'Burntollet' by Bowes Egan and Vincent McCormack

On January 4th, in Derry, the last semblance of law and order vanished. Here, riot-clad policemen advanced on a store. A counter assistant said: "They started bataning all the customers. They took runs at people; they struck a boy to the ground, and kept on hitting everyone unmercifully."

BY early afternoon the public meeting in Guildhall Square ended and the battered marchers moved to the City Hall. A meal had been provided by Derry Citizens' Action Committee, and nurses and local doctors had transformed dining rooms and bedrooms into impromptu first-aid clinics. But, out in the streets, trouble was mounting. Contingents of attackers from Burntollet, and from Irish Street swarmed into town. On arrival, they were allowed ready access to the area behind the city walls which had been barred to the marchers some time earlier. This had a single and inevitable result; a growing mob of armed people was concentrated in the high town centre, and stones and bottles were showered by them into Guildhall Square, among the dispersing crowd that had greeted the People's Democracy. The police provided human barriers to prevent this militant crowd from moving down the steep hill into the square, but several observers took a cynical view of this manoeuvre. One Civil Rights steward who has detailed knowledge of the city said:

"They are in line only to baton us if we retaliate against the mob. Look at how they have chosen their ground. The Paisleyites can shower stones right down on our meeting. Yet they are wholly protected by police with riot sticks."

"The doors burst open, and about twenty policemen came in. They just started batoning all the customers. They took runs at people and smashed the glass of the counters. They struck a boy to the ground, and kept on hitting everyone unmercifully with their batons. I saw them beat a man who was carrying his groceries."

Now began a storm of police devastation that may have been spontaneous, but has many characteristics of action designed to subjugate people roused to an appreciation of their democratic rights by the Civil Rights campaign. The philosophy of "reprisals" against Catholic groups which display any militant tendency is well known to the R.U.C. And the theory has been put in practice on many occasions in the past. A series of reported and authenticated incidents that took place on January 4th and 5th are listed here:

One man was taken to hospital unconscious. His wife describes what happened:

"I think he was hit with a stone first, for he fell to the ground. The police rushed down on us, and swept on past. But a number trailed behind and kicked and batoned him as belay on the ground."

On January 7th, the Irish News published a number of accounts offered by victims:

"Mr. Neill Nash of Mura Place, said that at 5.15 p.m. on Saturday police threw stones at the windows of a block of flats. 'As a result of their activities my seven-year-old daughter went into convulsions. I had to call my doctor for my daughter and my wife, who had got into a very nervous state.'

"At about 2.45 a.m. on Sunday, police came on to the balcony in the flats. They started to hit the railing with their batons and banged on the doors and shouted things such as, 'Prostitutes' and 'Bless yourselves the Sacred Hearts'. I waited till all was quiet, and moved my wife and family to my sister's flat on the eighth floor. I returned to my own flat today."

Mr. John Boyle, aged 75 years, tells that:
"On Saturday, at approximately 4.45 p.m., I was leaving a shop after getting the paper. I looked and I saw a squad of policemen charging up William Street. They attacked me and batoned me unmercifully. Later I was admitted to Altragelvin Hospital and was treated for wounds and received anti-tetanus injections. I am an old man and am naturally unable to offer any resistance. As a result of this incident my eyesight has been slightly affected."

"I was in bed when I realised something was going on. I went to the window, pulled up the blind, and looked out. A policeman came over, and hit the window with his baton. I went to the door and was spoken to by a policeman, who said, 'You Fenians will have no windows left tonight.' There was another policeman throwing bricks through every window. I told the policeman that I was an American citizen. He said: 'You're a Fenian Bitch'."

"I myself was then approached by a constable, who spoke to me. Another constable charged at me like a madman. I got inside and closed the door. The constables then kept banging on the door with pick handles. It is my impression that this policeman was under the influence of drink. They stayed for a while, smoking and singing."

Derry, January 4th . . . . One constable (left of picture) hurls a stone. Later that day, and in the early hours of Sunday, the Catholic slum part of the city was terrorised by rampaging policemen, breaking windows and doors, batoning, beating, stoning, and shouting threats and obscenities.

Following these outrages, the Derry Citizens' Action Committee gathered more than a hundred statements from people directly affected. Here are a few extracts:

"At quarter to three in the morning, a crowd of police in our street were shouting, 'Hey, hey, we're the Monkees. We'll Monkee you around 'till your blood is flowing on the ground... .' I looked out the window and one shouted, 'Come on out you Fenian, 'till we rape you'." - Mrs. Teresa Donnelly.

