Wee Annie’s uncle is dead. You might have read about him. He got a line in the New York Times. He was the 72-year old pensioner shot in the Loyalist backlash that followed the Shankill fish shop bombing. Wee Annie’s uncle lived alone. They found him in the living room of his small house — bound and gagged and shot in the head. It is thought that the UDA were trying to get him to call his son to the house. How long they stayed, what torture they put him through, I do not know. But I imagine he was silent, for no son came.
I met Wee Annie in September. I was invited to the wedding in County Tyrone of a couple I know in San Francisco. The groom is from the North, the bride from Scotland. After the ceremony in the small country church in rural Tyrone, we drove forty miles or so, past farms and picturesque villages, across the border to Donegal to a hotel in Bundoran.
It was a great party, the Scottish contingent matching the Irish, song for song, dance for dance. For Wee Annie and her friends it was, perhaps, a rare occasion of light-hearted good fun. No need to worry abut being stopped by the security forces on the way home, we were in good old Donegal, just a few miles away to be sure, but a world of difference.
At the end we would all go away, back to San Francisco, back to New York, back to Scotland, leaving Wee Annie and her friends to get on with their lives in Derry and Belfast. But first we would spend a few days in the North. It was my sister’s first time and she, understandably, was a bit nervous. I remember remarking that “there really wasn’t anything to worry about.” The border check points had become much more automated than when I was there a few years ago — drive-throughs. No British Army officer pointing a gun at me like the last time. No one stopping us at all. All seemed calm.
Sure it was pointed out to me that “that’s the graveyard” where the Loyalist gunman opened fire on Catholic mourners, and, briefly, that whole scene came back to me, and the equally horrifying scene of the two off-duty British soldiers who were dragged from their car and beaten to death. Further along that same road to Belfast there is a lone apartment building with a helicopter landing pad on the roof — the top floor taken over by the security forces. And sure I thought that it would be a good story to do — sometime. Interview the families who live there about how their daily lives are affected by having this military presence living on top of them.
It was a passing thought that comes back to me now as I sit in the relative security of my office in New York City. But I also think about the pub. It was Sunday night and the place was packed. The music was good, definitely better than any traditional music I’d heard played in my home county, Tipperary. It could have been any Irish pub anywhere, except the fiddle player was in a wheelchair, because of a bullet in his back. And my friend whispered to me that, “that fellow over there, just got out after 15 years.” And “y’er man lost an eye — a rubber bullet.”
There were stories and tragedies in every corner, it seemed. And yet here we all were caught up in the swell of the music. Greetings ringing out as people chatted and joked and talked about the great day we had in Donegal. And wasn’t it good that none of us had gotten stopped on the way home? And wasn’t that old wan who’d told us to lock all our doors and not to ask directions of anyone except a policeman, overreacting? Sure that carload of young fellas who led us to the Ormeau Road had been very nice. People in Belfast were grand. No need to worry at all.
But the people of Belfast were only pretending that all was well. Maybe they were putting on a show for the “Yanks.” Maybe we were just lucky to have asked directions from the right people.
When I left there at the end of September little did I know what the next month would bring. The Catholic shootings by Loyalist paramilitaries. The IRA Shankill fish shop bombing. The UFF Halloween “trick or treat” pub shootings that followed — 23 dead in 10 days, including Wee Annie’s uncle.
As I speak on the phone to my friends in Belfast I feel useless. Overwhelmed, and unbelievably sad. What can I do. What can any of us do expect pray for peace? Hope that the Joint Declaration will help. That Clinton will send a peace envoy. That Irish Americans will finally get the message and get on to their congressmen. Because Wee Annie’s uncle deserves more than a line in the New York Times. He deserves not to be just another statistic. These are our people. Let’s not forget that they are real flesh and blood. Our own flesh and blood. It’s time to get involved.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the January/February 1994 issue of Irish America. ♦
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