I went to a Catholic college but curiously I learned little if anything about the conflict here. It was all around us, but we weren’t taught about it, not even its historical significance to what was going on in the news and the papers. I didn’t learn about the 10 hunger-strikers who died in the year of my birth, I didn’t learn about the Fall’s Road Pogroms or Bloody Sunday with a little bit on the Easter Rising but facts and figures on it were few and far between. Strangely, I did learn about the UVF Gun Running in Larne and in Bangor. I learned of how on April 29th, 1914 the entire Larne Battalion of the Central Antrim Regiment of the Ulster Volunteer Force assembled in Drumalis and then marched through the town to the harbour where guns were brought in from Birmingham on the Clyde Valley and then loaded into cars from all over the North. The Larne Gun Running had been planned in the drawing room of Drumalis House, which was located next door to my school.
What context do we use for teaching The Troubles? Do we refer to all combatants as ‘terrorists’ or do we refer to them all as guerrillas? Were they murderers, killers, freedom fighters or patriots? Do we look at the history of our bloody conflict from the viewpoint of republicanism where it fought the British army, its intelligence apparatus, the loyalist paramilitaries, and everything else in between? Where do we start our Troubles history and where does it end? Is everyone portrayed honestly in so much as those who knew Martin McGuinness knew he could go from a jovial, playful, charming figure to steely-eyed seriousness in a split second? Should we tell them that Ian Paisley Senior blamed Catholics and the Catholic church for everything and anything…even while loyalists and Protestants were rioting and killing in the background?
There are so many questions, complications, and straight-up lies that need to be weeded out so that we can teach our children what really happened here. We can safely say the British security agencies which played such a pivotal role in NEI, and by pivotal I mean they instigated much of the murder here, will never give up any of the secrets they hold on NEI or on their agents. The same agents they permitted to carry out murders at will to keep them on the books. Will the likes of Drew Harris tell us what he knows? He knows a lot but for the sake of the future of this place, will he tell us all he knows? Will he allow our children to know what he really did, how he acted as liaison to MI5, and how he and his RUC colleagues weren’t the heroes some make them out to be?
There most definitely should be a chapter in the history of this island on British state collusion here in this little part of the world, of how the brave RUC gave the loyalist terrorists of the UDA the weapons to slaughter 5 people including a child and wound 9 in Sean Graham’s Bookies. It should detail how people like the brave Robert Nairac directed literal terrorism in the 6 counties at the behest of the British Government. It should tell how the same Robert Nairac ran the Glenanne Gang comprising serving RUC officers and UDR militia, a ‘gang of terrorists’ linked to over 120 murders. The same Glenanne Gang blew up the Miami Showband bus in a bid to make it look like Republicans had carried out the bombing. It should detail how a shoot-to-kill policy was run in the North of this island on anyone thought to be in the IRA or even at times republican…even if they were innocent of any wrongdoing. It should tell of how loyalist terrorists were directed by the RUC and Special Branch to target human rights solicitors for daring to believe someone is innocent until proven guilty and how the brave British army’s Parachute Regiment slaughtered 14 innocent unarmed people in Derry for daring to campaign for civil rights.
Our children need to know this history. They need to know what we had to deal with and what they should never have to deal with. They need to make up their own minds but if there is ever any syllabus put together to teach the past it should start with people divulging the truth because reconciliation has yet to happen in NEI, and the truth hasn’t come to light yet on many murders and killings and something tells me, it never will…because the British forces and intelligence services are behind the majority of them in one way or another. How can you get the truth out of that?
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