR equals collusion
equals the killing of that, you know Anne Cadwallader's book - Lethal Allies, that’s their
position or their worldview, and where we need to get to is where both things are true . . I
think. My belief is that the UDR were collusive in some killings and the IRA had a shoot to kill
policy, that was their raison d'etre, to kill, you hear now in the surveillance that people from
distant community are talking of getting a killing it’s presumably the same language that
was used in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s.
Q: What about the smaller stories what about the people who are, just felt they, just sort of
witnessed it, that it affected them, are they important?
EAMONN: Absolutely, I mean there’s, at the moment there’s five of us in this room.
Everybody has a story, it’s, as I say, it’s part of our, like our blood, it’s part of our DNA and
y’know people who are into psychology talk about creating the core conditions . . . where
people can share of their story, so they can leave, if you like, that weight behind and it
happens y’know when we’re working with groups, you might, I’ve had a group where . . not
Kay Duddy but Ann Duddy was in the group, and there was a woman in the group whose
mother was shot in Bloody Sunday, one of the, I think the only woman to be shot in Bloody
Sunday, and her brother also died in a bomb, he was in the Provisional IRA, the bomb went
off, he was one of two people to be killed so this woman is looking at Anne and Margaret,
and she’s saying I don’t have a story compared to this story so she’s doing the compar –
comparing and then when she actually gets involved, as the days evo-, y’know move from
week to week, and she tells us she was friendly with a community policeman who was shot
�dead by the Provisional IRA, she tells us that her son was friendly with a guy who was in the
Provisional IRA who was killed in a bomb, he was looking to plant and he left, he left the, her
son left Ireland to live in, in England to get away from here so in a sense she lost her son
even though he wasn’t a direct casualty of the bomb. And . . and more. You quite often find
that people maybe minimize. . they’re doing an internal comparison ‘my story is nothing
compared to the story of the Duddy family’ and yet there is truths and realities that have
deeply impacted people because going back to what you were saying earlier, how was I, as a
twenty year old, going to accommodate this vicious traumatic reality, you know I didn’t ..
didn’t even know the word trauma, I don’t think, so, people who witness bombs, you know
that notion that the abnormal became normal because somehow we were able to fix
ourselves internally, you know, so walking through Belfast you put your hands up and be
searched, that become normal. I’m working on a book of interviews and a woman talks
about, in this particular interview she talks about going to school and she’s going to a
school, it’s an oxymoron I think to refer to a school as a Protestant School, but she . . she’s,
men in balaclavas stop the bus and get all these school wains off the bus, she’s, its Grammar
school in the Antrim Road, and so somehow that’s the normality and in some ways she
needs to speak about that, so I welcome all stories, y’know I think that’s, that’s what needs
to happen, all stories are welcomed yeah.
Q: What about the kids? Do they understand?
EAMONN: Sometimes what the kids have got is the garbled version of history, that has
been, maybe unawarely transmitted by the father and I’ll give you an example of that. I
have a daughter, a very bright daughter who I’m sitting in a cafe with my daughter Gráinne
and a friend of mine and his English partner, she’s just arrived and we’re in the Sandwich
Company down the Strand Road and somehow we get to talking about the Orange Order
and I expressed some liberal sentiments about the Orange Order and my daughter who
might only have been ten, she says ‘Daddy that’s not what you said when you were driving
through Limavady and you couldn’t go on to Portrush, did you not say something like ‘who
the fuck do they think they – she didn’t say that - they think they own the road’. And you
know I remember doing work in a local secondary school and after a recent, after a bomb
here in the city and I said, in this corner will you stand if you’re against the bomb, in the
middle if you’re not sure and this corner if you’re for the bomb . . and there was two people
stood in this corner and one of them would have been part of a, a, what they call a Repub old style Republican family in this town, and is involved with the Dissident community, if not
actually involved now that he’s a bit older, he stood for election. . actually the same guy
comparatively recently in the council elections. Some young people haven’t a clue. I was
working last Wednesday morning in a, in a, again what is called a Protestant school, I’m not
sure these terms are helpful to us. And I said to the young people what would your view be
on the flag protest and some of them, they’re young, thirteen, fourteen, said what flag
protest? And we of course had planned on the notion that we would have some kind of
workshop on cultural identity and it was almost like we need to switch gear here, yeah, and
I think Maureen was right, it, you can’t . . . I wouldn’t make a broad generalisation about
young people, there are young people who are studying Politics and History who look at the
Troubles, and there are some young people whose real trouble is this - they’re being
sexually abused, whose real trouble is. . . their Dad’s an Alcoholic and is beating up their
mother, whose real trouble is there’s not enough money to go around, who maybe are
�dyslexic at school and cannot, don’t feel like they’re achieving, who are being bullied. You
know there’s a lot of, and part of our work is to say that. . y’know I sometimes call them the
big Troubles and the wee Troubles and it turns out that the big trouble for example sexual
abuse at home is more devastating, perhaps that’s obvious, than what was happening on
the streets, and sometimes you know I mean I certainly know people who were abused,
sexually abused at home in what was supposed to be the safe house for the IRA . . man. So
maybe generalizations are not, are maybe not helpful about young people. The, the thing to
do is to ask young people, yeah, get them in here, yeah.
Q: One last one, do you have hope, for reconciliation, in the sense that both communities
will come to some understanding?
EAMONN: You know I do, I do and, and, and I would love if our leaders, our political leaders
could behave in a way that incarnates that capacity to reconcile, that I would love if the two
top men Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness could find a way of more obviously
connecting that would be like a role model for us all and in the want of that then, what
needs to happen is that I connect with, with Jim, with Jim’s brother Roy, that, that we work
at the grassroots level up and that we make things happen. There’s an organization up the
street, no not up the street, up the stairs, called the Foyle Women’s Information Network
and they bring like a hundred women together and they’re from all sorts of backgrounds
and they . . they do activities together, which . . which warms my heart, it warms my heart
that Irene Kerrigan would trust, in a sense would trust me enough to come into this room
last Wednesday, we’re just finished a project where we, it’s sort of a Smashing Times like
project, we’re hearing stories from people in the UDR, men and women, wives and sisters.
And we were able to create a drama which was called Inconspicuous Gallantry and then take
that out and validate the experiences of those men and women who were in the UDR, all of
those things and the work that you’s have been doing, all those generators of significant
conversation, give me hope. When I see Gregory Campbell with his, with his yoghurt carton
at the DUP conference the other day, part of me gets a bit despondent, how is that
supporting peace and reconciliation, now, he is saying well our culture’s not being respected
so I listen to that but I want him to respect my culture as well, you know, I have a lot of
Irish language, I probably could have done some of this interview as Gaelic and to think if
you don’t, if I don’t have hope, where, where am I going, where am I going, where are we
going.
Q: Fair play.
End of Interview
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Memory Project (<em>collection</em>)
Description
An account of the resource
"The Memory Project is an exciting, innovative arts programme that uses drama and theatre to deal with the past and build pathways for the future and to promote peace, reconciliation and mutual understanding in Northern Ireland and the southern border counties.
The project is run by Smashing Times Theatre Company in collaboration with Corrymeela Community / Irish Peace Centres and is funded through the EU’s European Regional Development fund through the PEACE III Programme for Peace and Reconciliation managed by the Special EU Programmes Body.
The project consists of a series of creative storytelling happenings, workshops and dramatic performances, along with a television documentary which will be made to record the process." (from the Smashing Times Theatre Company website)
In addition to the 12 filmed interviews (involving 15 interviewees), the project also produced an hour-long documentary entitled 'The Memory Project: Stories from the Shadows' which documented the work of the theatre company, over the course of two years, as it carried out the project.
Two theatre productions were also presented as part of The Memory Project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.smashingtimes.ie/page-2/page-2a/
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
12
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
11
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 10 November 2015)
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Permission Form Scanned
Non DC - Scan of permission form uploaded to archive.
Yes
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
Eamonn Baker
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of interview with Eamonn Baker
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Dublin
Publisher
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd.
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
10
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Unititled Story</em>, by Eamonn Baker (<em>story transcript</em>)
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
23 November 2013
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
3454
Memory Project
Smashing Times
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Memory Project (<em>collection</em>)
Description
An account of the resource
"The Memory Project is an exciting, innovative arts programme that uses drama and theatre to deal with the past and build pathways for the future and to promote peace, reconciliation and mutual understanding in Northern Ireland and the southern border counties.
The project is run by Smashing Times Theatre Company in collaboration with Corrymeela Community / Irish Peace Centres and is funded through the EU’s European Regional Development fund through the PEACE III Programme for Peace and Reconciliation managed by the Special EU Programmes Body.
The project consists of a series of creative storytelling happenings, workshops and dramatic performances, along with a television documentary which will be made to record the process." (from the Smashing Times Theatre Company website)
In addition to the 12 filmed interviews (involving 15 interviewees), the project also produced an hour-long documentary entitled 'The Memory Project: Stories from the Shadows' which documented the work of the theatre company, over the course of two years, as it carried out the project.
Two theatre productions were also presented as part of The Memory Project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.smashingtimes.ie/page-2/page-2a/
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
12
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
11
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 10 November 2015)
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Permission Form Scanned
Non DC - Scan of permission form uploaded to archive.
Yes
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
Jim Arbuckle
Date Type
Publication, Submission, Completion date etc.
30 May 2014
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of interview with Jim Arbuckle
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Dublin
Publisher
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd.
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
10
Publication Type
Report, Book, Manual etc.
Transcript
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Unititled Story</em>, by Jim Arbuckle (<em>story transcript</em>)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
http://www.smashingtimes.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Interview-with-Jim-Arbuckle-Transcript-The-Memory-Project-Smashing-Times-Theatre-Company.pdf
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
external
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
3453
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
30 May 2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Memory Project
Smashing Times
-
https://accounts.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/8eb24c56192002c6f9cc587516c74078.pdf
ede8823de0a3ab0bc06027e94520aaca
PDF Text
Text
Green & Blue Project
John O’Riordan and Jim Ryan Interview Transcript
I joined in January, ’73... was offered it in November, around the time of my
birthday, ’72 in, and like in... listening to Jim’s interview earlier... nobody belonged
to me in the Garda, farmer’s son, had been... just after secondary school went to
work in the buildings in England, back to do the Civil Service Exams, and joined the
Garda, and frightening going into Templemore, and I attested to the force, to swear,
without fear, favour or malice or ill will to do your duty, and within five minutes of
going inside the door, and getting your head shaved off, literally, and the moustache
had to go! And... they were gas times, they were just, it was mass recruiting for this
so-called ring of steel around the border.
I was posted to Crosshaven, and like that I didn’t know where it was, I didn’t know
if it was like Crookhaven which would be like... there’s a station in Cork a hundred
miles west of here, like down around Allihies, it’s about a hundred miles west, which
is crazy, and I didn’t know whether it was down near Mitchelstown, or was it over
near Youghal, Crosshaven, but it turned out to be a beautiful spot, just on the
outskirts of the city, of course there’s this fella beside me, ex-Army man in
Templemore, [exaggerated accent] ‘come here lucky devil, you got Crosser, boy,
Crosser, boy’ and they used to call us the Costa Del Crosser, and there was two
types of accents in Crosshaven, there’d be the awfully posh yacht club accent, and
there’d be the gougers coming in here of course, ‘twas a great spot, but I mean I
was stationed here... we arrived, my first day actually was very funny, arriving at my
station [pause] I was dying, dying from drink, because we had passed out the night
before, when you’re passing out, and we passed out from alcohol after that, and we
came down, and I arrived here at three in the afternoon, and the... it was the old
Coastguard station below, and knocked on the door, and the sergeant came, an
elderly sergeant came out to me, he was elderly to me anyway, he probably
wasn’t... and it, believe it, Crosshaven would only have a population of a thousand
people, and ‘twould have maybe anything maybe up to ten thousand here in the
summer, with all the caravans and the bay is full of people, and the little summer
houses, some ‘bunjalow’ as they used to call them, and everybody say was working
in Cork in those days in the Fords and in the Dunlops and that, had a summer house
in Crosshaven, and... ‘yes, can I help you?’ he said to me, and I said ‘yes’, and he
was having a terrible time that year with boot boys, skinheads and boot boys... and
there I am standing in front of him, I had been in Templemore for four and a half
months, I was slim, and I had my head shaved, I had a dirty t-shirt, and a big pair
of boots on, and I had grown a bit, so I had these jeans at half mast as well, so he’s
looking at this boot boy, ‘do you have an appointment?’ I says ‘no, but my name is
John Riordan, I was wondering...’, ‘never heard of you, what’s it in connection with?’
and I said, ‘I’m the new recruit’ and I could see the look of disappointment in his
face, and Jesus it could only go downhill from there on, because we were, and he
was lovely, he was drying out a mattress, and ‘twas like a barracks, there was
sleeping upstairs, and another Guard had arrived down from the border, from
1
�Donegal, about two years service more than me, and he showed me around, but he
was only here a day, like a day before me, and they were drying my mattress out,
there was two bedrooms in the station, and the sergeant says, ‘young fella’ he says
‘tis an awful ordeal’ he says, ‘and look it, take it easy, and come down at ten o’clock
in the morning, and we’ll show you the ropes, you know, show you what it’s about’
and I set the alarm, and everything, and at twelve midday I was woken by the
sergeant shaking me on the bed upstairs, and he was stuck with this hibernating
skinhead, and... he did tell it afterwards at his retirement function, but he did add ‘a
fine policeman he turned out to be afterwards’, which was nice.
And also [pause] Crosshaven Sub District, Crosshaven and Carrigaline... were in the
Cobh District... now this was drawn up in the old RIC times by the British and they
just drew a square at the bottom of the, of the county... which encompassed Cobh,
fifty miles away by way of road, if you had to go there, and the city was in between
us and... superintendent wanted to make his way over from Cobh, now we’d no
walkie-talkies, and he always arrives, right going back, he couldn’t find any Guard on
the beat, and we were always at the Peace Commissioner’s house talking of matters
of police interest, that he could never find us, and there was no supervision down
here, ‘twas great, it was a good spot, and then... the border of course came up, and
I was sent up there a year later, and if everybody was talking about it, now I was
going with a local girl at the time, I wasn’t too anxious about it, and
So, and straight up to Clontibret... and again to find Clontibret on the map, listen to
Jim earlier, and Jesus, making your way to Clontibret in those days, would you go up
through Thurles, and up through the middle of the country? It took you... it was
maybe six hours driving, six, seven hours, six, seven hours, driving you know, when
you think of it now, you’re in Dundalk in two and a half now if you want to, but we
were all the way up into Dublin, through Dublin... up and then left up and into
Clontibret, other times I came down through the country, and you’d an old map to
follow, and... the idea was to make money up there, and sub and things like that,
but we, I arrived up there, and... it was a totally different world, ‘twas February, it
was freezing, I found in comparison to down here... and the attitudes of people
were completely different up there [pause] we, there was a load of us young
Guards, and we were as useful, more useless now than parking cones, because at
least you could stack parking cones, and you know what I mean! We didn’t know
what it was all about at all, and we were nineteen, twenty years of age like, you
know and... all we were, most of the lads were interested in drinking, and carousing
and stuff like that, and half asleep on checkpoints, but one incident happened where
we were told to be on our best behaviour, dressed up, there was a very fine, tall
statuesque Super or Chief in... I suppose Monaghan,
Big strong, statuesque man now all right, and I remember him hunting Guards away
because their hair were long, because the BBC were coming with us, and we were
going out on this so-called ring of steel, and they were doing a documentary about
the ring of steel around the border, and the great work being done by the Garda,
and we were over in one of those stations we used to go to... we were going around
for several days with this BBC, while they maybe do five minute snippets each day,
2
�and ‘twas being shown on the news on BBC, like a few minutes every night, of what
was happening, and we’d be... putting things like swords or iron bars into haycocks
and stuff like that, but there was this big briefing and I’m sure ‘twas Carrickmacross
or one of these... bigger towns up there, anyway near where Big Tom and the
Mainliners, Castleblaney and... the Super and the Chief were in there, not the
statuesque guy, was a different Super and Chief was there and he was giving a
briefing and he looked around, and... ‘right lads’ he says ‘they’re not here yet’ now
he says, ‘but I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’ll be talking about bravo
charlie and delta five and delta six, I don’t know what this is about, but this is for
the, only for the bullshit, the purposes of our friends the Brits’... and they were
there! [laughs] But... they were there, but I don’t think they were recording,
Paddy... but it was so embarrassing, and Superintendent dressed up in the old
greatcoat, in a raincoat, and this was terrible, and even I knew that that was, that
was wrong, and this... [laughs] that was so embarrassing, and... Jim also mentioned
Ian Paisley, another day I was out... and Ian Paisley was doing something with a
church up there, opening a church or... meeting some of his congregation, or
meeting members of his, south of the border, and... I was back, getting kind of
excited about it, and the [Special] Branch were around and everything, and I was
saying ‘like this... be surely trouble here’, and there were a lot of Provos on the
move that day that I had, after a couple of months I got to know their cars and that,
and I was told by the Branch, ‘no way, they were there to make sure that nothing
would happen to Ian Paisley in the south’... and it was just a different ] completely,
and... funny times I mean
I knew my cars, I loved cars, and particularly this particular make of Volkswagen,
the Variant, I mean everybody knew what the Beetle looked like, but... there were
shots fired one day, and we could actually hear them at one stage, but we were to
rush out the road from Clontibret... to the west, stop these cars coming down some
side roads, and I was... private car, our own private car, we’d no patrol car there in
Clontibret of course, in those days there was no patrol car, and my own private car,
and a local Guard with me, and I recognised one of the cars coming, and they were
sure enough three cars... coming, one belonged to a teacher and they were well
collated, meaning they were in the, in the... Provos, and I was just about to jump
out and do my checkpoint, and the Guard pulled me back, ‘no no, we’ll start in a
minute’ he said... I was just the young, but I said ‘but, but... but nothing’ he says,
‘you’re up here now, do what you’re told’ and that’s the way things were done. So
did anybody actually, excuse my French, give a shit then like, you know? Different
times.
I was Just over two months in Clontibret.
Two months, yeah. For some reason there was a slow, I was coming up, three
rosters like... and...
3
�[Jim:] He was one of these fellas that came up and took the money now from us
fellas! Were there permanently, Paddy, like yourself and myself.
(Paddy) They filled, filled the car with cheap Northern Ireland petrol, and then went
home!
[Jim:] Oh yeah, and butter!
To get back to, to get back to your digs, the digs, Jim, going back to the digs...
yes... the digs were very funny, when we were staying in digs as well up there, and
they were putting us into any kind of a room, but they put two men to a bed, and
Jesus! So the first, the first night I, I’d a hairy arse behind me, and Jesus! That’s the
last thing I wanted, now... strictly heterosexual, I want you to know! But... I was...
He was down in Mallow afterwards, and... the first couple of nights until we
protested, because you see all the other lads were at least two to a room, we
wanted a room to ourselves, we were two to a room, but two to a bed was a bit
ridiculous! But they were just... making the money while the sun shone, you know?
We used to go to... we used to go to Keady... and the big things to bring down that
time... there was lots of things to bring down, car radios were a big thing,
everybody’s car... the Customs would be doing the border, checkpoint on the border,
car radios, condoms, banned down here of course, like in the ‘70s, stuff like that,
and... what, what was the... something else I wanted to say to you now about that,
about that, working up there... individual Gardaí that I was with, I was with one
thick man from Clare, right Keady was grand, there was a market in Keady where
we’d buy all this stuff, and... there was a lovely... smart... brisk... RUC man
obviously came up to us, but I didn’t even know at the time, he was armed, and he
was ‘oh God, you’re obviously in the Free State, there’s down there, lads’, and...
says ‘yeah we are, that’s right and what are you doing?’ and this thick Guard from
Clare says... ‘ooh mind your business now, and we’ll mind ours’! [laughs] Well... and
it was ridiculous, I’ve never seen anything... thank God he was sacked afterwards,
but wasn’t that an awful, wouldn’t that be an awful impression to give an RUC,
young RUC officer? And this thick...
