Reminiscence

Another IRA man from Derrybeg, Eddie Grant was killed in a bomb attack on Malachy Clarke’s pub on Monaghan Street on Christmas Eve. A young boy named Harshaw who had called to collect his father also died. 

On the brighter side Derrybeg made the world headlines as the focal point of the massive Civil Rights March the week after Bloody Sunday. 

Many leading figures including MPs, TDs and Irish Ministers took part and were accommodated overnight in case the British Army sealed off the area and prevented people from participating. One resident asked me to photograph his family with his guests, film star Vanessa Redgrave and Bernadette Devlin MP. 

Two students from Leicester University who came here for the March stayed in the ‘Beg with Dessie McGennity and his wife Brea. So impressed were they by the sportsman that they invited him to join a high-powered panel in addressing an audience of over 4000 on the conflict in the North. 

Later they secured employment for Dessie on the University campus!

…. more later …

Thus began a long anti-internment campaign with protest marches and pickets, many involving women and especially the relatives of the internees. 

One of the most controversial incidents was the shooting dead of local lad 12-year-old Kevin Heatley at the Derrybeg estate in February 1973. The schoolboy had been sitting on a wall about 50 metres from his own home when a British soldier fired the single shot which killed him. 

By coincidence a TV engineer, Frankie Finnegan who lived opposite was recording a television programme at the moment when the shot was fired. The recording proved beyond doubt that the Army story – that Kevin had been caught in the crossfire between soldiers and the IRA – was false.

Mrs Margot Haughey and her sister Mrs Mary Mathers happened to be in the vicinity when the army patrol came along. They described how one soldier had ‘strutted across’ from the shops, aimed his rifle towards Main Avenue and fired one shot.

The women ‘thought it was a plastic bullet’ and accused the soldier of ‘having drink taken’. 

When the MP for South Armagh Paddy O’Hanlon visited Mrs Mathers’ home to take a statement, he was dragged from the house by troops, put in a Land Rover and taken to the UDR Centre but later released. 

In the longer term a soldier was charged with the murder but acquitted. 

The funeral was the largest ever seen in the Frontier Town. Black flags were flown everywhere and photographs of the victim appeared in many windows. 

There is a small stone embedded in a garden boundary wall on Main Avenue to commemorate the innocent lad.

……. more later …

The Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association appeared and offered advice and support. Various Defence Associations appeared at the same time. Often barricades were erected at the entrances to our estate. 

I recall at one well-attended public meeting at the Community Centre the late Joe Henry addressed the audience giving instructions on how to prime a bomb and to assemble a Bren sub-machine gun!

Another night, arriving home from the night-desk at The Irish News where I worked I discovered a hijacked lorry, now manned by masked men, blocking the entrance to the estate. I parked by car above in Hospital Road and walked across the Camlough Road into the estate. I was very conscious that hidden British soldiers were probably at that moment training their rifles on me from the top of the Egyptian Arch – and also that the estate’s residents were keeping an eye on everything. 

On reaching the barrier, I offered a hearty ‘Good morning, gentlemen’ to the masked men and proceeded on my way to my home at Fifth Avenue, some 50 metres onwards. 

… more later ….