The journey from Nobody to Somebody…

The Troubles. I remember the darkness. It always seemed to be dark. A combination of winter and broken streetlights.

As I have often said, the arc of events in 1971/72 shaped me.

Internment, Ballymurphy and McGurks Bar in 1971.

Bloody Sunday in January 1972.

And the different kind of moral darkness that was the Claudy Bomb and Bloody Friday.
And it does not get much darker than abduction, torture and murder that scared people like me. Face to face with killers.

It seems odd to mention it. Colour TV brightened our lives. Apparently, the take-up for colour TV was greater in Belfast than in England, Scotland and Wales. Almost always rented from Radio Rentals or Visionhire because buying one was (I think) £300.

Our TV (rented, of course) was delivered the night before the 1972 FA Cup Final. Dirty Leeds beat Not Quite As Dirty Arsenal.

The colour was almost blinding.

And into the winter of 1972/73. And colour TV. Just three channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV and occasional glimpses of RTÉ.

Monday always seemed like a good night. We could watch The High Chaparral and it was on a seasonal rota with The Waltons and Alias Smith and Jones.

I think The Troubles were e a bit like COVID. A form of LockDown.

Outside could be scary. Being stopped and searched by the British Army was a regular occurrence. I can only dine out on anecdotes from three of those occasions. My mother intervened to protect me in Ballymurphy, Auntie Sheila at the corner of Falls Road and Brighton Street. And there was the night I was walking …carrying a bouquet of flowers through Turf Lodge… in a tuxedo hired from Parsons and Parsons.

My sister, then a teenager, had an unpleasant experience. My father had a heart attack and my sister ran out of the house at 2am to go to the only neighbour with a phone and she ran straight into an agitated army patrol. In fairness, it ended well. The army patrol radioed for an ambulance. And it made our mind up to get a phone installed.

Emasculating experiences. No choices.

But while an Englishman’s home is his castle…that might be true in Aldershot, Colchester and Catterick, but it is not true of an Irishman’s home in Ballymurphy, Bogside or Ardoyne.

Again to be fair, we were not searched often.

Our cul-de-sac was kinda cosy. Nobody could drive or even walk past our house. And inside our house was even more cosy. Blazing smokeless coal behind a glass fronted fire. And of course the colour TV which was never switched off.

The Troubles rarely intruded. Of course our house was searched on occasions. I could make it more dramatic and say that our house was “raided”. Being honest, I’d say somewhere between “search and “raid”. The key was the attitude of the “security forces” who entered our home and the attitude of my parents, younger sister and myself.

How many times from 1971 thru 1979 (when we left Belfast). Maybe ten times.

At most two of those occasions were “raids”. Soldiers going into the roof space/attic. Most searches were cursory. The RUC knew the neighbourhood. The British did not. Over time, they gained the “intel”.

In all working class communities (Protestant as well as Catholic) lazily labelled as “rough”, there are the quiet people, the good living people, the spinsters, the chastitute men and I suppose our family were in that category…quiet and good living. We may have been just Paddies to the British but the RUC would have known we had no republican history from the 1950s and I was not part of a republican cousinage with maternal family in Beechmount and paternal family in Andytown.

It is a funny thing but active republicans tended to despise the RUC more than the Army. But passive republicans (nationalists), like my family, tend to despise the Army more.

The “Brits” arrived one Monday evening in early 1973. My mother answered the door and they came into the living room. My mother told them my father had a serious heart condition (true) and she would answer any questions, The officer who told us he was Catholic (English Catholics…you know my feelings) and went into a little spiel about terrorist activity in the area and the Army were here to help the community get the terrorists off our backs. Blah Blah Blah. The kinda thing that the Brits said on the news. Two squaddies with blackened faces took up position with their weapons.

The officer had a manila folder and a plan of our house. He confirmed our address and our family name. Now two front bedrooms. Who sleeps in these rooms…the parents in one room and daughter (17) in the other. And in the small back room…..the son John (20) in the other.

Occupations….Father sickness benefit. Son civil servant and the girl still at school.

Do you have a car? No.