[Jim:] There was also a market that we told, in Enniskillen, which would have been
close to where I was, you know? And... we were supposed to, there was an
unwritten rule somewhere that no Guards, no Army, no Customs into the north,
[Jim:] So towards the... in Enniskillen, you’d be walking down Enniskillen, and you’d
hear ‘come here boy!’ you’d hear the Cork accent, the Kerry accent, and the... all the
accents from down... every fella in the Army and the Guards and the Custom, all in
the middle of Enniskillen, and everybody knew we were there, and there was no
problem, there was... ‘twas very good.
4
�You know, the innocence of it too, I had my lovely little... Triumph Herald, and I’d
never seen those humps they put in the road, like we never had them down south
like they had in the north, and it was ‘slow down ramps, slow down ramps’,
‘interesting signs, what do they mean?’ and was it Keady or Armagh? But there’s a
barracks on the left hand side anyway, and these whores were the size of a, of a...
you know oh they were the size of a block, they were the size of a bag of coal, and
my little car felt [makes explosion noise] up, it was... blown up in the air, and I
nearly broke my lovely little Triumph Herald passing these, never, not an idea, never
again drove fast over them of course like you know, they were serious ramps, and
[Jim:] And an interesting one about Keady, in that... when I was up in Drumad, the
second time for the BSE there was one of the lads, I can’t think of his name in
Drumad, I think, who was a referee, a hurling referee, and he had no umpire, and I
said I’d go with him up to Keady, it was during the Armagh County Semi Final,
Senior, in hurling, and I was umpiring anyway, above in Keady, a fella from Cork
and... these two, one team was from Armagh city, and the other team was from
somewhere else, and there was some other guy on the, doing the other post... and
the ball came in anyway, and there was nobody went near the ball, everybody went
over and started belting the post... at the other side... near your man... didn’t know
what was going on anyway... it calmed down again a bit anyway, and went into the
half time anyway, I went up to the ref, said ‘what the hell was all that about?’ ‘oh’
he says ‘your man was the... secretary of the... Armagh County Board a few years
ago and he suspended all of them, and they’re trying to get him back’, and here am
I stuck in the middle of this!
The, the... I was there, we were called out of bed one night actually, and you
wouldn’t realise how historical it was, they were down to how serious it was, but
Senator Billy Fox had been shot somewhere near there, while visiting, was it friends
or a lady friend and that...
[Jim:] He was a senator.
He was a senator for five years, Senator Billy Fox, isn’t that right? And we were, we
were out for hours and hours on that one, we never realised the seriousness of it
until years later when we grew up and got a bit of sense, got a bit more politically
aware, and... doing those checkpoints we’d a lot of unapproved roads there of
course, blown up by the British Army just north of the border, filled up with JCBs by
the local, and they were all being used, they were rough, they were hard to drive on
now, the unapproved roads, but they like they were all opened up, and we would do
checkpoints on them, even though they weren’t recognised as roads at all, and
farmers were completely peed off with this young Guard coming up from, ‘where are
you going?’ and ‘what are you...?’ ‘I’m going feeding cattle’, ‘I’m going this’, and
that, he’d pass ten times a day, and you’d get to know him the first two or three,
sure after that he could be taking whatever he wanted with him, you know, they
were really peed off with us asking questions, and they’d answer you, the northern
had a bad attitude towards us, you know?
5
�[Jim:] yeah... but once you got to know them, you see you were in a probably a
different situation to Paddy and myself, we... kind of knew them... like I played
football against northerners, so they kind of, they get to know you, and you’re there
all the time, they meet you down the town, like... I think I was [unclear - 14.42] say
in Ballyconnell was that you would come through... a Saturday night... or a Friday
night, and they’d be all coming up, and they’d be all in the pubs... and the place
would be chock-a-block, and I would go down like to raid the pubs, not raid them,
but I’d just try and get them out... and leave it just so that the, the town would be
free, there was no cars left in the place, so you knew you were safe enough and,
but they all got to know us, and one particular night I went down anyway, and this
temporary sergeant was up and he was gunning for a road, he wanted to do the
pubs, he took a dislike for some publican there, and I liked him, so... we were
knocking on the front door, and I said I knew we wouldn’t get in there, I said to
myself, we won’t get in the front door anyway, and he didn’t know the way around
the back, I did, so... we were banging away on the front door anyway and nothing
happened, and I said to, ‘Dinny you stay, now and I’ll go around, I’ll, I think I know
how to get around the back’, so I went around the back anyway, and I met all the
lads anyway, I said ‘lads come on, past the sergeant to the front, come on, come
on, get out, get out, get out’, so... after about ten minutes, anyway after clearing
the whole pub, I said ‘oh Jesus’ to the doorman, I says ‘open the front door, the
sergeant at the front door’, and then the sergeant came in, and he bollocked me out
of it, I said, ‘Jesus... I think they were all gone’, I said ‘when I came in, and I was
got a few of them out the back, and... they were all off the premises, I forgot all
about you, sorry about that’, [laughs] but you know the way temporary sergeants
came up, they got these notions, and you had to play ball up there, with the people
and...
6
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (<em>collection</em>) [NC]
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.)
Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016).
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.green-and-blue.org/
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Diversity Challenges Board
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
39
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
18
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 21 March 2015)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Published book; and Web site
Language
A language of the resource
English
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
John Riordan and Jim Ryan
Date Type
Publication, Submission, Completion date etc.
Completion date 2014
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of audio interview
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Website
Publisher
Diversity Challenges Board
Publication Type
Report, Book, Manual etc.
Transcript
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
6
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Untitled Story</em>, by John Riordan and Jim Ryan <em>(story transcript)</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with John Riordan and Jim Ryan which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
2876
Diversity Challenges
Green and Blue
-
https://accounts.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/814a7cf3d52140c103971c4036478515.pdf
5ea935fbcc5b41016cb91df68ac8b9d9
PDF Text
Text
Green & Blue Project
Maurice Walsh Interview with Michele Maloney
I’ll be the... the retiring age for Guards, this year I’ll be sixty, in December.
I’m from a little village down in Kerry... Castle, Cordal just outside Castleisland.
Yeah I suppose there was maybe, ‘twas more of a trend in the past, that you would
have a lot of Kerry people here, but I think that has changed, I’d say a lot you know,
well the was the guy from Tipperary, there’s more and more Cork people like there
was a time like when you know, you were never allowed to... based in your home
county or that...
I joined the Guards in the 24th of September 1974, that time it was only six months
training, so we finished training in January... of ’75 and I was, my first posting from
training was in Manorhamilton in County...
Straight into Manorhamilton, County Leitrim... on a cold winter’s day, the first job I
had to do, the following day was... we went up there on a Friday and the Saturday
morning I had to go into the local draper shop and get the warmest jumper that
they had, ‘cause I was... the different temperature up there in that side of the
country, and what I was used to, down in the, near the, the North Atlantic drift of, in
County Kerry... but that was the, I spent six months in Manorhamilton,
Manorhamilton would be a district headquarters, with a number of border stations...
operating under it, you had Kinlough on the west, on the Donegal coast, you had
Kiltyclogher on the Fermanagh coast, and north of Manorhamilton, Blacklion would
be north east of Manorhamilton, then there would be one of the more active
crossing points, on... on the border, and then you had Dowra, which... Dowra is... a
small village on the Cavan/Leitrim border near Lough Allen... it was, I was posted to
Dowra after spending six months in Manorhamilton, I was transferred out to Dowra,
and no more than when I was leaving Templemore and looking to know where I was
going, in Manorhamilton I had to get a map out and find out where Manorhamilton
was, but even when I was being posted to Dowra I had to get the map out again
and find out where it was... and I spent three years...
It’s a pretty long spell, but I was young, like I was twenty one when I... went to
Manorhamilton, so... that time when you’re young and single you were inclined to be
left on the border, longer than who were married, and that and with families.
In Manorhamilton it would have been general I suppose, you know that you would
have a mixture of, of both border security and you know I suppose the very first
night I remember being out in the patrol car there, there was a protest by some...
Sinn Féin members in relation to something or other, I can’t... in the town, like that
kind of stuff was alien to me, coming from far down south, but you know it was
always a case of you know you were taught to note all the... the minute details of
we’ll say the description of the people who were taking part in the protest, the
numbers of any cars that they were using and that, and I suppose it was quite
�obvious the, the relationship that I would have had in the community down in Kerry,
and even I had worked in, in England on the buildings for a while before I went in,
in to the Guards, was always open and friendly and that, there was, whereas now I
was going into a situation where you were treated with suspicion by the people that
you were interacting with, even the local people there would have been wary of you,
you know, we’ll say got on well with them, but they still, the distrust when you had
to be careful where you went to because there was some pubs and things like that
where... what they might call republican... strongholds and you stayed out of them,
you know it was a learning process, and that’s why they didn’t send you directly to
the border station at that time, to the Kinloughs or the Kiltycloghers, the Blacklions...
that you needed that bit of grounding in, in a place like Manorhamilton and doing
general police work, rather than just being solely concentrating on border security.
There would have been a number of incidents at that time, when I was... between
Manorhamilton and, and Dowra I was in the, that area from 1975 to May of ’78...
there would have been a number of incidents, both locally and nationally that you
know you would... certainly have a role in, involved in, and the likes of, I suppose
one of the more serious ones that I would come to light for me, come to mind is one
night we were working in Dowra, and part of the Dowra border area would be a
place called Glangevlin, and I remember being in that area with, in the patrol car,
and getting a report over the radio that three RUC officers had been blown up in
Belcoo... and like for me, but like Glangevlin is literally as the crow flies, within four
or five miles of, of Belcoo, ‘twas just across the border from, from Blacklion... and
you know the shock I suppose of... something like that happening so close, you
know, you’d have heard the news reports and the media reports on on these
incidents, but when it happens that close to... to the bone, it registers much
stronger, and do you know, that is... what you’d find that there is no understanding
as to why, why that should happen in a small sleepy village like Belcoo, you know
and even to this day I still can’t... figure out why a lot of those... the bitterness is so
deep that those kind of incidents did occur... there was, there’d have been other
ones, like I mean we, Dowra would have been... what they call a cordon point, so it,
Dowra bridge,
Cordon point, you had a cordon system set up around, around the country, so that if
an incident happened within in a certain area, then the cordon system would come
into play then to monitor the movement of, of traffic from one part of the country to
another, you had it right throughout the twenty six counties, but I suppose on the
border there was, it was more, there was more, it was used more often, these, what
they call these cordon system, and implementing the, the checkpoints then, and
Dowra bridge was one of those I suppose the fact that it is... bordering two
counties, it’s actually the first bridge that crosses the Shannon, so you’re going from,
from Ulster into, into Connaught, at Dowra... and there was many occasions that we
would have had to set up cordon points there, like I suppose in Dowra in one way
we hadn’t the interaction with, with our northern colleagues to the same extent that
they would have maybe in, in to the west of us in Blacklion, or to the east of us in
�Swanlinbar, because there’s actually, even though Dowra was a border station, there
was no road crossing the border, because it’s all mountainous area,
Well, ‘twould, and even then I, I didn’t have a problem with it, but you know I’d
often get out on my bicycle doing what they call intelligence gathering, you know
which is basically going out and keeping, keeping a close link with the community
around Glangevlin and Dowra... but you know so, but that was one of the things I
suppose that I... I would say for the three years I was in Dowra that I, there wasn’t
any interaction with our colleagues in the north, even as close as, as we were... you
know.
Oh the only time that I would, not when I’d be working, you know like Enniskillen I
suppose was the local market town, and shopping town that... we would you know
at least once a month I’d say we would visit in there, so you were going to
encounter... the British Army checkpoints if you crossed either at Blacklion or in
Swanlinbar, and you would, you would see the local police, but you know we never,
there was never interaction... between us... and you know I don’t know why, you
know, ‘tis a... it’s a pity that there wasn’t like you know, there should have been.
I think it was a missed opportunity though we didn’t have that interaction, but
whether that was distrust, you know I suppose there was, there was a lot of, not so
much with the... with the RUC, but with... the UDR, we would certainly have had,
well I suppose going by my own personal view of, of that organisation, would have
been pretty... negative, but... but we just, there wasn’t any, I never had the
opportunity and I would have liked to, to have had to interact with.
You’d produce your driving licence, you’d... I don’t think I ever... you’d probably
have your Garda ID it on you all right, on your person, but I would never produce
it... it wasn’t just the done thing, don’t ask me why.
My recollection now is the checkpoints now that I would mostly be going through
would be Swanlinbar, and that that checkpoint... was Army,
Yeah, you know you were never comfortable going through them, because like when
you see the barrel of a gun coming out through a turret, facing in your direction, you
know you’re never more than a hair’s breadth away from... with the finger never
more than a hair’s breadth away from the trigger, you just, anything is possible, and
I would, can recall it where there was a few incidents I think over on the Monaghan
side, where people crossing the border were shot in... mysterious circumstances, so
accidents can happen as well, and so there was never that comfortable feeling, you
were always anxious to just to get through it and make sure that you didn’t, you
�know make any sudden movements or... that you know, when you were crossing
those border checkpoints.
Well, I suppose you had a southern reg see that there was... I would you know,
that there was, was a lot of southern cars going up and down, so that there wouldn’t
have been that terrible lot of notice, even though mine probably would bring a bit
more notice, ‘twas probably a Kerry registration, you know at that time, so... it might
bring a bit more than normal, but still it didn’t, it didn’t seem to... cause me any
concern or, or nobody ever pointed out to me that, ‘oh right you shouldn’t be going
in’, or... ‘twas never an issue.
Well, I suppose one of the things at that time like you know, you’re the Enniskillen
was, goods were a lot cheaper up there, like if you wanted your car radio or you
know, the likes of that, car, car equipment, car radios, stereos and things like that
were much cheaper than what we would be in the south, so I’d say we’d have
supplied a few of them down to the friends down in Kerry over the years.
Well like communications were shocking, you can imagine and that... like the ‘phone
system was, you know you were Manorhamilton Two-One, or something like that,
and or Dowra Two, so you had to go through the local exchange, and then you
know you’d have to go through the regional exchange, so I would say as regards
confidentiality you were well aware like that, that you couldn’t say much over the
‘phone, and then the radio system, that we’d have in the patrol cars wouldn’t be
sophisticated either, so that was only used to relay the most basic of messages, you
couldn’t go having any element of discussion or anything confidential over that, so
like it was written, the written document was the, was the main means of
communication, which was slow and tedious...
You would, the patrol book, the patrol book was the, that was your... your, your
gospel of, of events, you know? And then you know sometimes if there were a quiet
night duty, you’d have to be inventive to...! Just get something in there to justify
your existence, but they, and like the other one that was a tedious process in the
likes of Manorhamilton and later when I came down to, to Bantry, you got your fax
messages, came in, the fax machine was, was a main means of relaying information
about different activities along the border, and you had to photocopy that, make
copies of it, put it in envelopes for all the outside stations, and a copy of it would
go... sure by the time... the information got to the outside stations, they could be
three or four days old, obsolete completely, you know? So it was antiquated, and
even well I suppose the Guards were always slow to, were to catch up with modern
technology, again I suppose the resources were not put into it, by by government,
and probably at this stage now like I’m retired out of it seven years now come, just
seven and a half years, but... you know the email systems that I would operate in
the job that I’m now... seventy five, eighty per cent of my correspondence with all
�outside agencies now with staff, is all done by email, and it’s instantaneous, rather
than the antiquated systems of communication that we had.
It was, it was, it was about four, five hours drive back to Kerry at that time roads
wouldn’t always have been great, so I did that we’ll say, roughly once a month for
the three, three and a half years that I was up there.
Well, I suppose my mother I suppose more than anyone else, would have always
said to me, you know ‘for God’s sake will you try and get out of there as soon as you
can?’ You know, others like didn’t take any notice because I suppose there was,
there would have been a, a good few people from around the area, doing the same
thing, you know and they would’ve... there was always a sense that you were, you
were safer operating south of the border than you were, north of the border, that
the same risk wasn’t there, like that you know, apart from, there was incidents now
likes of Gerry McCabe, or Kevin Morley and, and there was two of them shot there in
that bank raid in Ballaghaderreen in Roscommon, and you know you had incidents in
Portlaoise then that where, you know there was... an explosion in a house there
where there was a Guard blinded, and... you know other bank robberies, you know,
Kevin Morrissey, that were terrorist-related but at the same time it wasn’t, it didn’t
appear to be the policy of the IRA to target... the members of the Garda Síochána...
for... assassination... you know which was obviously their, in the north it was...
I suppose... you, there would always be the concern like you know, when you’re
doing these checkpoints up in the likes of remote areas like Glangevlin... you never
know... what’s going to come across, you know we would have been, I now
remember one incident where there was a Guard doing a checkpoint over in a place
called, near the Black Banks over towards Swanlinbar, and some... IRA people came
along, and like we were unarmed, you know right there would have been certain,
after bank robberies and that you might have the [Irish] Army there to, in support at
some checkpoints, but invariably most of our checkpoints would have been unarmed
checkpoints, and you know there was one incident there where a Guard stopped a
car and... you know they just stripped him of his uniform and left him there on the
side of the road... and like you know if you met the wrong people you don’t know
what they would have... what they could have done, so you never knew, but like
you didn’t think too much about it, you just went out and did... what you had to do,
without, I suppose we were young, and you know when you’re young and that you
can be a bit more fearless than you can maybe if you had... married with kids
around, you know?
No I would have, when I came back I came down here to Bantry I suppose in ’78
and that was, that has been my home since, even though I would have worked in...
different areas, including working abroad in Cambodia, in Bosnia, in Dublin and you
know going in different, in different times, but when I came down here, when I got
a transfer down here in May ’78 I was at the time I was engaged to Pauline, from
�she’s from Drumshanbo... so we got married in October ’78, and I suppose because
her, of her home being in Drumshanbo in Leitrim we’re obviously regular...
Which is close enough to the border, there you know? Plus she has family in
Ballinamore, which is again even closer to the border there than Swanlinbar, so all
throughout the years, and I have a sister-in-law in Pomeroy up in the heart of
Tyrone, and we’re actually planning to visit up there in December, haven’t been up
there now in a number of years, but you know so... we’ve, I’ve kept in touch and...
even there now two or three years ago we did a cycle from Mizen Head up to Malin,
and we crossed over, like all these places now and like and it would run through
your mind that the change, you know, even even in the, like say I’d even remark
that that time the roads in the mid-seventies and that they were much better up in
the north than they were down our way, and I’d say it’s nearly the other way ‘round
now, the road’s surfacing is poor enough up there out on the road... network,
certainly you don’t have the hard shoulder for cycling on in the same way as we
would have had down on the south side of the border, I found it a bit more scary
cycling up there, than on this side, so it’s amazing how things have changed over
the thirty years or so, yeah.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (<em>collection</em>) [NC]
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.)
Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016).
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.green-and-blue.org/
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Diversity Challenges Board
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
39
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
18
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 21 March 2015)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Published book; and Web site
Language
A language of the resource
English
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
Maurice Walsh
Date Type
Publication, Submission, Completion date etc.
Completion date 2014
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of audio interview
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Website
Publisher
Diversity Challenges Board
Publication Type
Report, Book, Manual etc.
