A plaque relating to the 1969 Bombay Street pogroms in Belfast. Sited on the former Sean MacDiarmada's GAC on Falls Road.
"During 12–17 August 1969, Northern Ireland was rocked by intense political and sectarian rioting. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising from the civil rights campaign, which was demanding an end to discrimination against Irish Catholics. Civil rights marches were repeatedly attacked by both Ulster Protestant loyalists and by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), a unionist and largely Protestant police force.
The disorder led to the Battle of the Bogside in Derry, a three-day riot in the Bogside district between the RUC and the nationalist/Catholic residents. In support of the Bogsiders, nationalists and Catholics launched protests elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Some of these led to attacks by loyalists working alongside the police. The most bloody rioting was in Belfast, where seven people were killed and hundreds more wounded. Scores of houses, most of them owned by Catholics, as well as businesses and factories were burned-out. In addition, thousands of mostly Catholic families were driven from their homes. In certain areas, the RUC helped the loyalists and failed to protect Catholic areas. Events in Belfast have been viewed by some as a pogrom against the Catholic and nationalist minority.
The British Army was deployed to restore order and state control and peace lines began to be built to separate the two sides. The events of August 1969 are widely seen as the beginning of the thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles."
SOURCE - (
visit link)
"Falls–Shankill interface near Clonard Monastery
On 15 August, violence continued along the Falls/Shankill interface. Father PJ Egan of Clonard Monastery recalled that a large loyalist mob moved down Cupar Street at about 15:00 and was held back by nationalist youths. Shooting began at about 15:45. Egan claimed that himself and other priests at Clonard Monastery made at least four calls to the RUC for help, but none came.
A small IRA party under Billy McKee was present and had two .22 rifles at their disposal. They exchanged shots with a loyalist sniper who was firing from a house on Cupar Street, but failed to dislodge him, or to halt the burning of Catholic houses in the area. Almost all of the houses on Bombay street were burned by the loyalists, and many others were burned on Kashmir Road and Cupar Street – the most extensive destruction of property during the riots.
A loyalist sniper shot dead Gerald McAuley , a member of the Fianna (IRA's youth wing), as he helped people flee their homes on Bombay Street.
At about 18:30 the British Army's The Royal Regiment of Wales was deployed on the Falls Road. where they were greeted with subdued applause and cheering. However, despite pleas from locals, they did not move into the streets that were being attacked. At about 21:35 that night, the soldiers finally took up positions at the blazing interface and blocked the streets with barbed-wire barricades. Father PJ Egan recalled that the soldiers called on the loyalists to surrender but they instead began shooting and throwing petrol bombs at the soldiers. The soldiers could only fire back on the orders of an officer when life was directly threatened. The loyalists continued shooting and burned more Catholic-owned houses on Bombay Street, but were stopped by soldiers using tear gas."
SOURCE - (
visit link)
The Plaque reads -
To the rear of Clonard Monastery sits Bombay Street.
In the aftermath of the 1969 pogroms, in which
hundreds of homes were destroyed, a group of Irish
speakers associated with Belfast's Gaeltacht came to
the aid of local people. These enterprising Irish
speakers, who proudly declaired their idependence
of all political parties, rebuilt the houses to the
highest standards of the time as a
symbol of hope.
Above this English text is a Gaelic version of the same.