"At 1.55 a.m. on Sunday I brought my neighbour's son in as the police were about to get him. The police began to batter my door and they smashed the windows while I was standing at the window. In my opinion, they were under the influence of drink. I had to take in a pregnant woman. She was terrifled." - Mrs. Anne McKane.

"At two in the morning on Sunday, police carrying shields and dustbin lids and batons broke our windows. My mother is physically handicapped and was in bed in a downstairs rooms. When they smashed her window I came downstairs and opened the door. I am physically handicapped myself, 4 ft. 6 ins, in height, 5 st. 4 lbs. in weight. These police surged around me at the door. One put a baton at my throat and pushed me into a hallway.

"My mother struggled out to me, and one of them pushed her against the wall, shouting, 'Get in you Fenian bastards.' One shouted, 'We should have given you this 50 years ago.' My mother asked them why they broke the windows and then they used vile, obscene language, then they moved into the middle of the street and pelted my mother and I with stones." - William Harkin.

Just returned from holiday in England, where he had spent the last days, Prime Minister Terence O'Neill issued a statement on Sunday afternoon:

"I want the people of Ulster to understand in plain terms the events which have taken place since January 1st. The march to Londonderry planned by the so-called People's Democracy was, from the outset, a foolhardy and irresponsible undertaking. At best, those who planned it were careless of the effects which it would have; at worst, they embraced with enthusiasm the prospect of adverse publicity causing further damage to the interests of Northern Ireland as a whole.

"I commend all those who, like the leader of the Nationalist Party, urged that this foolish proposal should be abandoned. I must take quite a different view of those others who, for whatever reasons, endorsed and encouraged it.

"Wiser counsels did not prevail, and the organisers decided to proceed. I know that many decent people, seeing the ill-feeling which has since arisen, have asked the question-why was the march allowed to go on? The simple answer is that this is a free country in which people have a right-which ought as far as possible to be protected-to state views, however foolish and illjudged and untimely they may be, provided they keep within the law.

"It is true that the Minister of Home Affairs retains a power to ban processions or meetings; and I may say here that Captain Long has, of course, had my full support throughout this difficult week. But the Minister's power to ban is one to be used only when the police consider their own powers inadequate. Provided others respected, as law-abiding citizens should do, the right of peaceful demonstration, there was no reason for physical violence of any sort on the route of the march to Londonderry.

"But in the event, two things have happened. Some of the marchers and those who supported them in Londonderry itself have shown themselves to be mere hooligans, ready to attack the police and others. And at various places people have attempted to take the law into their own hands in efforts to impede the march. These efforts include disgraceful violence, offered indiscriminately both to the marchers and to the police, who were attempting to protect them.

"Of course, those who were responsible for this violence were playing into the hands of those who are encouraging the current agitation. Had this march been treated with silent contempt and allowed to proceed peaceably, the entire affair would have made little mark and no further damage of any sort would have been done to the good name of Ulster.

"Indeed, in turning their backs in peaceful disapproval of these irresponsible and misguided people, those who disapprove of them would have shown a maturity which could only have won new respect. The extremism of the Republicans, radical Socialists and Anarchists cannot be defeated by the forces of some other form of extremism.

"It deserves to be remembered that it was the refusal of decent people, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, to be provoked which made the last I.R.A. campaign such a failure. Peaceful contempt will bring marches to an end where violence only tends to recruit further marchers.

"It is self-evident that the entire situation has gravely stretched the resources of the police. It must be realised that in the whole of Ulster the regular police force amounts to only three thousand men-that is, one policeman to each 500 of the population. At times one in six of the entire force of the Royal Ulster Constabulary was engaged in protecting the march to Londonderry.

"The maintenance of law and order in a democracy depends quite as much upon support for the law and respect for the law by the population at large as it does upon the actions of the police.

"They have handled this most difficult situation as fairly and as firmly as they could. Their advice throughout has been that the imposition of a ban in the particular circumstances of this march would be likely to hinder rather than help them in their task. They are the professionals in this matter and it would be a grave step to set their advice lightly aside.

"But clearly Ulster has now had enough. We are all sick of marchers and counter-marchers. Unless these warring minorities rapidly return to their senses we will have to consider a further reinforcement of the regular police by greater use of the Special Constabulary for normal police duties.

"It is also high time that certain students returned to the studies for which they have the support of the taxpayer and learned a little more about the nature of our society before displaying again such arrogance towards those who have built up the facilities they enjoy.

"I think we must also have an urgent look at the Public Order Act itself to see whether we ought to ask Parliament for further powers to control those elements which are seeking to hold the entire community to ransom.

"Enough is enough. We have heard sufficient for now about civil rights; let us hear a little about civic responsibility. For it is a short step from the throwing of paving stones to the laying of tombstones and I for one can think of no cause in Ulster today which will be advanced by the death of a single Ulsterman."