Transcript
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
6
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Untitled Story</em>, by Maurice Walsh <em>(story transcript)</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Maurice Walsh which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
2885
Diversity Challenges
Green and Blue
-
https://accounts.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/b6b8a3853dec83a292dbd37ef74f88c9.pdf
2914749204d3814189b2c24cbbcf2a1a
PDF Text
Text
Green and Blue Project
Jim Ryan Interview Transcript
I joined the sixth of March, 1974... back then we, when we came in the door, we
were Guards, you were sworn in that evening and all, and you signed your life away,
you signed medical aid, you signed...
Everything, Saint, yeah that shower... which is another story... and we did our
eighteen weeks, three sixes, there was an exam after the six weeks, twelve weeks
and eighteen weeks, and the eighteen weeks got us, I think there was ten of us
failed the last exam, so... we were told we weren’t passing out... so... there was a
new training officer, and... he, I don’t know whether he wanted us to show an
example or what, but ten of us failed, anyway, and... negotiations took place and...
eventually we decided we would pass out, but we had a problem with... our parents
were all coming, and... I had to think very fast what was I going to tell them? Why I
was staying on for another two weeks because I couldn’t tell them I was after
failing, so... I came up with this story anyway that, when they arrived on the
morning, I told them that... you know people had been saying that, you know
staying back for the two weeks, and the reason was, I was going, doing a bomb
disposal course, I told them, on account of I going to the border... and that was very
plausible, they believed it, and I stayed for the two weeks, and they went, they both
died not knowing any the wiser, that... I didn’t do the bomb disposal course but, as
it happened anyway, after the two weeks we passed out, and... I got the train
from... Templemore to Dublin... bus to Cavan... and... patrol car picked us up in
Cavan, left one of the lads off in Belturbet, and... I was being taken to Ballyconnell...
which, I didn’t know where it was... ‘cause when I heard of Ballyconnell, I looked at
the map of Ireland, and there was no... Ballyconnell on the... on the map, even
though it had won the Tidy Towns competition, which was a big competition... two
years before that, but we left one of the lads off in... Belturbet, and we were going
over... some bridge or another anyway, and next thing a call went out on the radio
that there was a bomb on the bridge in Belturbet... and I quite innocently asked the
driver, ‘where’s that?’ he says, ‘we’re fucking on it’.
And sure enough, there was a suitcase... over on the footpath, and the Guard got
out the car, coolly... walked over... caught the suitcase and fucked it in over the
bridge... as I did myself afterwards, you know, but... this was... welcome, welcome
to the war zone, you know?
Yeah, but that was my introduction anyway to... life on the border in Ballyconnell, I
loved it. Initially I didn’t like it, but... you know, you were nineteen, twenty and...
first time away from home, two hundred and fifty miles from home, and... no car, I
was lucky, I had fabulous landlord, landlady... the landlord, .. gave me the loan of
his car to come home... a couple of times, you know, which was wonderful... and I
1
�didn’t crash it, which was a big bonus... and, I’m still in contact with them, the
people up there in Ballyconnell were fabulous people, I played football up there on...
I played football up there, and played football in Cork at the same time, and got
away with it, and... we’d a lot of activity there, but you know, when you’re young...
nineteen, twenty, twenty one... there’s no fear, you know? I remember one night...
the Provos used often come up and do checkpoints at the border in Ballyconnell...
and... I was after picking up, there was a new guy after arriving, a few classes after
me, we had the Army with us, and we were driving around, and next thing there
was a call from the station that there was an armed checkpoint down at the
border... and I went down anyway, and the Army with me, and sure enough there
was, an armed checkpoint, we didn’t know who they were... drove down through
them... the Army came with us, we drove right down below behind them, and came
back up... and I said to the fella with me, I said, ‘take the radio in your hand, and if
you hear anything you shouldn’t hear... call for help’. And I walked back, I told the
Army fellas, stay where they were... I walked back, and the relief I found, when I
heard the British accent, they were... I got talking to the lads... and they were, it
was the time there was a bit of hassle about... the border incursions and all that,
you know? And... the lads, and I could explain, be from down Cork, and not knowing
where the border was, or anything about it, these fellas came from Glasgow that
morning, they arrived in Enniskillen, they were given a map, told go down and do a
checkpoint there... they did a check, they did the same as we did, the same as us!
They came down, and... ‘where the feck is the line, like? Where’s the border?’ You’re
looking for... distinct, this border, where is it? It’s only a line like that doesn’t exist,
so... I told them ‘lads you’re doing a checkpoint, but you’re in the wrong country’ I
says, and I said ‘I’ll walk you back now to where you should be doing it’, so I walked
them back and... they were thankful, and we had a bit of chit chat and... they went
off and I went off, and... you know, ‘twas...
There was incidents like that, and once they were dealt with locally, you know by...
without the media getting at it, or politicians... there were an awful lot of incidents
like that happened up there that... were never held up, and... being from down
south, and you go up and you’re told, ‘drive this patrol car, but don’t go into the
north’, and you’re... ‘where’s the north?’ Nobody was actually... able to tell you...
this secret little line... so that... you know, there was... lot of things like that
happened up there.
Yeah we stayed in Ballyconnell... , a lot of Guards would probably know them, there
was fourteen of us staying in the house, thirteen Guards and one banker, and we
had a great time, you know we were all young fellas, and we’d come down the
morning after... nights, get up at two o’clock and she would have the tea waiting for
us, and... she’d be after pouring half the salt into the tea, and you’d take a big
swallow and... we’d great fun there you know, she made life so easy for us, you
know, with cackling and... fooling and innocent fun you know, like that, with the, I
loved it, I loved Ballyconnell, I’d still be in contact with them, you know, up there.
2
�Oh checkpoints, there was a permanent checkpoint outside the station, in
Ballyconnell, and... there were eight hour shifts and... funny incident, one night two
of us, the S.O. was inside, and the fella on the checkpoint was supposed to be
outside, but as the night’d be going along... we had the northerners well trained,
they would stop, and wait for the hand, the light through the venetian blinds, you
know, and... this night anyway, this car came and ‘twas going down to the north,
and I was S.O. and my friend was... on the checkpoint, but we were onside, I don’t
know, we were on playing cards, I don’t know whether we were talking... and the
car was there anyway, and Terry, out through the venetian blinds, and then waving
the torch, and the car wouldn’t go, and he said, ‘go on, fuck off, go on, go, go... go’,
he went to the door, ‘go on, go... go on’, no, nothing... he eventually walked out
anyway... the Super and the Inspector in a strange car! [laughs] Caught us, but you
know it was... really, and we’d great time with the northerners, there was one guy
used to come up, the first time he learned the English, he was, he was a Guard,
sorry and... I believe he died since, but he was from Donegal, he was from the
Gaeltacht, and... he had very little... English, and... all the northerners, you know
when they’d be coming up, if they had a couple of words of Irish, they knew we...
the rest of us, or most of us had very little Irish, but they’d be yapping a small bit in
Irish, but... he used tie them up in knots, because he had fluent Irish and there
was... and that time also there was a lot of temporary... Guards and... I think we
used to take a bit of an exception to them, because they were earning... treble the
amount of money we were earning, because we were permanent, they were getting
TT... they were getting the overtime, they were getting everything, but... we all
lived together anyway, but still... a few good characters came up, a sergeant, he
had the distinction he played with five different counties in football, he played
Waterford, Wexford, I think he played Fermanagh, and... Wicklow and some other
crowd as well, but he was a great, he used to have great chats with the people on
the checkpoint about football, and... and if you were the Guard, and they don’t want
to talk... they have to talk... if you don’t let them go... and he used to let them go
until they... they talked back, and ‘twas a great little bit of power to have, you know
you could stop them and... keep them there, and of course they were all big into
dancing, and they used come up and the big country and western... people, there
was one girl, she was from down Derrylin somewhere, and she used go away down
the country to dances, three or four nights a week, and come back up again, and...
you’d meet the bands then, you’d be talking to the bands, all the different bands
that used to come through the checkpoint, and it was a great place, I loved it, I
loved it.
I was there for three years... I was there ‘til ’77, ’74 to ’77, and... let me say it, I
love Ballyconnell, I would, anytime I’m talking about the Guards, I always talk about
Ballyconnell, I think ‘twas... great place... but I went up there then afterwards,
during the BSE, up to Drumad, it must be ’96 or something, and I actually didn’t
want to go there at the time, because I was just after... becoming chairperson of my
GAA club, and it was very awkward, and... I had a row with the Super over that,
and... I ended up going anyway, but... I remember one night... sitting on the main
road in Drumad, and... I had it down to a tee, I was sitting on the, I used to bring
3
�the chair out to the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, and I had the
chair, I’m sitting on the chair, and I had the blocks, now this is the main...
Dublin – Belfast! [laughs] the M1, and there you had the Guard sitting on the chair,
and legs up on the blocks... and this lorry beeping beside me, I was sound asleep...
in the middle of winter! [laughs] With my big greatcoat on that is, your man, I woke
up and looked up and he says ‘can I go on Guard?’ he says... but that time we used
to have to stop the... the lorries and then I had this sort of... I stopped this lorry;
they had burgers or something on them one night, and... they were... stopped them,
two o’clock in the day, and you had to call the vets or something to examine the
burgers or whatever, and we were with this fella, stopped here for hours, and next
thing a patrol car arrived, followed by another car, and I said, ‘oh God, thanks be to
God the vet is after coming’, so I went over anyway and I, this fella got out of the...
the second car, and I said, ‘look we have this lorry stopped here, we have him
stopped all day, there’s... burgers in it, and... would you have a look at them, and
we can either let him go or do whatever’, and... he said, he said ‘what do you want
me to do about it?’ I said, ‘sure... aren’t you who we’re waiting for?’ ‘no’ he says ‘I’m
Commissioner so-and-so’ I said ‘I thought you were the fucking vet!’ [laughs] So he
was saying ‘how are you getting on here?’ and I said ‘not great’ I said, he said... I
said ‘I didn’t want to come up here at all’, he said ‘but sure you’ll only be here for
another... week or two or so’ he said, I said ‘I’ve no problem with the week at the
moment, but ‘tis the “or so” could be the problem, if the “or so” doesn’t work out’, I
says ‘we could have a problem’... but... no, Drumad was nice, we stayed in Dundalk
and... ‘twas fairly boring, the main road was entertaining all right, but the northern
drivers we found had no respect at all, they were coming down... when they were
coming down... they were okay, but they, on the way back up,
They were heading back north, and they were...
And they would... they showed no respect at all... so, I said ‘fuck ye anyway, I’m
going to sort ye out’, so... we used to have the checkpoint... and the lorry drivers
were the same... they wouldn’t stop either, so... I started moving the checkpoint,
further and further over... over towards the other side... until eventually the lorries
were driving in the drain... at the far side, and they’d come up and they’d say ‘what
are you doing?’ and I said ‘until ye learn to behave’ I said, ‘ye’ll all drive in the drain
then’, so I sent the lorries driving in the drain, and the cars driving in the drain, I
said ‘that’ll then, slow down’ [pause] it’s probably still the same, you know when
they’re going back up, one night I was there, it must’ve been around the twelfth...
because I remember stopping... he was an MP, Eddie McCarthy [McGrady] is it? He’s
the SDLP fella... and I stopped him one night and there was fierce hassle in... Newry
the same night the... they had the place nearly burnt, I just stopped him, I said, ‘I
can’t let you go up’, he says ‘I have to go up’, I said ‘no’ I said... ‘can you go back
somewhere?’ I said ‘it’s too dangerous’, and... they’d, they’d the main road blocked,
just coming into Newry, so I sent him back, I presume he went back up there
afterwards, but... but no it was... ‘twas nice, but... enjoyed it, except I didn’t want to
be there... you know?
4
�I did... the funny thing was I was sent up there... I was separated... that was the
grounds the Super sent me up on... I said, ‘my son is doing the Inter Cert [pause]
and I’m going to be up here’... and... I claimed as a married man... and they paid
me... for two visits home every week, even though I was sent up as, as a single
person... that just shows... you know, the stupidity of the whole thing, you know?
In Ballyconnell, yeah, there would be... the Provos’d come up... for the, the Brits
would come down to do a checkpoint... the Provos would come there... we’d go in
between, and then the Irish Army would go... between us and the Provos... at one
stage anyway... oh no, the Irish Army went up over the Provos, I think... Provos
pulled out... the next thing up there, the Irish Army were firing down on the British
Army! ‘Cause the Provos were gone, and the Guards stuck in the middle. And, we
logged one of those incidents, one of the lads who was sent up a different way...
and he was up there for about twelve hours, everybody forgot him, everybody was
gone home until they... thought to tell him to go away, I was caught in one or two
of those, but they were just... there was always the incidents, you know... the...
‘twas a war zone, I suppose... we considered it a war zone, ‘twas the nearest we’d
ever get to war... you know? So...
This... friends of mine... she was Catholic, and he was... a Protestant in the UDR...
and they were finding it hard to... get married... find a priest that would marry them.
So, I said ‘I’ll get a, I’ll find a priest all right for you’ and I got a priest anyway that
would go to the wedding, the problem was, the wedding was going to be in... is it
Kiltyclogher, is it? In Leitrim?
Yeah, it’s kind of up there, yeah that’s where the wedding was, and... I got the
priest to come to the, the wedding, to just say a few prayers, he wasn’t going to do
a mass, ‘twas in a Protestant church, and... we all went off to the wedding, and they
off on their honeymoon anyway, and we came back and they used to have a thing
called the ‘strawing’, which is an unusual name, ‘twas the homecoming after they
come back from the honeymoon, ‘twas known as the ‘strawing’, there’s a different
name on it down south, I don’t know what it is, but... I went down anyway, and I
was with a friend of mine and... we were stopped by the UDR... down, just outside...
in the north... and... the, my friend, she was Church of Ireland, which was grand,
her name was acceptable to them, and... they’d always ask you to open the boot,
and I just remembered, as I was opening my boot, I had a uniform... in the boot, so
I had to start thinking fast anyway that I was going down to... this man’s house, he
was in the UDR, and that he was coming back, and did they know him and they
knew him, and... generally we would have told him we were teachers or in the bank,
we’d... rarely say we were Guards, but I had to say I was a Guard... so... they left us
off anyway, we went down to the... the ‘strawing’... and at the ‘strawing’ was me
the Guard, there was an RUC man, there was a UDR man, there was a Brit there,
there were Provos there... and we were all there, and none of us would leave until it
got bright in the morning... and we all left, and we all came home, but the following
5
�night... I was going back down again to get petrol down in Derrylin, and... a
different UDR patrol stopped me, ‘and what’s your name?’, ‘Jim Ryan’, ‘ah’ he says,
‘you’re the Guard up in Ballyconnell, aren’t you?’
They had me then, but it was okay, because I was, I had been at... the Church of
Ireland function the night before, so... that was a gas one that... I just thought that
would be...
6
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (<em>collection</em>) [NC]
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.)
Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016).
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.green-and-blue.org/
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Diversity Challenges Board
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
39
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
18
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 21 March 2015)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Published book; and Web site
Language
A language of the resource
English
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
Jim Ryan
Date Type
Publication, Submission, Completion date etc.
Completion date 2014
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of audio interview
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Website
Publisher
Diversity Challenges Board
Publication Type
Report, Book, Manual etc.
Transcript
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
6
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Untitled Story</em>, by Jim Ryan <em>(story transcript)</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Jim Ryan which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
2880
Diversity Challenges
Green and Blue
-
https://accounts.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/42b1572a586d5f9bd755905b3723c6fa.pdf
5405356325496e8272881a3b49893b36
PDF Text
Text
Green & Blue Project
Pat O’Leary
I’m now seventy two.
I am from Kilcummin, Killarney.
I was promoted sergeant here in Clonakilty in 1972... and my first posting, for a very
short period was to Terelton, which is over near Macroom, I was sent over there and
I fondly remember it, because... we had a fall of snow, and trying to get to the place
was nigh on impossible, and when I arrived there there was no other Guard there at
the time because somebody was sick, and the other person was on holidays, so I
was there on my own, I was there for about maybe two, three weeks I’d say, when
I was told to then that I was... being transferred to the border.
Well it wasn’t really because I think we kind of realised that we would be going,
there were twenty five of us promoted at the time, and while I suppose we were all
hoping against hope that we wouldn’t be going too far, but nonetheless I think in
the back of our mind we felt, I did anyway, that we were going to go to the border...
and I always remember the morning that I was told, I was going down town, leaving
my house which is quite near the Garda station in Clonakilty, and our district clerk at
the time... left down the window in the office because he saw me going out the
gate, and he called me, and he said ‘your transfer is out’ and he said ‘would you like
to know?’ so I said ‘don’t tell me ‘til I come back’ because I knew where I was going
I said ‘I don’t want to be bothered now’ so when I came back I went to him, and he
told me, he said ‘you’re going to a place called... Burnfoot in County Donegal’ now,
number one, I’d never heard of the place, and to make matters worse, when I went
to the map to try and find out I couldn’t find Burnfoot in the map at all. In the map
that I had anyway, a road map, and the only thing I could find was Bridgend, which
turned out to be... very very adjacent to Burnfoot, Bridgend would be the Customs
post at the time, next to Derry, going from Donegal to Derry so then I found out
where Burnfoot was, but... I had to pack my bags anyway, and leave.
I was leaving behind Noreen my wife, and two children at the time, yeah. And the
two were young at the time... one would be seven, and the other would have been
three, yeah. And I think, which was a bit disturbing at the time as well, our daughter
Elaine who was the three year old, wasn’t well at the time, had a medical condition,
and we were up and down to Cork a good bit to a specialist, and I was kind of
conscious because we had only one car, even though a small car at the time! A very
small car, but I was very conscious of the fact that... I was leaving, I had to leave
the, my family without a car, number one, I had to travel and... Noreen was going to
be saddled then with looking after our sick daughter as well, and do you know I was
afraid that the condition might deteriorate as well, but anyway I had to go, so I
went in the, I’d say if my memory serves me right now, about the first week in
March I’d say, I head off for County Donegal, Ulster. And I had a Mini Minor car,
now I’m fairly tall, and I was scarcely able to get into this car myself, but the
�amount of luggage I had, my little car was packed, heading for the border, and I
distinctly remember... the day that I went, I left early in the morning... somewhere
outside Sligo I thought at this stage, now... I was nearly there, there was this guy
doing something to cattle on the side of the road and I pulled up and I got out of
the car, probably wouldn’t be able to do it now at all because ‘tis probably a highway
now, ‘twas a very minor road at the time, and I went over to him and I said, ‘do you
know where Burnfoot is in County Donegal?’ and he said ‘never heard of it’... so then
I mentioned Buncrana, because I knew that was the next town, so he said ‘I do,
now I have an idea now’ he said ‘where you’re probably heading for’ and I said ‘by
the way’ ‘how far is it?’ he said ‘you’re all of seventy miles still from Burnfoot’ and I
thought I was there, I thought I was there at the time.
Seventy miles in a Mini on a bad road, yeah... but I got there and I remember when
I arrived in Burnfoot, trying to find the Garda station, it was an old rectory, well in
off the Buncrana-Derry road... line of trees leading up into it, it still looked like a
rectory, the only difference that there was, there were two Garda houses built at the
end of the driveway, and there was a sergeant and a Guard living there, but anyway
I found the Garda station.
