The goverment press release reads: “Monday’s papers reported on renewed violence in Northern Ireland which left four men dead and twelve people seriously injured. In Belfast loyalist UFF, gunmen murdered three Catholic men in a gun and grenade attack on a betting shop. The attack was described in the Irish Times as ‘a virtual carbon-copy repeat of the UFF attack on a bookies shop’ in Belfast last February which left five people dead. In a separate incident, an RUC reserve constable was murdered by the IRA in County Fermanagh. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. David Andrews T.D., condemned the killings and appealed to all concerned to avoid unleashing a ‘cycle of violence which would bring only further death and misery.”
Irish Independent Friday, November 10:
Two men killed and a number injured in Loyalist and IRA gun attacks in the North last night.
In Co. Down one man was killed and at least three wounded when gunmen burst into a Catholic owned public house. The dead man was named Peter McCormack (42) a farmer and former teacher. Customers, who were watching a darts match, had no chance to escape when automatic fire was spread around the Thierafurth Inn at Kilkoo, Castlewellan. The UVF claimed responsibility for the killing.
Only a few hours carlier, a 27-year-old part-time member of the Royal Irish Regiment was shot dead in his car while his three-year-son watched in horror from the back seat…. He had been waiting for his wife to come off the day shift at a chicken factory….
I talk to a friend in Belfast by phone. I hope that she is going to tell me that things are not as bad as they sound. But a casual opening line of “how was your weekend?” brings no casual answer. “A man was shot dead outside my door,” she says. “I knew him well, he would come up to meet his wife getting off work. He’d pass this way at least twice a day. They left his body lying there hours. [Pause] They shot him because he was Catholic.” [The neighborhood of nice, well-kept brick houses used to be 90 percent Protestant but is now 30-70]. She goes on to tell me how the UFF read a statement in the local pub to the effect that there were too many Fenians drinking there and that they were going to do something about it. They used the term “ethnically cleanse.” Isn’t it scary to hear this catch-cry associated with the horrendous horrors in Bosnia, applied to Ireland?
The incidents mentioned happened over a period of a couple of days and shows an escalation in violence on both sides that doesn’t have a ceiling. There’s enough fresh seeds of bitterness being sown in children as young as 3 years old to keep the carnage going on for eternity.
All this takes place as the Irish government announces a complete collapse in talks.
Is there any hope?
Rooted in our differences. Stubborn opposite sides of the same coin. I believe that we need an outside mediator to help get the dialogue going and I think that we need to look in the direction of America.
President Carter, when I spoke to him a couple of months ago, [through the introduction of a fine Irish American, Bill Flynn], said he was only waiting for an invitation from the proper sources to go to Northern Ireland. Carter and his group work out of the University of Atlanta and continually monitor trouble spots in the world where he and his team have acted as mediators. Maybe there is some hope there?
President Clinton has offered to appoint a peace envoy to Northern Ireland. The idea does not rest well with the British but if an envoy is not forthcoming, perhaps the new administration has enough clout to arrange peace talks to be held here in the United States. Peace talks to which all would be invited. [Mutual of America, of which Bill Flynn is president, sponsored, with tremendous success, an international “Beyond Hate” conference in Derry last September.] This would mean lifting the visa-ban on Gerry Adams and others. Such talks would be a monumental task to set up as would persuading and cajoling all involved to attend but it would show the world that someone is finally taking the Irish situation seriously.
Where America leads others will follow.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on page 5 of the January February 1993 issue of Irish America. ♦
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