"At least it meant an end to the fiction that O'Neill was a fair-minded liberal, dedicated to solving social problems. No one in Derry could place any further trust in promises and assurances made by him or by people like him - or at least I thought so at the time."

"Captain O'Neill has devoted about ninety per cent of his statement to condemnation of our march as being irresponsible and foolhardy, and about ten per cent to distaste at the manner in which opposition to the march was expressed. He has described our marchers as hooligans and extremists, while reserving no such terms of abuse for those who blocked our path. After four days, during which we were continually harried and attacked by a highly-organised and mobile squad of thugs whose tactics finally escalated into a series of well-planned and vicious ambushes on the outskirts of Derry, I am astonished by the Prime Minister's statement.

"I cannot comprehend how anyone claiming to believe in democracy and freedom could watch a deliberate and brutal conspiracy to stone and bludgeon a peaceful march out of existence and fail, not merely to condemn, but to act against such a conspiracy. I am more surprised at the partisan tone of Captain O'Neill's statement when I reflect on the total failure of the police to protect and secure safe passage for the march, and their apparent unwillingness to even attempt to disperse or disarm the Unionist extremists."

In the months following Burntollet, it became increasingly obvious that the government and the police force, which is responsible to the Ministry of Home Affairs, were not making realistic investigation of the Burntollet incidents. In April 1969, the North Derry Civil Rights Association decided to organise a march from Burntollet Bridge into Derry. This was conceived primarily as a protest against the authorities which had failed to take steps to identify attackers.

The new Minister of Home Affairs, Robert Porter, made a hasty tour of this contentious area some days before the proposed demonstration was due. He discussed the project with local Orange leaders. He heard reports from the police. Then he issued a Ministerial order prohibiting the march. The reasons he gave for so doing were that he was unable to guarantee that there would be no opposition, and information given to him indicated that firearms might be used to stop the procession. Under protest, the Civil Rights' group decided to respect this ban. But local Orangemen, having succeeded in subjugating the Minister, were taking no chances. Three hundred men, armed in the customary fashion, assembled at the bridge. This group consisted almost precisely of the same individuals who had been involved in the attack on January 4th. Again the special constabulary was well represented.

Once again the behaviour of the police gave rise to serious alarm. Photographers tried to picture the would-be assailants. Comparison of such photographs with those taken at "the first Burntollet" would have been instructive and useful in identifying attackers. The cameras were taken from these photographers by the police, and the film was destroyed by exposure. Car-loads of passers-by were stopped by vigilante patrols in full view of the regular police, on this main road. A number of people were attacked. Cars were smashed up. No action was taken. Part of the mob assaulted some young girls who live near the area and had come to see what was happening. A senior policeman refused to record a complaint. Since then he has denied that such was ever made, despite quite persuasive evidence to the contrary.

In Guildhall Square a crowd gathered to protest about prohibition of the march. While this meeting was in progress, information reached the crowd at Burntollet, and the men, already prepared for action against any Civil Rights group, piled into cars and headed for the city.

Meanwhile, the crowd in Guildhall Square had moved in a body towards Victoria Barracks to protest against failure to act against the policemen responsible for the attack on individuals and houses on January 5th. The barracks has a certain emotive significance to Derry citizens; they associate it, not with a foreign garrison, but as housing place for a gang of licensed thugs. Skirmishes broke out, and a wholesale attack began. Paving stones were dragged up, objects hurled and police driven into the building. Police reinforcements poured into town, and a full-scale battle developed through the streets of Derry. Police, aided by Protestants strategically placed within the city walls, fought with Catholic crowds. Casualties exceeded two hundred, a majority of these being police. Then as the situation seemed about to quieten, the police repeated the medicine used to quell the popular spirit on January 5th. A force a hundred strong rushed through Catholic slum areas smashing windows and doors, batoning, beating and stoning. On one occasion shots were fired. The pathetic Minister of Home Affairs issued a public statement telling how these had been fired by a police sergeant and directed into the air to deter possible attackers. He has never tried to contradict this statement, nor explain how a bullet was discovered lodged in the interior of an inhabited dwelling house. So the connivance of the government with the Orange extremists detonated another explosion. The real, primary, and justified cause of public discontent in Derry-police attack on people in their own houses-was repeated as a cure on April 19th.

Nothing has been done by the government to discover the policemen responsible. No enquiry similar to that established under County Inspector Baillie has been set up. Soon after this Captain O'Neill fell, and the new Prime Minister announced an amnesty for all political offenders; in answer to a parliamentary query he confirmed that this clemency extended to the regular police, and to the special constabulary. The main beneficiaries are the policemen from both forces who have been engaged in criminal activities.