I knew I was going there as a sergeant, but what role I was going to play as that
sergeant I didn’t really know on the border, because we were ill prepared to be quite
honest about it now, I served all my time here in Clonakilty principally as a patrol car
driver for the, for five or six years, doing mundane... police work around West Cork
which was quiet at the time, you know? Here I was facing the border in the midst of
the troubles at the time, because it was 1972 now you know, and... I was trying to
figure out myself as I drove that day to Donegal, what am I going to be doing, when
I arrived there, the sergeant, one of the sergeants that was there, said to me, ‘I’m
delighted that you have come because I’m trying to get out of here’ he said, ‘I want
to, I’m hoping to get a transfer, my only hope for a transfer out of here is for a new
fella to come, and you happen to be the new fella’, so I said ‘fine’ so I... got to
realise very quickly that I was going to be a jack of all trades really, because he was
going, and hell-bent on going so he had lost interest in the place obviously, and I
didn’t blame him for it, either because he’d a young family as well, I was really in at
the deep end then because I was, I was there as a sergeant, a young sergeant,
totally on my own, like starting off... and we were straight into trouble there like,
because we’d problems, we’d problems, practically every day there like of one sort
or another, now it wasn’t any better, any worse than other Garda stations along the
border, but nonetheless... the fact that we were the next Garda station to Derry I
suppose didn’t help either, you know?
Well, we would have things like, there was one particular day I remember, I was
sitting down talking to a Guard in our public office, and... we saw these two guys
walking up the avenue, and I just happened to say to the Guard, this is a problem’
you know, when we saw the two of them, this was in the middle of the day, when
they arrived in anyway, we discovered they had been travelling around in a
travelling... shop... and the shop was actually... commandeered by guys who had
�taken the shop off them, this is a mobile shop, a van or a truck, or whatever it
was... and of course, they were after the money, and the contents, and the two
boys were left Shanks’ mares, back to the Garda station to tell us about their
ordeal... and we, the Guard that was with me realised immediately, I wasn’t long at
all there now when this happened, the Guard and myself realised immediately... this
i an international problem now, because these guys are gone across the border with
this, this is not in our area anymore, but anyway we had to go out and search and
we did, and... possibly got to know very quickly what had happened. That was the
biggest problem that I felt while I worked there was trying to... conclude anything
that you, you started, you started investigating something, but you never came to
the end of it, you were left, a lot of things were left in mid air, or in mid stream,
because ‘twas very hard to pursue them because you were dealing practically all the
time with cross-border traffic, and this would refer now to very minor things that we
would take for granted down here, maybe traffic accidents and... minor things like
driving licence and insurance on cars and things like that, you held up somebody,
you found that things weren’t right, but they were living across the border, so... they
were out of jurisdiction, you know as far as we were concerned, but... we had
robberies as well, serious robberies, I mean I distinctly remember one, they had a
big dance hall there on the Buncrana road, just outside Burnfoot, ‘twas in the area
where we were... and one night just after the dance, about 2.00a.m. just after it had
finished, there was a raid on the dance hall and I remember the time, that night I
was off, Noreen actually happened to be up and the children, ‘twas during the
summertime and there was a raid on the dance hall for the proceeds of course of
the night, they were looking for the money, and there were shots fired... and we
were called out, and of course we were all unarmed, we would have batons stuck in
our pockets, and into the unknown as well like you know, not knowing what you
were facing, and as well as that the routine stuff was difficult as well because like if
you were doing say, you often hear checkpoints on the border, we were doing
checkpoints on one side of the border, the RUC were doing their checkpoints on the
far side of the border, but [pause] some trouble happened in the north, it was likely
that the cars were going to come to our side of the border, vice versa could happen
then, there could be some problem that we had on our side, and the guys were
going back in across the border, so... you were dealing with... like I said,
inconclusive type of duties, which made it very very difficult, you see, I suppose
anybody in the workplace, no matter what you’re doing, you like to be able, if you
start something, you like to be able to finish it but it made it difficult, I also
remember one evening I was in in Derry with the sergeant who was there at the
time, he was the replacement of the man that left... and we went in to Shantallow,
into a big supermarket, we used to go in there, maybe pretty often enough, but
we’d always go in in pairs shopping, ‘twas a fine supermarket, and of course we
were going in there to bring things home as well because we were buying stuff in
Derry cheaper, a lot cheaper that time than you were buying them in the Republic...
and we were in the supermarket, came home and I remember I was in where I was
in digs, in Burnfoot... and at teatime we were all sitting down, there were a lot of
the other lads that would be working with me there as well... there was a bang...
and the windows of the house shook... now we hadn’t a clue at the time what was
after happening, so we discovered later that evening in the BBC news... that there
had been an explosion in the supermarket that we had been in ... ‘twas bombed
�actually that evening... and all the contents, everything was destroyed in the
supermarket, and there were people injured at the time as far as I remember, but...
the, the tale to that story is... there were people going in across the border for
weeks and months afterwards, because they were buying off shop soiled stuff from
the supermarket, even though ‘twas cheap enough before, but ‘twas now being sold
much cheaper.
If the RUC were there, and they held us up, they... and naturally they’d ask who we
were, and they would be looking maybe for documents and things from the driver,
so they would, they would, sometimes they’d get to know that you were, other times
except you were asked, you just gave your driving licence with your name, maybe
the driving licence then had a Garda station... address or something, maybe
depending on who the driver was, but if ‘twas a kind of a general name that
somebody had been living in a townland somewhere, there would be no
identification... but you were always on tenterhooks, because... the one thing that I
was always afraid of, and particularly when I was travelling up and down, because I
usually, to make the journey a bit shorter when I got to know my way around, went
into the border at Aughnacloy in County Tyrone, and I came out at Strabane...
further up, but you were always conscious then at a lot of checkpoints along the
way that... you could have crossfire, somebody could attack the checkpoint, you
could be just unlucky to be there at the wrong time, so... we had to pick the time
that you travelled as well, you’d have to be very careful about the time that you
travelled... but having said that, I just remember having good relationship with the
RUC, because we’d meet them at the points, just at the points, we’d be talking,
you’d be kind of cross-border talking if you know what I mean now, but you’d be
kind of general type of, rather than... official type of... discussions, ‘twould be kind
of a general discussion about the problems that there were maybe at that particular
time, or whatever, you know? Because it affected both of us.
I mean we were there for a purpose, to try to prevent, because the problems were
across the border mainly, now... we had a spinoff in our place from... what was
happening across, because we’d a lot of people who were maybe committing that
type of crime across the border, were coming across to us, so there would be, there
would be... that, but the liaising, and I think you know was kind of at a higher level
than us, really, the main liaising with the RUC would be, would be a higher level of
the Guards than what we were, we wouldn’t have much recourse, talking about...
say political duty matters or anything like that now with the RUC at all.
That is it, that’s the kind of general conversation more than anything like that, yeah
‘twould be, yeah ‘twould be,
Oh yes, certainly, certainly because... there was an understanding like that we were
both trying to do a job of work, which was probably as difficult for them and more
difficult for them than ‘twas for us, really... I suppose we were in the happy position
�as well, some of us that were there, that knew we were only there for a short time,
we would be getting out of the place... but having said that, I was there on a
permanent transfer, so I didn’t really know when I was going to be getting out of
there.
It was difficult from that point of view, I suppose not so difficult from my side
because I got into my stride in the work very quickly because you got to know like
what was required and things like that, but was shocking difficult to be so far away,
I mean I was... single journey three hundred, and almost three hundred and fifty
miles from home, where I was. Thinking of your wife and a young family back
home... also thinking about yourself like, you know that they were worrying about
you, they didn’t know what was going on either, and probably was much worse for
them because they were seeing things on television, and hearing of events that
were happening, even they could be miles away from where I was,
You have to imagine now, the people up there are living on the border... they would
have been some of the people, relations or... people connected with people that we
would have been looking out for maybe inside the border, maybe involved in
activities, so therefore you were always, you had to be very much on your guard, we
had gone in there, and this is what I am saying about no preparation in the world
for this thing, you were going into strange territory really, the dialect also of course
was slightly different, and very hard to grasp because, like... I used to hear them
talking when I went up there first about weans, and I didn’t know what they were
talking about at all, these were the children, and they had, they had different words
for much different than we had down south, of expression, I found that extremely
difficult for a while, but then after a while you got to know it... talking about the
policing aspect of it, I must say now around Burnfoot... I discovered very quickly
that there were an awful lot of... parents in the Burnfoot area, and the Buncrana
area, and the Muff area, which was close to us as well, who had sons in the Guards,
in different parts of the country themselves... and like, from once you got to know
those... they were kind of a rung on the ladder... to get to know the locality a little
bit better, or talk to them or find out what was happening... the other great problem
we had there was you see when we were off, what were we going to do? When we
were off duty? I mean you’re out in Burnfoot out in the heart of the country,
‘twould remind you of down this part of the country, now say Ardfert or Ballinascarty
or somewhere like that... I used to go playing bingo. I wasn’t in a bingo hall in my
life, until I went to Burnfoot, I always remember there were small little halls out in
the country, there was bingo there practically every night of the week, but the one
thing I discovered very early on was ‘twas busloads of women, that used to come
from across the border, ‘twas all older women playing bingo... and the small little
hall, full of smoke, I can still remember it well, every bloody one of them were
smoking, and the place was full of smoke, but like you’d very little to do... we used
to go on walks, and... they’d a football pitch there... and some of the younger fellas
used to play football locally, I was into football at the time, I liked it, so I used to
just go watching them ... but that was difficult as well then trying to kill time.
Yes, well I think especially when you’ve, you’re having children,
�Oh dramatically, it had of course, yeah it had of course, and as well as that you
know, you were there with a total strange group of Guards as well, that you didn’t
know at all like you went straight into a situation, where I didn’t know anybody
when I went there, because some of them had been there, most of them were
brought in there, transferred in there... and a lot of them were there against their
will as well, through no fault of their own, because they didn’t, ‘twasn’t that it was
County Donegal now or anything, or ‘twasn’t because ‘twas the border, but the mere
fact they were taken away probably from their children, a lot of them married, were
leaving families behind, and it made it very difficult for them... it makes Garda work
difficult, and it made Garda work very difficult, I always firmly believe looking back
on it that... the powers that be at the time didn’t realise at all what they were
putting us into... I felt we were half useless actually, up there... I did really, because
even though police work is the same no matter where you go... the fact that you
were dealing with cross-border stuff meant that there should be a little more
thought put into it and a little bit more training, like I felt that there were plenty of
places to put sergeants down the country who were promoted into stations further
down the country, there must have been a lot of Donegal fellas who would be
delighted to get back home, into stations in their own county, maybe there was a
reason for not doing that, I don’t know... but I felt that was the road that they
should have gone down rather than sending strangers like us up to the border, but I
would find fault with the fact that we weren’t prepared for it, I think that should
have been something that, because it meant you were going into a serious enough
situation, you know.
The political, as well as the police side of it as well, the policing side of it, the Garda
side of it as well, prepare you for the type of work that you would be doing, prepare
you for the fact like that you were going in... in charge of Guards, some who were
new in the area, others who, who knew the area pretty well, you had to find out, the
fellas that were there like, what were their intentions, what did they think about the
situation on the border, because like... true enough, some of them were lukewarm
about it, because they were living there as well, they were finding it difficult to deal
with people from their own area as well.
So you didn’t know, and we didn’t know, and it was very difficult for us to find out,
extremely difficult, but having said that, after a couple of months there I discovered
that the vast majority of the people who were living in the place... were very very
friendly towards us, because we were out all day and all night, and we had
checkpoints here and checkpoints there, and people were being held up continually,
and it must have been very difficult for them as well, going about their ordinary daily
work, you know you were sticking your head in the window of a car and you were
looking for identification, you were searching cars and... you know, which made it
difficult for the local people as well, but...
�I, I would say the raid on the hall, the night in the hall was... to me it could have
been dangerous, because... when we got there, we didn’t know what we were
facing, number one, number two we didn’t know if the people had gone out of that
territory or whether they were still around there.
We didn’t, hadn’t a clue and we didn’t know what they, well we knew what the
motives were, a robbery to get money... there would have been another one
another day that there was a shooting actually across the border at Bridgend, which
was, which was near the Customs post, and I remember going there with two young
Guards, now again we were facing the unknown, and again unarmed, we were just
there checking cars, quite close to where the activity had been before we arrived,
and again we didn’t know whether the people who were doing this, because it came
from our side of the border, they could’ve been still quite close to us, and we didn’t
know, we didn’t know when they were going to maybe open up fire again, even
though we were there, because ‘twould have been common knowledge we were
unarmed, so it could have been possible that they would do it again, those type of
incidents would be the worst really that I think that I was involved in anyway there
on the border, but there was always a danger, we were always particularly on the
alert, particularly at night, dark nights, you know out doing checkpoints and things
like that, and I remember there was a famous showband person at the time, now
I’m not going to mention any names but... he travelled mainly in his own car in and
out across the border, the van with the other members of the band... would be
either gone before him or after, but every night that he came back to the border and
he used to go in up at Bridgend... he was always enquiring, about how things were
in in the north that night, because he was afraid, he didn’t know what he was facing
into, he wanted to get back to his home safely, but every night that we were out,
he’d stop at the checkpoint enquiring about things in the north for the night... to me
‘twas a dangerous place, really I would classify it as dangerous now, I mean there
was a another time when a showroom in Derry was broken into... I remember at the
time there were four cars and they were all yellow, yellow coloured cars, now
whether they were in the showroom or in the garage at the time for a particular
group of people like taxi drivers or whatever, they were all the one colour, but the
showroom was broken into one night, all the cars were taken... and we were told
that they were actually driving them on a beach out in our area... and... we went to
check anyway, and ... when the Guards arrived... the boys had left the beach with
the cars, and of course within minutes they were back in across the border with the
cars, but there was a fleet of yellow cars actually removed that night from the
showroom, and taken...
I usen’t come down that often really, about every second month, I’d say.
[Noreen:] Every two months.
Every two months, yeah. I’d travel up and down every two months, yeah.
�And how like, would you try and keep your days off together?
I would, I would and I can tell you I remember one... I left Burnfoot in my Mini...
after night duty... which was a highly dangerous thing to do, and I said, ‘I’ll drive
part of the journey now and I’ll rest’, and I got as far as Athlone, and I always
remember going into a hotel in Athlone, and I went into the foyer of the hotel and I
remember saying to the receptionist... I was going to have... breakfast or food...
and I said, ‘do you know, I’d have a sleep first, call me at a certain time, maybe an
hour, an hour and a half, I’ll have a rest, because I was dead tired, and I went to
sleep and she called me at about an hour and a half... and I sat into my car after
having something to eat and drove all the way down to Clonakilty... but... ‘twas a
long lonely drive, was grand coming home, but to sit in your car then in Clonakilty
and face back again, and like... I was conscious there were twenty five other
sergeants with me that were doing the same thing, all in the same boat, now some
of them were lucky, they went to towns where they got accommodation, that was
the other thing, I could not get accommodation where I was, I’d have to get
accommodation in Buncrana or Letterkenny.
Well, Buncrana would have been, I’m not sure now the distance, but I suppose,
twelve, twelve miles maybe from Burnfoot, I don’t know how far it is, Letterkenny
would have been farther away, but even at that time to get accommodation there
wasn’t easy either because you had a lot of personnel on the border looking for
accommodation at that time as well, and from time to time there were a lot of
temporary people going to the border that time as well, if there was something
serious happening ... there was a time there, when there was riots in a place called
St Johnston, up on the border, ‘twas before I went there, and there were an awful
lot of Guards taken in there in temporary transfer at the time, they would have
been... maybe thirty, forty, fifty Guards taken in there, there was a lot of trouble
there, serious trouble... so ‘twasn’t easy to get accommodation, and we... I, my
family went up for the summer, we lived with a lady in a place called... Fahan, ‘twas
Fahan, yeah, Fahan, she was still living in the house when we were there, we just
had the use of the kitchen, and our bedrooms, we had the two children at the time,
but that was grand then because my family were there so you know, you’d be
somewhat happier. I had peace of mind.
Well, you’d be a bit happier anyway, that’s for sure, you weren’t kind of isolated or
left on your own or anything like that, but of course ‘twas great for people as well
because a lot of stuff was brought across the border at that time, I mean people
were bringing car parts and everything home, tyres and batteries and all this type of
thing, cigarettes or butter, all these things were much cheaper in across the border,
and they were markets and people used to go into the markets, but again you had
to be a little bit careful going in as well, because ‘twasn’t a kind of free for all that
time at all, like you would go in and walk around you know I was much happier
when I had somebody with me who knew something about Derry, because you
didn’t want to drive into the wrong areas or you didn’t want to do something that
�would draw notice to yourself, so from that point of view, lot of pressure, lot of
pressure, we were working under extreme pressure, that’s what I felt as well... yeah
I didn’t know anybody on the border, from working on the border who said that they
were relaxed, because they weren’t, even the local Guards would find it difficult
enough because... they were conscious as well... had they to take action... against
somebody they were living close to in the locality possibly, they had a family, you
know, maybe some of their children going to school, so therefore you were looking
over your shoulder all the time, it put... a lot of extra pressures on... the police
forces, I’m sure... much worse on the RUC in across the border than it was on us,
but it did on the Guards as well along the border, yeah and you know ‘twas a kind of
a strange feeling to have all these strange Guards moving into an area all together
at once, I mean I was staying in digs in, Burnfoot... beautiful landlady and landlord
in the house, would do anything for us... but like, they were totally overcrowded,
because they were the only place that would cater for us, they were able to look
after the Guards there at the time, you know? And they gave us accommodation,
and good accommodation, we were lucky to get it... and... but you felt all the time
that you were away from home and you were isolated and you were in strange
surroundings, you were dealing with strange people, but again having said that, the
people found it difficult I’m sure as well, you know?
I was there from... very first week in March until the middle, almost the end of
November.
Oh ‘twas a good spell, yeah and lucky, we were extremely lucky because... I would
believe myself that the only reason we got out of there at that particular time was
because new people were promoted, so they replaced us and we were able to get
away, and I think gradually as well, they learned that they were inclined to put
people who were promoted more close to the border, to the border duties than
bringing people from very far away, because after that for us down here there were
few people that went, for long stints, now having said that, there were then
monthly... terms on the border as well, and I think, a lot of the members of the
Guards from around Cork, would have given the short stint of a month rather than
the long stints that we were in, because... except that you went on promotion or
something you weren’t there for a long stint.
Oh you would, ‘twas much easier, I never minded a month, because I... like I said to
you, off air at all... I thought I was finished with the border when I came down to
Athea, in County Limerick that that was me finished with the border, but I
discovered very quickly that I was on a list again to go back to the border, I said ‘oh
no, this is what happens’ the only good thing about it was that I mainly went to
either one of two places, Scotstown in County Monaghan, and I was staying in
Monaghan Town... or I went to Dundalk, staying in the town, I’d be able to get
accommodation and stay in the town... I loved to be quite honest about it, the duty
didn’t worry me at all in those two places, because I knew I was only there for a
month, much different... kind of attitude to monthly work than it would be for the
long term work.
�It was difficult from the point of view, but the one thing that I will say about it... I
did find in Dundalk and I’ve often thought back on it, there were a lot of young
Guards in Dundalk station because it’s a big district headquarters station... they were
very very active young fellas, very interested in what they were doing, now then the
Guards, most of the Guards would be permanently there... and we usually when we
went there for a month would have a group of fellas working with us, young fellas,
and I always remember our main work in Dundalk was... if we were on the early
morning shifts in particular, six, seven o’clock in the morning, starting... we were
searching vacant properties, searching vacant houses, which was dangerous really
because you know, you were obviously looking for something... that could have
been booby trapped, or we could find somebody or we could find explosives, but the
young fellas were used to doing it, and we were very well versed in how to handle
the situation... and I must say that I learned an awful lot about policing in Dundalk,
I learned an awful lot from the young guys who were there, because they were so
used to being in an area that was, that had a lot of trouble, that they were prepared
or I presume their authorities had them prepared for it, they had certain techniques,
certain methods by which they worked, and it made, it made work very easy. I was
also in Scotstown, which was on the border as well, with Fermanagh... and again,
mostly a lot of checkpoints out in the wilderness, out in, because ‘twas mostly rural,
very rural, mountainous, well I won’t say mountainous now, but hilly, lot of forestry,
again lot of searching, lot of that type of work, mainly. Again, ‘twas grand because
we were only there for the month, I enjoyed it, I used to get to a lot of football
matches because Monaghan was a great county for football, we’d get a lot of
matches, we’d great comradeship there as well, because there was a lot of people
up there on temporary for the month, so we’d all meet, we’d go to the pub together
and go wherever we went together and things like that, so ‘twas, that was fine from
that point of view, but... the long stint in Donegal was much much different, a much
different proposition altogether, yeah.
[Noreen:] We went up to Donegal, myself and the children for the summer, but we
went for a walk one evening, I’d say ‘twas the first evening we went for a walk
towards Buncrana, and we heard this big bang... and we said ‘there’s thunder, we
better go back home’ and Pat came back and told us afterwards there was a bomb
in Derry, I’ll tell you we didn’t go for a walk or anything there... no I, I enjoyed my
term up there really, I did, the lady in the house was lovely... Margaret... we can’t
think of her second name, but we enjoyed it, ‘twas beautiful weather and the
children enjoyed it, and everything, ‘twas lovely and ‘twas great for us because we
had been alone for so long, you know and the children loved it.
[Noreen:] Oh it was awful, it was awful really, and I had no car, and it was lonely...
it was lonely with two small children really, they’d go to bed at night and you’d sit
down and be there on your own, and... you know it was very lonely, it was really
yeah.
�[Noreen:] Oh it was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Now we lived near the O’Callaghans
next door, down below in the houses as well, like as we’re here now as well, and
you’d have that company but it was lonely, really. You know, very.
I used to try to, when I was coming home, you’d always bring something. I wasn’t
the best out shopping at all, for anything to be quite honest I suppose, it’d be said
that I’m still not the best for it anyway... I always made a point when I was coming
home, I’d bring clothes for the children... and again there were a lot of markets, as I
say, and now sometimes in Monaghan, particularly when I was going on temporary
transfer, you’d buy things reasonable in Monaghan itself as well, but then there
were, markets across the border, Jonesborough was a great place for markets... but
I always made a point of bringing home clothes and I can still, in my mind’s eye see
the clothes that I bought and when I wasbuying them, because there’d be a few of
us together and we’d be comparing notes, we’d say ‘would this suit somebody now,
this age?’ you know, and you had men buying children’s clothes, lots of men...
Totally unusual.
[Noreen:] Very unusual, that men just didn’t get anything...
I went in so far as to buy...
[Noreen:] But he bought me a dress!
I remember buying a dress for Noreen...
[Noreen:] I still have it, I said ‘I don’t know it’s ideally... put it in a museum! Pat
bought me a dress!’
I remember two sergeants with me and I buying it, and we were inside, and they
had the girl modelling the dress inside for us, we were trying to decide... and they
were trying to get me to describe what kind Noreen was, her height, her
dimensions! Colour hair, eyes all this type of thing, we were trying to buy the
clothes.
[Noreen:] And sure I was pregnant when he was away as well, which was difficult
really.
‘Twas difficult, yeah.
[Noreen:] There was great excitement when he came home, we didn’t care where
we went.
And of course, ‘twas nice coming back to the children as well, because the children,
like ‘twas totally new for them, I was away, when you come back like, but they’d be
absolutely delighted when you come home.
�[Noreen:] Ah sure there was great excitement.
Oh there was big excitement and you know, I usually brought stuff to them, if it
wasn’t clothes it was something else, but again, ‘twas grand coming home, but then
facing back like you know, and then what used to kill me then was the drive, I
changed my car then one time when I was at home, and I thought I’d get a bigger
car, a more comfortable car, and I remember I bought an Austin 1100 car in Cork, a
nice car, lovely and comfortable... but a day or two before I was due to come home
from Burnfoot for my time off... the engine of the car started to give trouble... and I
remember driving down, I came home all the way with a water container in the car,
the water pump in the car was giving trouble, oh no ‘twas a gasket and the car was
giving trouble, and ‘twas leaking... and I was putting in water, I would have to stop
every so often and put water into the car, so I drove the whole way from Donegal
with a faulty car and I was petrified that it was going to break down, but like I
suppose... the only people that would travel to Donegal are people going there on
their holidays and ‘tis the most beautiful county, I would compare it really with West
Cork and Kerry, the scenery is exquisite in Donegal.
[Noreen:] Oh it was a lovely county, yeah it was, and we always said we’d go back,
we never did it’s so far away...
It’s divided really into two, Donegal is divided into two, you have the Swilly, Lough
Swilly, and Lough Foyle, you’ve the Foyle on the eastern side, but you have the
Buncrana that peninsula there, the Inishowen peninsula, and then you have the
western side of Donegal which is absolutely beautiful country, beautiful... I must
say, the longer I stayed there the better I got to know it, I liked the people there,
the local people, and... they had put up with an awful lot like, you know during the
troubles and everything.
‘Twas terrible for them, they had put up with an awful lot, you know and a lot of
inconvenience as well, with road blocks and everything, there were a lot of detours
and there were roads closed off, and it made life difficult for the local people, and
like when you go there first, you were probably not conscious of that, but as my stay
extended there, I got to realise that there was an awful lot of inconvenience for local
people.
For them ‘twas inconvenience as well, it was really. Now, you had people that
exploited the situation, you had people then who of course were... were supportive
of the cause that was going on across the border, and they were going to do what
they could to disrupt things across the border, and this is, was our purpose there to
try and prevent that from developing, and again that placed a lot of pressure on us,
the other thing for me I suppose was that the fact that... as I said I went up new,
newly promoted, I was young at the time like, I had only about ten year’s service in
the Guards... was to get to know even how to act as a sergeant, if you know what I
mean? In simple terms, how to play the role of a sergeant, because as far as I was
�concerned all I did was tuck my Garda role into a sergeant’s role... which sometimes
maybe wasn’t sufficient for what you were supposed to be doing, because there was
a lot of work, I found there was a lot of work in, Burnfoot for a sergeant, a lot of
work, there was a lot of paperwork as well connected with the border, because it
placed extra duties on the lads who were working outside... all the time... and I
would have been one of those that preferred to be working outside, so I used to go
out as much as I could with them, I’d be out a lot with them, we’d a lot of traffic
accidents now as well, which...
And it’s still, do you know? It hasn’t change, sure it hasn’t...
Because the percentage of deaths on the roads in Donegal is a way above the
national average, has been, thankfully lately I haven’t heard all that, but... there was
a period there and it was very bad, and in my time there as well, we’d a lot of
accidents, and again with a lot of... Northern Ireland drivers involved in traffic
accidents, whether it was the condition of the roads, or whether it was lack of
knowledge of the locality or what it was, and we had a lot of accidents at night
there, I can remember... because we used to be out like with our jackets, and ‘twas
a highly, highly dangerous place because we were on the Derry-Buncrana road, and
we had the Derry-Letterkenny road, we had two main roads coming from Derry, kind
of intersecting there and ‘twas a dangerous, dangerous place for traffic, but a lot of
time spent investigating traffic accidents as well, as well as border duties, so that
was...
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (<em>collection</em>) [NC]
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.)
Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016).
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.green-and-blue.org/
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Diversity Challenges Board
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
39
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
18
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 21 March 2015)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Published book; and Web site
Language
A language of the resource
English
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
Pat O'Leary
Date Type
Publication, Submission, Completion date etc.
Completion date 2014
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of audio interview
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Website
Publisher
Diversity Challenges Board
Publication Type
Report, Book, Manual etc.
Transcript
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
13
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Untitled Story</em>, by Pat O'Leary <em>(story transcript)</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Pat O'Leary which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
2877
Diversity Challenges
Green and Blue
-
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Green and Blue Project
Jim Gallagher Interview Transcript
Well I joined the Guards in 1969, twenty fifth of June, 1969... and as you’re aware,
that was at the very start of the troubles, and after the initial training... I was sent
down to... William Street in... Limerick city. Two years later then, I was asked to go
to the border, and being a native of... Lettermacaward in west Donegal... I jumped
at the idea because I’d be stationed... about forty five miles from my home in
Lettermacaward... and when I arrived, I moved into digs in the Diamond, which was
right beside the Garda station, there was a sergeant and four Guards, in the station,
on the permanent staff... and the rest of them were all... on temporary, they came
up from... the midlands, Laois and Kildare... and of course, I was from Limerick...
and in each unit in Lifford there was one sergeant and three Guards... the sergeant
was usually from the Mayo Division, and was generally men with fairly... big
service... when I arrived in Lifford, interment, internment had taken place... so there
was... a lot of young men who had fled the security in Northern Ireland, had come
to live in Lifford, and were living in houses and in caravans round Lifford, and...
most of the day was taken up planning how to attack... Strabane with bombs, and
or attack the British Army and the RUC when they came into Clady village, now
Clady village is about five miles from Lifford, on the northern side, and there’s a, a
direct route in at Cloghfin into Clady... now it was a regular occurrence that bombs
were placed in cars in the Lifford area, and they were driven into Strabane and
placed at... business premises... and then the people who planted the bomb would
come... back over to Lifford, to the cheers of the crowds... shooting incidents were a
daily occurrence... any time the British Army came into Clady village, on the
northern side, they were usually met with... attacks from... the southern side, either
from Dunnaloob or from Bonner’s Lane, which... this is, Clady is down in a valley and
the... territory on the... southern side is higher, so they went up and fired into Clady
village, because the British Army had a lookout post there and they usually went into
it, when they arrived in Clady, now they had very poor... results from these...
attacks, I don’t think they ever hit anyone, but they certainly made a lot of noise.
Now we had a strategy, we didn’t have the Army with us at that time,
No, no, no there was none, there was none at all, in actual fact... Cloghfin, which is
the crossing point, was nearly a no-go area as far as we were concerned, ‘twas
Kirk’s, Pub, yeah, and we’ll talk about that later on, there was a bomb went off in it,
but... we had a strategy to deal with these shooting incidents, we didn’t have any
back up of the Army, at the time, we were an unarmed police force, and we’re
dealing with armed terrorists, and the strategy was to... make the area on either
side of... Cloghfin a sort of a sterile area to keep traffic from moving from Lifford...
who were going towards Strabane, or to Castlefin, to stop them well clear, the
Ballybofey car used to go down to Dunnaloob to stop traffic coming into that area,
and the Castlefin car would park on the... opposite side, on the Castlefin side, and
stop traffic coming from Castlefin, and... just one incident, this was practically a daily
occurrence, these attacks, and well anytime the British Army came into Clady, they
were attacked, that was basically it... and I remember one time... the IRA reacted to
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�the way... what our strategy was, because I got a call one day, I was parked on the
Lifford side of Cloghfin, and I got a call from Lifford station, ‘two two four’ to ‘two
two five’, was the call sign, ‘we’re after getting a message from across... the way’,
that was... I mean from the RUC... that they want the driver of the white patrol car
to move the car, as the British Army cannot return fire, he’s in the line of fire, so
[laughs] I can tell you, I wasn’t long getting out of the way. I was the driver of the
car, yeah, so we got away anyway, and the British Army opened up with one of
these Bren guns or whatever, on the top of an armoured vehicle, and I tell you...
there was some noise that day.
The first... the first action that we took against the IRA was... probably six months
after I came in, it was decided to... raid the caravans... up beside the greyhound
track,
They were living, some of them were living in houses, some were living in caravans.
Yeah, just beside the, the old dog track, and I wasn’t involved in the raid in the
morning, but they went up and now they seized loads of explosives and loads of
guns, and they took, there was about forty Guards in for the raid in the morning,
and... they were allowed to leave... and I was on the two to ten shift,
Well once they had, the seizure, took the guns off to Letterkenny with them and
everybody disappeared, you know there was no anticipation that there would be a
backlash... from across in Strabane, but I recall I was in, driving a patrol car and I
was up in a particular house in the Castlefin area, Taylor’s, they kept Guards there,
in digs, and the phone rang to say that they’ve got word from the RUC that a crowd
was gathering in Strabane, and that they were going to march on Lifford Station, in
protest about the earlier raid. So I went down to Castlefin Station and I picked up, I
think it was two other Guards there, so we had four on the way back, and... by the
time we had got back into... Lifford, the crowd had, there was a crowd gathering in,
in Lifford as well, ‘cause the word came across that... this march was coming from
Strabane, so we happened to get up to the station anyway... and... lo and behold,
this crowd of three or four hundred marched across the bridge, and I recall vividly
that they were shouting the name of the local sergeant... ‘bomb the bastard’, ‘kill the
bastard’, and he and his family just lived up the road in a bungalow, and there was
young children in the house at the time, and I have no doubt that they could hear
the chants of these people coming across the bridge ‘cause they lived... less than
half a mile away... but the, people from Strabane joined up with the, with the
protestors from Lifford, and they... marched on the station... and I recall the
sergeant and there was, we at that stage we had mustered seven, and we had a
detective, he was armed... but the leaders of the... the march who were well known
to us, as Provisional IRA activists indeed, leaders... at the time, they handed in a
letter of protest to be conveyed to the Minister for Justice, and immediately they...
shelled us with bottles and we had to retreat into the station... now... when we got
back into the station there was only eight of us, seven uniform people, and the one
detective, the windows were all smashed, I recall... being under the table in the...
public office, ringing Lifford, or sorry, ringing Letterkenny for help, now just to let
you, what the communications were like, the telephone at that stage in Lifford
Station was a box, and you picked up the telephone and you rang this,
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�You wound the handle, and you were hoping that someone would answer down
the... at Post Office in Lifford, and they would put you through, so I was under the
table, trying to ring this thing that was a permanent fixture on top of the table, and
stones coming through the window, but eventually I got through to... to Letterkenny
and alerted them that we were under attack, now... I recall... that, there were a
number, quite a number of fellas up from the Laois, and Kildare area and they used
to play hurling, and they left the hurley sticks... in the Garda station, so we thought
just it might be a good idea to repel the attackers, that we’d... use the hurley sticks,
and we broke up, we had no shields, we’d no riot gear... and as far as I can recall, I
didn’t have my own baton with me either... and, we repelled them back to the
bridge, and then we, at that stage we got out of... the station and we sort of put our
defence... at the, what used to be Devine’s Tea ‘twas closed at that stage, but to,
well we could hide out there, and wait for them to come up, throw their stones,
once they expended their stones, we’d attack, back to the bridge, and we were up
and down, and up and down... and... I remember a young fella, one time coming
after me with a stone, and I waited until he threw it... and I turned back... and he
was picking up another stone... I better not tell you what I did with me hurley!
Now... this, the inspector from Letterkenny, and a whole lot of Guards arrived, and
at that stage we got the old Garda motorcycle helmets, and riot shields and I
thought at that stage... things, you know, we were going to make the final charge,
but... one of the terrorist guys, he was... he was known, so he couldn’t be involved
in the riot, ‘cause we’d be able to pick him out, But, he was breaking up the
concrete on Lifford Bridge, to throw at us,
And then the, when the young fellas came up to attack us, threw their stones, went
back and got replenished, now in the final [pause] sort of a... effort to put them
back into Strabane... we had probably about twenty or thirty Guards at that stage,
and we had our shields and we had our riot helmets, and we headed back over the
bridge, and I was pretty fit, with that playing county minor, and playing county
senior, or at that stage I was playing club senior football, and I was first across the
bridge, and I didn’t realise that... the footpaths had been dug up, to use as
ammunition against us, and in my haste to get after... some of these nefarious fellas
that were attacking us, I didn’t see... with that eye shield in front of me, I didn’t see
the hole in the bridge, and I fell, and just as I fell, I got hit with a stone, on the
eye... and I received ten or twelve stitches and I was taken back to Lifford
Hospital... and who was on the slab... at Lifford Hospital only the guy, my friend that
I had met earlier.
And I remember the doctor saying to him, ‘where are you from?’ he was
accompanied by two well known Provos, and the doctors asked him... ‘where are
you from?’ and he says ‘Strabane’, and the doctor says, ‘well, you go back to
Strabane and you get... you get fixed up over there’, so I was next up on the slab to
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�get my ten or twelve stitches anyway. Now... that was the first... time that we took
any action against the Provisional IRA, and... I’ll just tell you another incident
which... would probably outline... what the attitude was to these Provisionals at this
stage... I remember being on a checkpoint with myself with a sergeant who... since
deceased, he was on temporary up from Ballymote, and we were doing a checkpoint
just at the, where the roundabout is now in Lifford, and this Volkswagen came
through and failed to stop, so I was after doing my driving, passing my driving...
course, and mad to show my skills as a driver, and tore off with the sergeant after
this buck, anyway... and they turned up into a... a housing estate, up the Lifford, or
up the Castlefin Road... and there was only one way into the housing estate, and
one way out, so I blocked off the way out with the patrol car, and this guy... this
guy stopped at a house, and we knew... who they were leaving off, because they
were well known to us... and he approached then in the Volkswagen and myself and
the sergeant got out and we searched it, and as you know the old white
Volkswagen, the boot is in the front of it, and we lifted up the boot, and in the front
of it was a scone of bread... a knife... one of the old bread knives with the wooden
handle, they were very... prevalent at those time, a battery, and hundreds of metres
of wire... so you wouldn’t have to be a genius to put two and two together,
The sergeant anyway... a good fella, he said... he arrested this fella under Section
30 for being a member of the IRA, and we took him down to the station, in Lifford,
and the sergeant decided to ring... Letterkenny to let them know that we’d this
fella... so we’re starting to swab him for explosives and getting the kit ready, and
next thing, the phone rang from Letterkenny to tell us let him out. [Pause] So, that
was... I don’t know if that was an isolated incident, but certainly it’s one that stands
out in my memory. [Pause] Another incident that stands out during this two year
period, is... the twelfth of July, I think it was 1972... where the Protestant
community... were, they normally have a feeder parade, they marched down St
Johnston village, and then they head off to... whatever the main parade is in
Northern Ireland... so they, they had their parade in the morning, and they were
attacked and I think, as far as I know a few drums were smashed, but anyway they
got away and they had their celebration of the twelfth of July in wherever... they
were in Northern Ireland... and then they arrived back that evening, and... we had
quite a number of Guards there... to prevent... they, they were able to march up the
village okay... because we had a lot of Guards there, but... then... there was quite a
number of attacks on... Protestant... halls and Protestant... houses, now this was a
very serious escalation, at this stage now, there was the, the Bogside which wasn’t
that far away, was a no-go area... and... it was a very serious escalation of it where
they were attacking houses, and Protestant halls, so I recall... we sent away to get
the Fire Brigade to put out a fire and the Fire Brigade was hijacked on the way, at
the scene, and it was driven down by... the old railway station, now there’s a cricket
club down there... and I was the first patrol car to go down to try and retrieve it,
and there was two other patrol cars come in behind me, and... we found the... the
Fire Brigade... the engine was running and I turned, once we had it retrieved then,
‘twas grand, I turned back... and on the way out anyway, I came up to the Hole in
the Wall pub,
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�At the crossroads, and at that point, the people came out, had already come out of
the Hole in the Wall, had been drinking in it... and they had the place blocked up
with tar barrels, and... big planks of wood, there was a building being built directly
opposite the... so... I had to make a decision, what was I going to do? So I did, I
was only twenty one at the time, and... my decision was anyway to ram the tar
barrels and the car went into a bit of a spin... and it got caught on the grass verge...
so a man who was known to me approached the patrol car... he pulled the door
straight back off its hinges and told me ‘get out’... now I recall taking out my baton,
and I must... you know, there was about, at least fifty or sixty people there, armed
with all sorts of... boards and, from the building site that was there adjacent to
them, so I was told to go anyway, and... I headed down towards Ard Bathan, which
would be on the road to Carrigans, and I recall... I had the baton in the hand
because I hadn’t put it back in a pocket, and... there was a... I was able to pick that
all these guys off, they were running after other Guards that were running in the
same direction, but I was coming behind them, and I was able to pick them off as I
was passing them, from the back! [laughs] So, the Ballybofey patrol car picked us
up, and we went back onto the main street of St Johnston... and we were organising
a baton charge... and it took us a while to get the whole thing organised, and we
started the baton charge, and we heard two fierce bangs, and as we got down to
the top of the hill there before you go down to main road, there was two fellas lying
on a footpath... and... we didn’t know what happened them... and they told us ‘we
were shot, we’re shot, we’re shot’ [pause] and... we didn’t believe them for a while,
and maybe... we might have handled them a bit better if we realised that they had
been shot, but what happened was, they attacked a Protestant house at the side, in
in the main street, St Johnston... the owner, afraid of his family... well, was
protecting his family, he shot from the top of the stairs down through the door, and
it shot the two boys who were attacking it outside... and that, that baton charge
ended the riots of St Johnston at that time, and... for several days, and maybe
weeks afterwards, we were protecting the Protestant community... in the St
Johnston area, there was protection of all the Protestant houses, but it was a fierce
strain on resources and there was some compromise anyway and it was taken off.
Yeah [pause] so [pause] another incident, I suppose it just shows you how
dangerous things were... we got a report that there was a bomb, there were bombs
at, I think it was... Bridgend? Killea... I think there might have been one in
Ballyshannon, and one at Lifford, now the Army at that stage, the bomb disposal
people had come in and they’d cleared the other three... and we were waiting for
them for first light, to... have a look at the one in Lifford, so there was men on the
Lifford side, Guards on the Lifford side to prevent people from crossing over the
bridge, and there was a sort of a presumption that there was nothing in it, because
the other three had been cleared, so I remember I was Station Orderly anyway
and... started at six, and I think it was sometime around ten... past seven or
something like that, this bomb went off... in the middle of Lifford Bridge... and all
the windows in the Garda station came in around me... I was sitting at the, there
was an old hearth fire, the old open fire... was in Lifford at the time, and... I got a...
I tell you... it fairly wakened me up anyway at that time of the morning, you’d be
fairly drowsy at six or seven in the morning, do you know? But, the dangerous part
about it is, at that stage of the, the Customs in Lifford had their office in the middle
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�of... just at the entrance to the bridge, in the middle of the road, cars went both
sides of it, and the engine of the car was blown right over that building, and landed
beside where the two Guards were that were preventing people from coming across,
now there was no-one... to prevent people from coming from the northern side, like
the camel’s hump wasn’t in existence at the time, and it’d be very dangerous for the
RUC, because they’d be attacked from the southern side if they showed their face,
so people had been walking past that from the northern side... and it could have
gone off at any time, and they’d be blown to smithereens, yeah.
Now, I suppose another major incident was, as far as we were concerned anyway,
was... there was a new Chief and a new Super, came to... to Letterkenny, and they
were, they wanted to obviously wanted to... get them, they were from down the
country, and... they decided they’d go out and have a tour of the border, but when
they arrived out, didn’t the IRA start peppering them with... bullets, I don’t know
exactly what time this happened at, but it was obviously during daylight, and I
remember I started work in Lifford at ten o’clock ten p.m., .. and we got the call to
go up to Castlefin... that the chief and the super were missing.
We went up to Lifford and the sergeant there, John S O’Connor, God rest him, he’s
dead... a Kerryman, great fella... he... he told us that the patrol car that went out
looking for him hadn’t reported back... and that the Chief and the Super and the
Detective that was with them... were missing... so I can’t recall who was with me,
but I remember him driving the patrol car, and we went down to Dunnaloob which is
right beside the border, and rather than drive into trouble, we decided... we’d
reverse in, and put off the lights, it was probably a naïve enough way of thinking,
that if we were attacked, that the fact that they only could see one light at the rear,
they might miss us if they shot at us, you know? So, we reversed in anyway, and
Jesus, next thing we met the Chief and the Super coming... pushing a Cortina... I
don’t know what it is, is it a Mark I, I think it would be, the one with the... the
steering wheel.
The ignition, the keys were gone out of the ignition and there was a steering lock on
it, and the Chief and the Super couldn’t leave... the patrol car behind them, I don’t
know where the Detective went... and... we rescued them anyway, and took them
out, but those were the type of incidents, now we had another incident then... ‘twas
probably towards the end of ’73, we’d a young man... that was walking across
Lifford Bridge, or Clady Bridge... with the intention of placing a bomb... in the
lookout post where the British Army used to come, it was... the cases when they
weren’t there, but they used to come to it, when they arrived... on patrol, and... the
bomb went off in this young fella’s hand... and blew him to smithereens, and you
know it was an awful sight, because... you know we were only twenty one, twenty
two and have to go around scraping his... body off... the bridge at Clady, and fair
dues to the British Army, they shone their lights across for us, they had good lights,
and we were... we’d only torches, and... I recall... putting about five or six bags...
into the back of the patrol car, of human matter... and taking them up to Lifford
Hospital... and the priest, I remember it vividly, the priest praying over them, you
know and he was said, it was an awful thing, you know? Now the person that was
with them was... with this young man that was blown up and killed... he was taken
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�to hospital and he was eventually charged, now I don’t know what happened to him,
but... went down the next day anyway, and there was a gun battle going on... the...
[British] Army were still in Clady and the IRA attacked them from the southern
side... and we couldn’t go down to retrieve... any more bodies, or any more in
daylight you know, so... I recall having to go down and taking another bag away
where the civilians... gathered up some of the flesh, and I took it back to Lifford to,
to... so [pause] I was injured in the summer of ’73, ‘twas a... a simple enough
incident, but nearly had [pause] dire consequences. The sergeant in Lifford asked us
to go up to Castlefin, to collect some sort of a form that he needed for the monthly
returns, so I went up anyway, and we met Sergeant O’Connor, and he gave us the
form and I remember it was a beautiful morning, I arrived eleven or twelve o’clock
in the morning, and we were just at patrolling speed, coming... having left Castlefin,
heading back to Lifford with the form, and a crowd of about twenty young youths
came out of a shed, as far as I can recall it was... they used to manufacture
McKinney’s Trailers in it, and they... pelted us with stones at point blank range, now
one of those stones came through the windscreen of the patrol car and hit me flush
on the nose... the car went out of control, it mounted an embankment, where the
council had cut through an embankment to widen the road, it bounced off, I’m told
this – because I was knocked out – by my observer... and it came back down off this
embankment and stayed in front of a lorry, but at this stage the observer... had
control of the car and stopped it,
I was knocked out, hit by the stone on the nose, knocked out... cold, yeah... and... I
remember putting down the windscreen of the car... and... I must have regained
consciousness, because I drove back... I drove the patrol car back to Lifford... and I
was in Lifford Hospital overnight, I had a severe injury to the left side of my face,
just under my left eye... and I was taken to Letterkenny Hospital then, and I spent a
week in Letterkenny Hospital, and... I was under the eye of a consultant there, the...
who had no experience of dealing with... ear and nose or throat injuries, he was a
general... Surgeon, yeah... so, the ward in the... hospital was like a half-way house,
every Guard in the country that was up on the border and further afield was coming
in to see me, and it wasn’t doing a lot for my injury... and I was bleeding profusely
into my stomach from an injury at the back of my nose... the blood was going in and
‘twas making me vomit, so I was getting weaker and weaker, so they eventually
decided that they’d give me a blood transfusion, now I had a blood transfusion card
in my pocket, or in my... belongings, which showed that I had rhesus O negative
blood, it’s the universal blood, I can give blood to anybody... but... when I saw the
nurse hanging up the blood that was... I told her that, you know, that wasn’t my
blood, that I was a rhesus O negative, that that was positive blood, ‘ah’ she says,
that ‘that’s okay’, you know, so next thing I had a... I flaked out when I got this
blood, so I recall my mother coming in the next day and I said to her, ‘I want out of
here’... and [pause] it was arranged that I... that a consultant would come in from
Altnagelvin, there was two of them in the house, one of them was Harvey, the other
was a big young lad, I’m not too hundred per cent sure which of them came in,
but... the hospital... was sort of caught on the hop, they were waiting for him at a
particular time, but he came an hour earlier, and he asked the nurse, ‘well, what’s
his blood pressure?’ She didn’t know. He asked her, did I receive a blood
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�transfusion, she didn’t know, so I was able to answer, I knew what my blood
pressure was, I knew that I had got the wrong blood, so I, I embraced the
consultant, I said ‘I want out of here’... so, he said, ‘okay, it’s either Dublin or Derry’,
I said ‘I’ll go to Derry’, so there was arrangements made with the security forces in,
in, with the British Army at the checkpoints, that I was an emergency transfer and
that I was [pause] a member of the Guards and that I’d been injured on duty, and I
went into Derry and... the consultants in there... who knew what they were at, knew
what they were about, had me, I spent about another month in Altnagelvin Hospital,
and at one stage I was being prayed for in the local, the churches at home, such
was my deterioration in Letterkenny Hospital. So that was in the summer of ’73, and
then in... I then... was recuperating at home, and I came back to work I think in
about November... and I applied for a transfer... and I got a transfer to
Manorhamilton, in County Leitrim, I didn’t want to go back to Limerick, because it
was too far away and they facilitated me in Manorhamilton and... ‘twas the best
thing ever I did... because totally different scenario up there, people were very
supportive, crime rates was low, there was no... very little subversive activity, we
had to be on the ball, but not to the same extent that... was in Lifford, and I spent
six very happy years in Manorhamilton, so that’s ended the sort of... Direct
confrontation, yeah with the Provos, you know?
I came back, well I went into... into Sligo then, and I spent two years on the beat in
Sligo, and I was promoted then to sergeant, I went back down to... Kinlough, in
Leitrim... back on the border again... ‘twas during the Anglo-Irish Agreement, that
was... I went down there, I think it was ’82 to ’86... and we had a, the Anglo-Irish
Agreement was set up, and... there was a lot of security came up from the west of,
from Mayo and Roscommon, we’d a lot of detectives, every, all our... checkpoints
were armed, and... I eventually, there was no incidents there, the odd stolen car
going through checkpoints, and that stuff, but there was no subversive incidents...
and I went back then into in-service training, as a training sergeant for four years...
and then I went in as a sergeant, duty sergeant in Sligo for two, then a sergeant in
charge of Sligo, and I was promoted and sent back to... Donegal again in Buncrana
in ’93. As an Inspector, and then I got a transfer, I only spent about five months in
Buncrana, I went in then to... Letterkenny, and... most of my work there was court
prosecutions and making decisions on files and that sort of stuff, a lot of it was
indoor work... and then I was promoted and went to... Milford in... ’97... intended to
stay in Milford for the rest of my service, but... that was interrupted by the Carthy
Inquiry into... malpractice in Donegal, and I was sent into Letterkenny in 1999 for
what I thought would only be six weeks but ended up being nearly seven years...
went right through the Carthy Inquiry, and right into the Morris Tribunal, and then in
2005 I went back to... Milford for three years, and then for the final year, 2009/2010
I was a commissioner... sending me out to... as a commander in Nicosia,
commander of the... UN in Sector 2, which were policing the buffer zone between
the Greeks and the Turks, and I came back,
Yeah, that was fairly uneventful, there was no... whilst we had to be vigilant, and we
worked hard, there was no major incidents, and I came back in the February of
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�2010 and I had a month of my mandatory service left and I retired then a month
later in March, 2010.
If you were in the Guards, when we were on the border now, there was only, in
Lifford there was only twelve Guards and three or four sergeants, there was you
know about thirty Guards in Lifford when I came back, and sergeants, there was
permanent checkpoints at Cloghfin and... up at... on the way into Castlederg, and
you know, all the border roads had been blown up, so you know, things had
changed, the Guards got organised, we had then, we had the foot and mouth and
we had the...BSE... incidents, you know we, they went on for a long time, and it was
a big drag on resources, but we managed to do a great job in relation to both of
those things, and kept the... both diseases away from... ruining our national herd,
you know?
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�
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (<em>collection</em>) [NC]
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.)
Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016).
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.green-and-blue.org/
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Diversity Challenges Board
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
39
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
18
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 21 March 2015)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Published book; and Web site
Language
A language of the resource
English
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
Jim Gallagher
Date Type
Publication, Submission, Completion date etc.
Completion date 2014
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of audio interview
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Website
Publisher
Diversity Challenges Board
Publication Type
Report, Book, Manual etc.
Transcript
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
9
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Untitled Story</em>, by Jim Gallagher <em>(story transcript)</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Jim Gallagher which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
2856
Diversity Challenges
Green and Blue
-
https://accounts.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/8faf854642c321c7b7205a963b78e646.pdf
73cb7016fd1ec6c17ed439d16e91c674
PDF Text
Text
Green and Blue Project
Joe Lynch Interview Transcript
Growing up, I grew up in Donegal... in Inishowen and... it being very close to the
border, I suppose I was very familiar with the, the troubles in Northern Ireland.
Joined the Guards, 1975... and was delighted to get a posting to... Galway on
completion of training, well away from the border, well away from... from hostile
areas, it’s funny when I think back on it now, because the... the atmosphere in
Galway, and along the west coast, it was so far removed from the troubles that... it
was though the troubles didn’t exist, other than what you heard on the... radio or
television, apart from when there would be... an armed robbery or some other... big
incident that would involve the whole country, or a Garda operation in the country,
but apart from that... I spent a year in Galway and I have to say there was... the
only time that the troubles became... I won’t say an issue, but even became a topic
of conversation, was... invariably in the summer months, Salthill would be... very
well attended by... people from Northern Ireland... and invariably there would be
trouble, well I’m not saying that that is a... a direct... result of the troubles being in
Northern Ireland, but it did seem to follow that when we got a large contingency of
people from Northern Ireland, that you had troubles on the streets at night, and
that, that was a fact of life.
My sojourn to the... idyllic west coast was badly interrupted when, in 1976, oh
having said that now... out of Salthill, I was transferred on temporary transfer for
two months up to Muff, so... with less than a year’s service in the Guards I got a...
an experience on the border... crossings and then that was a permanent checkpoint
on the, on the road outside Muff Station, now Muff Station... was that old building
along the side of the road, it wasn’t in great repair in ’76... and well, see it today, it’s
even, it’s much worse, but it’s no longer used as a Garda station, the... there was a
big contingent there, I think there was... there was... Paddy Barnes, the sergeant in
charge, God rest him, he’s dead but... there was... three or four then temporary
sergeants as well, there’s one, I think there was... temporary sergeant, one in each
unit, and there would be... there’s some units had six members on it, and others
had... four, there was [pause] protection on, on a house there as well which, you
got a, a good variety of work but, the... it was always a place where you were, you
had to be on the ball, because it was... it was a busy road, lot of traffic passing,
and... I suppose for people not familiar with Garda checkpoints... it is maybe a little
bit daunting to be standing on the road with nothing more than a baton in your
hand, or in your... pocket, not in your hand, but in your pocket, and... not knowing
what could come up the road, or what has happened, you know if you, if there’s an
incident and, and something happens then... you’re still out there, and you’re, you’re
prepared to meet whatever it is, but you’re not very well equipped to do it, and that
was, that was true for everybody,
1
�Youth was about the, the only advantage we had... so [pause] when the troubles in
Northern Ireland started the... prisoners south of the border were... sent to... either
Mountjoy or... when there was larger numbers then, they went to the Curragh... for
a while, and there was a problem then with that because of the... the legal status
of... the Curragh as a military camp, provision was made to move all of the prisoners
there to Portlaoise prison... or Port Laoise as it should be pronounced.
I went over to Port Laoise Nineteen seventy... seventy six [pause] and I think it was
September of that year... there was a, a substantial or a major riot in, in Port
Laoise... I remember... Dáithí Ó Conaill had just got out of... out of jail a short time
earlier, if memory serves me right, and... again being young and active there was...
we were coming under a lot of pressure at a barrier... and... the order was given to
charge, and we did, but... a small portion of the... major crowd that was there broke
away and we... followed them, and we got isolated... and... things were, were very
hairy for, for a while, because we were isolated on the side of a road, with a, a large
group of protestors... on the Port Laoise side of us, and... the group that we had
separated, just up the road... and we were told that... both groups were going to
march and come together, just adjacent to where we were, so... with whatever
negotiation went on... away from us, the... there was a [pause] a plan put in place
that allowed for our... our... for the group that we had put away... up the Dublin
Road to come back and... we got out of that, but it was just one of those, one of
those situations that could have, I mean... there was so many, so many members...
hurt with the... bottles, stones, iron bars... everything that could be found along the
road was, was hurled at us, you know that was, and the other thing about Port
Laoise Prison that time was that there was... different types of prisoners housed
there, you had what were the old, the Official IRA, and you had the Provos, and
then you had those who were not aligned to any particular grouping, but were still in
the republican movement, and... we were... policing that, if policing may be the
wrong word, but we were within the prison confines for the purpose of keeping
peace and order.
We would have, you could say absolutely... zero relationship with the... with the
Provos, and with those who were not aligned... to a particular group, but the, the
Official, known as the ‘Stickies’... they were... moving away, they had moved away
from, from... armed conflict, and were going down the political route and they had,
the perception was that they had... made some sort of an agreement with the
government of the day, so... their, they weren’t seen, they weren’t... perceived as a
threat... within the prison system, and... the, the floors were all... they were
segregated, because each grouping couldn’t be allowed to mingle with the other or it
could cause problems... internally, and... they all had recreation areas, now we
didn’t, we didn’t go near the recreation areas where the, for the Provos or the others
but... the Official IRA... people who were in there, they didn’t mind... the Guards
when they, when the prisoners were in their cells at lunchtime or at the different
times, they didn’t mind the, the Guards being in their recreational area, and if you
were there and there was pool tables and there was the old football machines and
that, and... sometimes when you’d be there and the, you’d be let out again, you
2
�know and... you’d be there maybe a little bit late, and they would see the inspector
or sergeant coming, they’d say ‘hey, your boss is coming!’ [laughs] So, you had that,
it was... different, and again it was because they were perceived as, as not being a
threat, I remember a number of them were being... facilitated with... with leaving
the country... at the time, or that was, that was the talk at the time, so there was...
but the prison wasn’t a nice place to work, and it wasn’t the work that people had
joined the Guards to do, so... there was, there was a high level of tension in it,
and... in a way I suppose there was [pause] there was no, absolutely no job
satisfaction in it, so there was a major incident in the prison around the end of...
1976, or maybe early 1977, where the, the Provisional IRA prisoners decided to burn
their cells... and they set... incendiary devices, which they had manufactured, in
each of the cells... into, using sugar I believe and whatever else and they had it set
so that when they were going outside... for their recreation that within... fifteen
minutes of them going out, it would ignite... in the... rubber mattresses, in every
cell, now I remember being on the third floor that day, and within... certainly within
three or four minutes of the fire starting you couldn’t see the guy standing beside
you, and... on top of that, the prisoners on the top floor... who were the ‘Stickies’ or
the Official IRA... they... weren’t part of it, and they were left there, and certainly
but for the work of the prison officers and the Guards in rescuing them, many of
them would have died because the... by the time we got to, down three... flights of
stairs it was almost impossible to breath. I remember after that the conditions after
that were appalling... to work in, because you’d the smell of smoke, the smell of
burning,
The prison has its own internal fire fighting system, yeah with the hoses and that,
and it was all... hosed down, but it was... as you can imagine a prison open... open
style... floors and the water from top to bottom... I mean it was... it really was, it
was terrible the... it’s really difficult to paint a verbal picture of... of what conditions
were like, and... the, the level of non-compliance by prisoners that time, and... with
the [pause] just the, so many things happening, so many different groupings... you
know it was, I think that was around the time of the blanket... protest and that, it
was, it made for working conditions that really, certainly no member of the Garda
Síochána had... signed up for.
Yeah, you had blanket protest by some members, and [pause] I’m trying to
remember... exactly, and it’s not coming to mind now, but the [pause] I can’t
remember, we didn’t, not the same, it wasn’t the same blanket protest as it was in
Northern Ireland, no.
That fire, that resulted that evening there was a major confrontation because the
prisoners didn’t want to come back in, and that was, there was, it’d be wrong to call
it a riot, but there was a major, major incidents there, as a result of that. there were
a number of attempted break-outs, and... the... some members of the Garda
Síochána were very, very fortunate that they weren’t killed during those attempted
break-outs, but... it was... it was an experience that if the troubles in Northern
3
�Ireland had not been ongoing, it was an experience that would not have been... had
by members of the Garda Síochána, because that situation wouldn’t have arisen, and
it is one of those things where... I think that it’s not possible to confine the
happenings in Northern Ireland just to a border area, because as we know, sadly
within An Garda Síochána, the... those who lost their lives in the course of the
conflict, the Garda members who lost their lives, they were mostly away from the
border, and so, there was no place that wasn’t affected, anyway the... after
spending a good few years down there I... was facilitated with a transfer back to...
Donegal, and... found myself at a border station in Carrigans,
That was September 1976 as well, because Michael Clerkin, God rest him, he was,
he was stationed in Portarlington, that time I was stationed in Mountmellick, which
would be the next... next town, next to, and we would have, I mean everybody,
everyone knew each other, so I would have known Michael, that happened, again...
no, as far as I can... recall no grouping has ever actually claimed formal
responsibility, but there was... there was certainly names talked about at the time as
to who might be responsible, and... this was another, another indication of, of just
how callous the... those who said they were fighting for Irish freedom, how callous
they were, because, and this is one of the incidents where... hands can’t be washed
as to an accidental or... a killing that... just happened because someone was in the
wrong place at the wrong time, or...
They were actually lured to that place, you know, there... there may be occasions in
any policeman’s life where you’re going to meet a situation where... but for the
grace of God or whatever you escape with your life and it could easily have gone the
other way, because somebody... made a hasty decision or... made a wrong decision
or something like that, that can’t... you know, that just can’t be put there in this
case because... the... information was given to lure the Guards to that location...
the... bomb was put in place so that it would... explode in a very particular way, so...
in fact the miracle of that was that there was only one member killed, even though
there were a number of members seriously injured, but it could easily have resulted
in... every member who went to that house being killed
I believe a photolight cell that once a torch shone on it...
He went in the window, and was going to go to the door to open the door for the...
he would have been the younger member in the grouping, and he was... agile, fit...
going to... open the door, and... well, never got there, and... you know... again, for
his family the, the... people had to put, gather his, his... the pieces of his body
together from, from... far and wide there... trees, the surrounding area, and... it
was... but it was one of those incidents where it was meant to happen, it was
planned, and those who put the bomb there meant for death to follow, for as many
as possible, and there’s no doubt about that, so... it...
4
�There was a phone call to the Guards that there was people acting suspiciously, that
I think the... indication was that there may have been the movement of, of guns or
something, it must be, around the house, and just to bring the Guards there... it
was... it coincided with the... Emergency Powers... provisions within the Dáil, that
would have, there was a... the introduction of additional powers, so... that was
1976,
And... so I stayed there until 1987... intermittently, admittedly after, after two years
of fairly... continuous duty in and around Port Laoise Prison... the rest of the work
then, for the following years was, was mainstream policing, and... but 1987... I was
facilitated with a transfer to... Donegal, and to border station... in Carrigans, which is
just, I mean if it were in any other society, it would be a suburb of, of Derry city,
you know, and indeed, that’s what it was, because there was huge interaction
between the Derry city and Carrigans, and St Johnston, but it was an area that
was... that had its moments in relation to... subversive activity, and we were, it was
a place where you had, again you had to be on the ball, the, there were a number
of... border crossings there, when I came there we didn’t have... some of the roads
were blocked of course, the... the main roads,
Dunmore and Killea were the two, the two main thoroughfares that were, that had
checkpoints, but... the... while the other roads were... either spiked or had the
barriers on them, they were still passable by motorcycle or bicycle and [pause] we
had, you know, in... we had a number of incidents, number of finds along the border
there with... following searches and namely in the open areas, and then we had... a
number of subversives arrested there in the course of a big operation that they were
carrying out, so all in all it meant that there was... there was always something
happening.
I know that my wife and family would have found a huge change because when I
was working in the midlands and you went out to work, and you had a time to
finish, invariably you did finish, you came home, and these are days long before
mobile phones, or... or any other form of instant messaging. On the border,
something would happen, maybe towards the end of your shift, you were, you were
there, you stayed there, could be three, four, five hours... there was no word sent
home... they didn’t know where you were, when you were going to get home, they
might turn on the TV or radio, and hear something about something happening,
that’d be the first indication, and... we can only imagine the stresses and strains that
that would have in a household. Something that’s never touched on, in in the
ordinary, when we talk about our experiences along the border, but the experiences
for family life those were affected nearly every... every week, there was something
happening. I was involved with the International Police Association... and had been
for many years, it meant that I would have had interaction with the RUC on a, on
a... a social and cultural basis for, for many years, but when I came to the border, it
5
�meant that I was able to put that into more use I suppose, and there was so we
would have had a lot of contact meetings, and all, everything that was... that was
done, had to be done with a view to security. For RUC members to come out, south
of the border, their lives were under threat, and indeed they would have advised us
that when we would be going in, especially into certain police stations that there
was procedures that we should, should take, to secure our own safety, so it meant
that for me, things changed so much when I was in Port Laoise, if I was going in to
Kildare Station, or if I was going to any other Garda station, you just went and vice
versa if they came to your station, they just came, but even though Derry city was
only what, five or six miles down the road again, an exchange between the two
stations meant almost a full operational order to get things in place before it could
be done. Likewise whether social, social gatherings and from ’87 on, we would have
had regular IPA social gatherings in Letterkenny it was maybe for me, and not, not
that we didn’t take security seriously, but there was so much red tape involved in it
that even some of the RUC guys I’d be very friendly with, would like to take an
approach that didn’t involve all of the security. I remember one, one occasion
where we had a big social function coming up, and I got word that there would be...
half a dozen coming to attend, and I was walking along the corridor in Letterkenny
Station, and the Inspector called me, he says ‘are you having a function?’ and I says
‘I am’, and he says ‘do I hear that there could be someone from the RUC coming?’
and I says ‘well it’s not definite yet’ so he said, ‘we need to know’. So I was caught
in that, I had to make a report of it, but of course, as soon as I made a report on it,
that went up the line, and went across the line, and it landed on desks, and it turned
out no-one came, because the red tape just went into play, and even though there
was a lot of threats and people were very conscious of their security, there were
ways of doing things that were low-key, and, and that was done quite often, under
the radar, yeah, but it meant that good relations were built up between, between
people and, relationships that lasted the course of time, and then that there was a
great element of, indeed of trust was built up, and of course that as well the [pause]
the big change I suppose in, came then with the, the ceasefires, and that meant
movements away from the border stations and the whole scene of the border
changed over a very short period of time all of those stations that were along the
border no longer had the big numbers, units were down.
Border roads were opened, the camaraderie of that existed because of the close-knit
units and the close working conditions that people had, that dissipated as well, and
a lot of the history of the of the policing of the border disappeared, almost
overnight. Huts that had been in place for twenty, thirty years were gone, not a
mark left on the side of the road, and the landscape was changed, the population
was changed, because a lot of times along the border, the Guards who were
working on the border, especially the single guys, they were in digs or they were in
houses locally, so you had all of that interaction with the people that was suddenly
just gone,
Now you have a criminal fraternity who have a camaraderie, and who, who run the,
run the border roads... yeah.
6
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (<em>collection</em>) [NC]
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.)
Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016).
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.green-and-blue.org/
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Diversity Challenges Board
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
39
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
18
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 21 March 2015)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Published book; and Web site
Language
A language of the resource
English
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
Joe Lynch
Date Type
Publication, Submission, Completion date etc.
Completion date 2014
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of audio interview
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
6
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Website
Publisher
Diversity Challenges Board
Publication Type
Report, Book, Manual etc.
Transcript
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Untitled Story</em>, by Joe Lynch <em>(story transcript)</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Joe Lynch which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
2865
Diversity Challenges
Green and Blue
-
https://accounts.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/8b57297b58d0760fe78171201fee1f45.pdf
66c3af73a59861cc851253a5a4f05abe
PDF Text
Text
Green and Blue Project
Tim Kelly Interview Transcript
I’ll be seventy nine on the twenty fifth of this month. Originally from Abbeyfeale in
County Limerick. I joined the Guards seventeenth of April 1958. And... on
completion of training, went to Store Street in Dublin... and I was there until the
fifth of April, 1963... transferred to Castlefin, County Donegal... where I spent two
years... and... moved then... after two years... in Castlefin, moved to Convoy... in...
May ’65, actually the twenty seventh of April, ’65 on promotion, and... I was there ‘til
the sixteenth of October, 1969.
Oh they were quiet then, oh they were quiet then, they were quiet then, like... there
was just a sergeant and two Guards in Castlefin at that time. So there was... but it
was, it was good. I came from Convoy, came here to Letterkenny... where I’ve been
ever since!
Well I was, I was sergeant here in Letterkenny from 1969... and... we were kind of
the ground I suppose, at the time, and the troubles started and you had people...
moving out from the North to the Republic, escaping from the troubles as it were,
when it started off... and you had people looking for accommodation and that, and
there was some of them accommodated out in Rockhill House.
We were aware of people moving that was, that was basically it, and while you were
conscious of all that was going on and that, it just progressed and... then it got...
got more and more involved... like when the IRA became active then... do you see?
And... that’s when it, when it really got... hot.
Well, do you see, it certainly, it certainly upped the workload considerably. You just
didn’t know from one day to the next what you were going to be confronted with,
you see? And... like as I say, it was... at the start of it, we just had the basic
requirements, which was adequate in terms of numbers and that... but then as... as
the thing got worse, like checkpoints were set up, they all had to be manned and...
it meant that there was a big influx of people and they were transferred from all
over the country up here to Donegal... especially along, along the border. And... it
meant that there was... an awful lot more personnel.
You could say it went from... what you would call ordinary policing which would be
out patrolling, meeting people just on a community level, but then I mean it was...
you had to deal with the subversive element then you see, which was quite
considerable.
1
�Well, the lads that would have come up from the country and from down, we’ll say
Cork, Limerick... midlands, whatever... they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t have been...
well known at all like to the local people, but those of us that were here at the time,
we would have been known, and that was one thing that existed that time, there
was great community relation... and everybody knew everybody.
The local knowledge of a Guard sure that was paramount... that was paramount so
it was.
Well, as sergeant here in Letterkenny, I was sergeant in charge here in Letterkenny,
I wouldn’t have been at that level I wouldn’t have been out... but... then when I was
promoted inspector or super... as an inspector then like I mean I would have been
out along the border and you know visiting the checkpoints and all that.
The safety, the safety of, of your people on the ground, I mean that was the
number one priority, so it was... and thankfully we were very fortunate. We were
very fortunate in that respect we never lost a member during the whole period, and
indeed... there was often times now and it was... scary enough especially with
young, young recruits, there was a lot of recruiting done at that time too, and you
had a big influx of recruits and that... and... like... to get them tuned in... and to be
aware of the dangers that existed when you went out on searches, all that kind of
thing, and particularly if he came on something you could come on... an arms dump
or whatever... and... like you had to be extremely careful in those situations, and
you had to make sure that young fellahs were aware of the dangers they faced.
The most significant incidents I suppose... well the one that would really stand out
would be the murder of Sam McClean... up in Drumkeen. Sam was, Sam was an
RUC man... and... he was from Drumkeen, just out the road here and... he was
stationed... he was stationed somewhere around mid Ulster, I think. But, on his
days off... Sam came regularly, he came home... and they had a bit of a farm... and
he used work away on the farm and that. And... it was something they were always
conscious of... but [pause] sadly, poor Sam was... ambushed, he was... he was shot
dead at the, the laneway going up to his own house. Along the side of the main
road. It was, it was a dreadful, it was a dreadful, dreadful tragedy. So it was... like it
certainly, it brought the reality home. because nobody expected, despite the fact the
danger was always there, I suppose the fact that he was who he was... and... that
he was serving in the RUC as they were at the time. We all, we were always very
conscious of it, we were always conscious of it... and... in fact the day that he was
killed... I was super here in Letterkenny at the time, and I was in the Strand Road at
a meeting... when the word came in, and even prior to that like, you would talk to
the colleagues, say ‘this man is coming out... make sure he’s aware of the
dangers’... and... he had been warned and had been told by his superiors but... he
2
�still came out anyway, but I suppose his father and mother were alive and... his
brother lived there as well, and it drew him. So it was an awful tragedy, so it was.
Regular hours went out the window... that went out the window, you just... you just
didn’t know from the time you left the house in the morning when you were going to
get home. Just didn’t know... and... because... you could get a call, you could be
home, but you could get a call, you just have to go, that was it like, you had to
respond.
It was there from, from the early ‘70s on right up to the... until the troubles ended.
The pressure was, the pressure was there all the time, so it was... because you
never, you never knew... and even... you had ceasefires... then the ceasefires were
broken and... you just didn’t know what was going to happen.
There was, there was a lot of it, an awful lot of pressure. There was an awful lot of
pressure, and at times it was quite draining. So it was, quite draining... and... not
alone on me personally, but on everybody... ‘twas, ‘twas the same for everybody, so
it was... but [pause] if it wasn’t for the fact that people stuck together and... helped
each other out the Guards, the Guards themselves. They, they certainly... it was
shoulder to shoulder, stuff like, there was no such thing as one fellah swinging the
lead or something like that. Every, everybody had to... put their shoulder to the
wheel, as it were, Because you couldn’t afford to let your guard down as it were...
and it was, everybody had to be... alert at all times, like... that was the long and the
short of it...
Well you see you had... you’d guys that would come out here from the North... on
the run, as it were... and... but there were quite a few of them came out here to
Letterkenny. And... like, they were, they were a full time, full time job like keeping
tabs on them, and... surveillance on them and that. And... but that would be you
know, the plain clothes... staff would be... responsible now for the surveillance
aspect of it because... there wasn’t much point in putting a uniform Guard on
surveillance duties like. But all that, all that like I mean, you had to... more or less
be aware of... that they were here, where they were, what they were up to, And...
then of course they were... recruiting, trying to recruit some of the locals, which
they did And... that was, that was just the way it was.
I mean there was two local lads... and... they had, they served time. And... it was
tough on their parents and... and their families because they were, they were
innocent, greenhorns, and didn’t realise what they were letting themselves in for.
A lot of, a lot of your work would be, picking out particular areas and... searching...
you’d to go out on searches... and that... and then... you could come across... a pipe
in a ditch that might be... an AK47 stuck in it, and... or you could have... maybe a
hole in the ground would be camouflaged over... which we found on a few
3
�occasions... and it would be, you’d have... weapons stuffed into barrels, plastic
barrels... and... homemade explosives then. All that kind of stuff... and... all which
was extremely dangerous, particularly the homemade explosives, because it was so
volatile, so unpredictable, and... I remember one occasion, down in, when I was
down in Buncrana... and... two boys out on patrol, two Guards... two young Guards
out on patrol, they stopped a car and a trailer one night... and... there three
quarters of ton of homemade explosives... on it. Experience taught you, like I mean
you knew what... and... but... the... the car, the patrol car was... more or less
hijacked that night... and they tore the radio out of it, and... and they didn’t take the
car like, but... they pulled out, they disarmed the radio and the lads couldn’t make
contact and... but... that was a terribly wet night too... we got one of the fellahs
afterwards, we got... the following morning, so... but he was, he was a Donegal
man, but... he, he got eight years... for that, but we had, like it was on the side of
the road... you had to close off the road, you couldn’t take a chance... and then you
had to get the Army out to dispose of it... and like... three quarters of a ton of stuff
was quite... It was, was it, there was a fair sized trailer, now... and the car towing it,
But like the two young Guards, like that came across that... it was a traumatic
experience for them, like you know?
I think that because we were unarmed that kept us as we were as it were, And...
the fact that we didn’t go down that road, and I hope they never will But... I think it
was our saving grace... the fact that we were unarmed We weren’t a threat to
anybody. We weren’t a threat to anybody... and we were there... for one specific
purpose... and that was the safety of everybody else. But... and I think it was the
one thing that, that... like okay the... plain clothes boys would be armed and that all
right. But like the plain clothes unit, that we had here in Donegal was, was a small
enough... unit like I mean it wasn’t that we had... dozens of men or anything like
that... But... they were, they were armed all right, but the uniformed, the uniformed
force wasn’t armed, which was... I think it was, ‘twas the one thing that they stuck
to us I think and... in that way I think we were... never alienated from the, the
general public... I think that was the, that was the big, big factor.
The RUC, they would... communicate with headquarters here in Letterkenny, you
see, with the communications centre, and then that would be circulated... you see
out onto the ground as it were, and so that everybody... and then of course,
checkpoints, all that... and mobile patrols would have to be alerted... and on that
level, and... but then like as time went on then we used to have meetings with them
at officer level. And... it was to try and streamline operations and type of stuff.
And... they would come out here on specific occasions, and we would go in to meet
them. And... but it would be basically to... discuss activities and operations and that.
4
�There was cooperation in that respect like. But it took quite a while for that to
develop, like... because there wasn’t a great, before the troubles started like, now
while I, when I was in Castlefin and that now, Strabane and Castlederg would have
been the two... areas that would have been adjoining, And I would have known a
few of the... RUC men there... and, like we would have contact... on a, on a lower
level scale there, And... you’d get to know a few... and it would be just at that level.
But then... as, as the thing... as the thing progressed then, and... it went... when it
went higher up the chain, and then when governments got involved... you see, they
would pass it down to... to our level, as it were... and that’s where the meetings
would take place.
Well the radio, the radio communications and like I mean at least that kept, that
was a big help, because... it was essential, there wasn’t much point in, there wasn’t
much point in having patrol cars out... and having men out on checkpoints... if there
was no communication, but it was all the radio... communication, they’d no walkie
talkies and that, so that was, that was certainly a big help.
Visits were done very discreetly and... and we all knew what was... like they were
coming out here, we’d take certain precautions out here and make sure that
everything was... taken care of, as it were... that roads would be patrolled and...
and that the route would be known and the road would be patrolled and... they’d be
taken to their destination and... left safely back home again. And vice versa, then
like.
It would be formal for the most part, now you had to keep it at a formal level for our
operational purposes and all that, but then like I mean you would, of course you
would develop and with... a few people.
You never knew when you’d get back, like because it depended on what... what was
happening on the ground, many a dinner was burnt in the oven.
Well... my family back home were, there was a certain apprehension... so there
was, certain apprehension... but like... as I say you just... try keep... much as you
could from them like I mean, they... they’d hear it on the television or the radio or
whatever, or read it in the newspapers.
Paul my son he was the only one that... followed the uniform line he is in the Army.
Oh there was good times, indeed there was... there was good times too
5
�The Garda family, that was vital... that was vital. As the fellah, ‘twas vital to your
survival... as it were And... it was, it was very, very essential that there was that...
bond... there And that... you could depend, everybody could depend on each other,
because that’s basically what it was about.
6
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (<em>collection</em>) [NC]
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.)
Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016).
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.green-and-blue.org/
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Diversity Challenges Board
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
39
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
18
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 21 March 2015)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Published book; and Web site
Language
A language of the resource
English
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
Tim Kelly
Date Type
Publication, Submission, Completion date etc.
Completion date 2014
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of audio interview.
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
6
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Website
Publisher
Diversity Challenges Board
Publication Type
Report, Book, Manual etc.
Transcript
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Untitled Story</em><span>, by </span><span>Tim Kelly </span><em>(story transcript)</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Tim Kelly which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
2862
Diversity Challenges
Green and Blue
-
https://accounts.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/files/original/8abbcb2db95947fdd92cde84efb214ef.pdf
7de39af40f68b54f075346db5b524b33
PDF Text
Text
Green and Blue Project
Pat Finn Interview Transcript
I’m from Galway. And I came to Clonakilty in May, 1968, and I had my full service in
Clonakilty apart from my temporary transfers.
My first trip to the border was in 1970, I went there in March... of 1970, to
Ballyconnell was on the border ‘twas in the Cavan/Monaghan Division, and... we
thought we’d be there for a couple of months, but as it happened... the Conroy
Commission... was set up prior to that and... the Conroy Commission was published
around that time, and the individuals... most of the fellahs who were on the border,
there was very few females at the border at that time, but we were all brought back
to our stations and for the first of April, because new conditions came into the
Garda... police force, Garda force, in 1970, so that was my first trip to the border.
Well we knew like ‘twas border patrols, but now I knew where Ballyconnell was on
the map, but ‘twas my first trip to the border, and the fact that there was a number
of sergeants there, we were in... all different accommodation... and I replaced some
of the members from Clonakilty, or Clonakilty District, so... I would have gone into
the same accommodation, as they left, so then we would have been on... long shifts
I think that time, prior to the Conroy Commission a long shift would be... maybe...
nine, nine hours maybe or well maybe even ten hours maybe, you wouldn’t have the
same now, when the Conroy Commission came in, this, ‘twas eight hour shifts as
such, but prior to that you could have been on longer shifts, and you would, there
was... in actual fact you got no, you got no pay for overtime in other words.
You could be called out, and there’d be no, there’d be no payment for the longer
hours, but as it happened we were... now, I got to know the... the number of people
that were in the sergeants and the Gardaí and as well, and I got to know the border
areas, now we were told it could be towards the border, it’s one good thing about...
all my trips to the border, is the fact that... each individual... that I met... they were
very helpful... because they knew like that we didn’t know the border areas, and
they also gave us... advice in relation to the people that we could mix with, and the
areas that we should not mix in.
I would have known a bit about it, but not to the extreme, the fact that you see,
sometimes you see people might talk, to talk to you, and they could be... asking you
questions, which, which now though I’m lucky enough that time we got advice, in
the winter when we arrived there, and now luckily enough again I didn’t meet
anybody... that... I got any awkward questions... from.
1
�You had to be vigilant, is right, and ‘twas good experience as well, because... being
only in Clonakilty, and I was in Dublin for... a number of months, way back in 1969,
and outside of Clonakilty that was, Ballyconnell was my... other station, first station
the border, and... again it gave me an insight into what the border was about.
You see, the border was totally different to the... Clonakilty, and to Dublin, because
you met... different people... that could be... subversive in other words, and in
actual fact, crossing the border then, as well as everything else, now you went as far
as the border, but you didn’t cross the border, and the border was new to me,
‘cause I’d never been in Northern Ireland, prior to that... and Northern Ireland was,
to me, even though I had been in England, and I had met a lot of people from
different nationalities... but I did not know people from the north of Ireland, and...
also the fact of the criminal activities that were happening there, I would have
known nothing about that, and a fortnight was too short, so I didn’t learn an awful
lot at that particular time.
I went back up to Kinlough in 1971... Kinlough is in, is in north, is in north Leitrim,
it’s quite close to the Donegal border as well, and I, being single that time, being
single we were sent there for two months, and the one thing about Kinlough that I
remember clearly about Kinlough is the fact that there were a number of people
living in Kinlough Sub-District... and they had escaped from Long Kesh... so we got
to know then individually, and collectively as well, and we did... well we met them
different times, and we’d have stopped them at checkpoints, and we were aware of
who they were, and... that time, there was very few individuals carrying... firearms...
and they would, sometimes you would be accompanied by Army... and then you’d
be quite, you know... happy to stop individuals who you knew like were subversive
and they could be dangerous, maybe we didn’t know, but as it happened, they didn’t
create any difficulty for us, even though they did... tell us that they didn’t like being
stopped... and the fact that if they, you know that if they were stopped too often
that they could, you know they could get angry... but now we didn’t allow anybody
getting angry, because we said we were told to do our work, and our duty, and... it
was part of our work to... stop them, and search the cars, and search themselves if
they need be.
No, no there was nothing found that we, that I, at that particular time, now we did
do, we did some searches, but there was nothing found of... in relation to anything
that... subversives would need, or... would have hidden, so we don’t know whether
they had or not, and these fellas that we knew like that time, came across the
border, and they just weren’t, didn’t want to be part of Northern Ireland, because
they knew they were wanted in Northern Ireland, and... we... did have some...
knowledge, but they will, the [pause] RUC, police in the north knew they were living
there, but and we were... we were... kept notes in relation to the times we stopped
those people, and who they were, you know, just give them some, and would be
passed on, I think it was passed on, we passed it on to our sergeants and
2
�inspectors, and the superintendent, and that would be passed on probably, I assume
it was passed on, I don’t know, but we didn’t do it ourselves.
Just would meet the RUC on the border, we’d have just general conversation with
them now... because again we wouldn’t have been, and see... you don’t talk to
people too long... when you don’t know them, and we just got to know them, and
we knew they were policemen, and they knew that we were from the south of
Ireland, and they didn’t, you know, we just give them the time of day, or maybe just
talked about a few things that were happening, maybe ‘twas... about football, which
they would be... you know, some of them would have known a good bit about
football and things like that as well, because... they wouldn’t know that much about
hurling, and on the border, so... and whatever was happening in the areas as well,
we’d just have a short discussion with them.
In actual fact, that was my first time using the... the car radios, we didn’t have car
radios in... in West Cork at that particular time, so got used to them again in the...
the two-way, because they had a radio... in every station in the border at that time,
and we were able to have communication when we were out, and with the station at
all times, which was a big help as well. It was, we thought it was at that time, but...
‘twas very small compared with communication nowadays.
Well what we did socially now, we... we travelled, you know to Kinlough, and just
before we’d start duty, maybe an hour or two before we’d start duty, and... now,
and again ‘twas eight hour shifts, we started maybe on a, ten o’clock on a maybe a
Monday night... and then we would finish maybe on the... next Saturday, and we’d
go to dances in, the Beach Hotel was one of the places we used to go to in... down
in Mullaghmore... and Mullaghmore in actual fact, that was one of the things, place
we covered actually during the summer, because of Lord Mountbatten.
I was there, there were different times when Mountbatten, the Lord have mercy on
him, Lord Mountbatten was, was coming there on holidays... and we would patrol
that area, and we got to know him, you know casually now, we didn’t, what I mean
casually, we had a... short conversation with him too, from time to time during the
summer that he was there, he was there for a couple of months in summer...
because he had a residence there, and... we seen him go out in his boat as well,
and... some of the people that he would be with as well, you know... again we... just
knew him... and we didn’t know very few, we knew some of the staff, but we didn’t
know them by name, and he was very nice towards everybody, you know, and...
very courteous to us as well, now he seemed a... fine, straight individual, and and...
very friendly.
We got back into normal routines again, and then that was my, you know, the 1971
was my, I spent two months at that time, and then eight months after I went back,
3
�in 1973... and I spent any number of, I spent eight months at that time, ’72 – ’73...
and again we would have done the same thing, but again like I said, we could have
Bundoran maybe for, you know when we would have... time off, and we would go to
the local dances there, and as well as that, we would go to the beaches in...
Mullaghmore, or Bundoran, and we got to know... you see we were only temporary,
and we got to know the fellas from the different areas, that would have been nearer
the border and we got friendly with them as well too, so we created good friendship,
and again... where we were living where, it was quite good accommodation as well,
we got well fed, and we got on well with the sergeants that were there as well and
they were there permanent, there was three sergeants there at that particular time,
and I remember the sergeant in charge of... Kinlough, and he couldn’t have been
nicer to us, he gave us loads of advice, and... anything we wanted, and if we
wanted change of shifts... you know he would have been, he’d be very helpful that
way as well too.
We went across the border a few times now, we were gone to... different areas and
then the border, but now ‘twas, we went in our own time in actual fact, I went
dancing a few times across the border as well too, but not too often now, but we
would, we would just, have our identification with us, we didn’t, we drove our own
cars, and that was it, we didn’t, you know that... we were, we would be always
terribly... careful as to where we went, and the fact that we didn’t want people to
know that we were in the Garda force, because we were afraid just of the fact that if
they knew we were Gardaí, they mightn’t like it, some of the people that we’d have
met up there, so we just kept to ourselves that way.
There was no, there was no difficulty... no difficulty for our ID, sometimes we
weren’t even asked for ID, But we just made sure that we were, you know that in
case we were stopped and we did have ID with us.
I went to Blacklion then in 1975, I spent two months there actually, and Blacklion
was right on the border, and there was... an Army post as well right on the border,
and... again it was a smaller area, and the fact that even though, what I found
about Blacklion is the fact there was some members from... permanent there, and
they were very young, and they found it very boring, and that’s what I would have
seen, that’s one of the things disappointed me, is the fact there wasn’t enough
facilities for entertainment, or you know, off time, for individuals who were there
permanent, they would have been... get, I know some of the individuals that were
there in my time, they had a problem with alcohol, you know, again that was one of
the things that disappointed me, now I’m lucky enough again like that I was staying
in Manorhamilton, when I was in Blacklion, and we used to go for games of
handball, and different things like that as well with some of the lads, so...
4
�Twas just part of the duties, and I, we didn’t worry about it, the fact that we were,
we became acclimatised to it, and we got good advice at all times as well too, and
we did what we were asked to do.
There was, it was across the border, on both sides, and they, there was... the Irish
Army were right on the, right on the border... and I’d say they found life boring as
well, because ‘twas very very boring, because they, they were doing all their duties
in the one spot.
No, nothing, nothing... nothing to be alarmed about, now the other thing, the other
station I went to, was Monaghan, I was there in nineteen... the 1980s, 1985-86, that
was now, Monaghan was different, because Monaghan was one of the... I suppose
areas where there was a lot of... subversives there... and we knew, we got to know
them, now and I got to know some of them as well too, and there was incidents
when, when I was in Monaghan... because there was... two subversives I can’t think
of their names now, but they were shot in the north of Ireland, and there was
funerals that we attended, and... Scotstown was one of the areas where there was
one of the, those people buried, and... the build up to the funerals was, now... that
was a bit scary... now not for ourselves, but you could feel, you could feel the
tension, the tension that was building up because they, the Garda force knew like
that there was a big funeral coming off, and they knew like that there’d be a lot of...
publicity and the fact there would be so many people, subversives and lots of other
people supporting them, now we, we had no worries about them, deep down, but
you could, again there was tension, but lucky enough I think on all the funerals they
were at, and McIlwaine was one of the individuals I can remember now, I just
thought of his name now, they were shot when I was there you know, and... you
could feel again all the pressure... and... the public themselves were waiting for
things to happen, now there was... fellahs in balaclavas, they would have fired shots
at the grave and things like that as well too, and then there was checkpoints going
to and from the, the funerals, you know that I was at, so again, that was one of the
times that you could feel the tension again, like I said... and also the fact... that
there was always a danger point or the possibility of a danger point.
Ah ‘twas tense in that you could feel a bit, each individual was, every individual was
going out there was... was tense because of the... possibility of something
happening, ‘twas more so the possibility, so... people were delighted when, I can tell
you when the, those... funerals were over, we felt sorry for the, you know the
people who were shot, but there was nothing we could do about it whatsoever,
because the fact that... they were doing probably something they shouldn’t have
been doing, and I mean sure they were in places, where they shouldn’t have been.
I was in Monaghan two different, three, two or three different occasions... matter of
fact I was in two stations in Monaghan, because I was in the old station, and the
5
�new station, because my first time up there was in the, in the old station, and then
by the time I got back again... so again we met, now made a lot of good friends
there, and that’s the other thing about Monaghan that I remember clearly, is the
first day I arrived there, I was told if I, that if I was taking a drink... there was some
of the pubs... that I should avoid... and also the fact that... the pubs that were safe
to go into, and that you wouldn’t be taunted or asked questions, and... that you
would feel... comfortable, which is very very important, and that was great advice
again.
Oh you could, safety... safety comes, is very very important to each and every one
of us, and the fact that you were... because people would get to know you... in a
short period of time if you were inside in a pub, and no matter where you went, that
you’re a stranger... so and then you would, maybe you went with a couple of more
colleagues, and then you like,
They’d recognise is right, and they could be, if you went to the wrong pub, you’d
never know what you... we were advised, got great advice.
I felt in actual fact there was more tension as well too, like Monaghan was... was
now the one station like I said, in relation to all the tension when I was in...
Kinlough, and Ballyconnell and Blacklion, there was less tension up, less tension
because I think the next factor was less fear... even though they... some time
afterwards there was an incident, there was serious, bomb, there was bombing in, in
Blacklion, but that wasn’t in my time now, but you could feel some of the, you know,
this again... the locals in Blacklion were lovely, but it was who was coming and going
through Blacklion was the danger. ‘Twas busy, oh ‘twas busy, yeah... so there was
full-time checkpoints...
It was at your discretion, now again you took, now there’d normally be some of the
local... Gardaí... that were permanently there, and you’ll be supporting them, more
so than anything else, and the same, any station we were in, and they weren’t,
We were lucky with accommodation now, each time I went to the border... in, in
Ballyconnell and Kinlough, we were lucky enough that we got... very good
accommodation, even though there was... now, one in Kinlough, on one occasion...
and one of the time we were there for a number of months, we moved into a house,
four of us moved into a house on our own, so we did our own cooking and our own,
you know, everything else, which was a small bit cheaper than... getting... fed from
landladies and things like that as well, and I can definitely say that... the landladies
looked after us well.
6
�The weather in the north of Ireland, I found now, not so much in Kinlough or... well
Blacklion yes, in some ways there was a bit, a lot colder, now ‘twas the month of
January and February that I was there in 1975... but in 1985 I went to...
Monaghan... and the weather was very very cold there, in actual fact ‘twas so cold
the first couple, I was only there a couple of days, I went back and I decided I’d
buy... pair of long johns, and... because again ‘twas five or six degrees colder than
here, and the checkpoints were longer then too, because we, at that time I was
armed... I was armed you see, now I was in the Technical Branch when I went to
Monaghan, and the fact that you were armed, you’re doing eight hour duties, and...
and if you’re there from ten o’clock at night ‘til six in the morning and it was very
very cold, and there was an occasion actually, on a number of occasions, I suppose
the weather was so cold that fellahs went to light a fire nearly on the side of the
road Yeah, keep themselves warm, that’s what we found now, that there was, other
than that the conditions we were in great accommodation in fairness.
Well we had to keep walking in matter of fact, because if you stayed standing you
would get, you’d be very very cold altogether, so what we’d do was we used to go in
pairs and... pace the road as much as we could, and everything was stopped that
particular time as well.
We also did escorts as well too from time to time from the Post Office, from Sligo,
when I was in Kinlough, now, the escorts of the mails, and we used to go to the
different village, you know we’d be in Sligo in the mornings, especially if there was
any morning they’d be carrying cash could be the first Tuesday... and then on the
Friday mornings, we did, you know we did that fairly regular from Kinlough, that’s
the only other thing I can remember now, there was...
I was married when I was in... Monaghan...We had, yeah, we had children in, two
children in 1985, ’86 but sometimes they would have stayed in Galway because my
wife’s from Galway as well, and they might have stayed in Galway for some period,
so then times they stayed in Clonakilty.
There was no mobile phones in other words, yeah you would’ve... kept contact with
the Garda station, the Garda station was, you know you could ring the Garda station
and... you’d make the time, that you’d be there.
Well yeah, maybe on occasions, yes... but then we were home on our rest days, we
were home for the... two or three days, in you know every week, so that was...
7
�Ah ‘twas yeah, it was two hundred and fifty miles from Clonakilty to Monaghan, but
you, at that time when you’re younger you don’t take as much notice as you would,
The roads were bad, but lucky enough like, that there was only one occasion that I
had a mishap, a slight mishap, when I was travelling from, there was a lot of snow
on the road from... Kinlough to Galway... my car skidded and snowed very very
heavy snow, and I just... touched a wall, lucky enough I didn’t do... I just broke a
headlamp, that was all,
It was, but you knew, you see, you would be only away for a week, you know,
Come back is right, then you didn’t mind that, and you knew like that things were
going... you know, that you would saw [sic] them... regularly.
8
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Green and Blue Across the Thin Line (<em>collection</em>) [NC]
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of 39 stories that were compiled as part of a project with the aim: "To develop a storytelling project reflecting the cooperation and interaction between former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary and former members of An Garda Síochána along the border from the establishment of the two Police Forces to 2001." (From the Green and Blue website.)
Extracts from the 39 recorded interviews were published in book format in 2014. The associated Green and Blue website contains full transcripts for 24 of the interviews. The website also contains 18 interview audio files (as of 22 January 2016).
URL
Non DC - URL of Organisation / Project
http://www.green-and-blue.org/
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Diversity Challenges Board
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Stories Collected
Non DC - Number of stories recorded as part of the project.
39
Stories Deposited
Non DC - Number of stories deposited with Accounts of the Conflict.
18
Collection Permission Form
Non DC - Collection permission form signed and returned.
Yes (signed: 21 March 2015)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Published book; and Web site
Language
A language of the resource
English
Delayed Access
Non DC - Yes/No on request for delayed access.
No
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Police Services; Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland; 1920s to 2001
Publication
A book, article, monograph etc.
Author
Author of the publication
Patrick Finn
Date Type
Publication, Submission, Completion date etc.
Completion date 2014
Publication Title
Full title of publication, as it appears on item.
Transcript of audio interview.
Publication Status
Published, in Press, Unpublished, etc.
Published on-line
Number of Pages
8
Publisher Location
Place of publication: city / town
Website
Publisher
Diversity Challenges Board
Publication Type
Report, Book, Manual etc.
Transcript
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Untitled Story</em><span>, by Patrick Finn</span><span> </span><em>(story transcript)</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript (PDF) of the audio recording of interview with Patrick Finn which was recorded as part of the Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Green and Blue – Across the Thin Line project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
PDF version of transcript
Language
A language of the resource
English
Availability Online
Non DC - Availabilty Status (deposited, delayed, external, cain)
deposited
Catalogue ID
Non DC - ID for the Catalogue entry that relates to this entry
2855
Diversity Challenges
Green and Blue