Do you have a phone? Yes. The number? Its ex-directory. You have to tell us. We did. Is it a shared line? Yes. Who is it shared with? No idea. What colour is your phone? Red

What colour is your wallpaper? Now that was actually a tricky one. We did have wallpaper of course but I had recently painted over it and was far too lazy to strip the paper. Yukky green and the trace of a flower pattern underneath. It was awful. And the officers face seemed to agree.

What colour is the paint? Turquoise….no its Green…Apple Green….we all had an opinion. My mother said we still have the tin.

No that wont be necessary. You should agree on a colour. Apple Green…Turqu….no just agree on a colour. OK then Apple Green it is.

How many photographs and pictures are on your living room wall? Well six…..no seven. Well thats a plaque of St Joseph. Its not really a picture. Just pick a number. Ok seven.

Thank you for your cooperation. Please remember all these answers you gave.

And they went away. One squaddie gave me a really dirty look. He was trained for something more confrontational than this nonsense.

Now what was all that about? The thing that got me about being stopped and searched was the feeling of emasculation. Doing what you’re told. Stand with your legs apart and put your hands on the wall. Some lads would answer back and get a rifle butt on their head and they wore the bruise like a badge of honour. They probably looked/look on it as an occupational hazard of living in West Belfast in the early 1970s. They probably don’t even resent it.

On the other hand, a coward like me DOES resent it.

Why were they in our home?

Well consider a group of guys stopped in a car on the Whiterock Road. Have you men any ID? No of course not. What is your name? John Mooney. What colour is your phone, John? Red.

A radio call to the Henry Teggart Barracks. Red? You’re free to go John.

Now we did have limited forms of ID. My chosen one was a Post Office Savings book. But who in West Belfast in 1973 had ID?

I got my first photo ID in 1974…a security pass for Royal Victoria Hospital. I still have it.

I got my first provisional driving licence in 1975 for my infamous Honda C50 (Slugger passim).

I got my first passport in 1976.

ID turned me from a Nobody into a Somebody. Graduated steps in the 1970s. Now that I am a fully fledged Somebody, I am never stopped and stood against a wall. As for ID, in my wallet right now, I have my (all Ireland) free travel pass, an expired Dublin Libraries card, a valid Norn Iron Libraries card, two debit cards and a discount card for a pet store. Oh, and since last month, I have a new provisional driver’s licence, valid until I am 76 years old. I might even do a driving test this time.

All that ID on me now. A Somebody. And yet there is nobody coming into my home asking me about the colour of my living room wall (grey) or my phone (we dont have one) and I am not being stopped in the street.

Of course my family have passports, driving licences if appropriate, security passes for work and bank and credit cards. My grandson (8) has a Revolut card, which I did not know existed until a few days ago.

Of course the journey from Nobody to Somebody is complex. A doctor, homeowner in 1973 started with an advantage over an unemployed labourer, a tenant. When I worked with Belfast Corporation Electricity Department in the early 1970s….62 meter inspectors, one a Catholic, I was often subjected to tales of dirty, poverty ridden houses in Ardoyne and Short Strand.

Some doubted my ability. I think they would have said that employing Catholics was what those MAGA people in USA call “DEI hires”.

And not many of my Protestant co-workers would have much sympathy for security force raids in Ballymurphy. It was not just a question of rights but it was the price we paid for harbouring terrorists in our areas or more politely getting those terrorists off our back.

Nuala O’Faolain, the journalist, put it well. In 1979, she arrived at the VIP car park to witness the visit of Pope John Paul II to Knock in County Mayo. A girl child, not knowing her from the politicians and celebrity journos asked her “are you somebody?” . Ms O’Faolain used that question as the title of a memoir she wrote.

More than likely, religious sisters from Tuam just 40 kilometres from Knock were also waiting to see the Pope and many would surely have been aware of 700 bodies of very young children buried in a septic tank in their convent grounds.

Somebody. Nobody. That is a big thing in Ireland.

Really progress is incremental and I never really kidded myself that the Good Friday Agreement was what turned me from a Nobody into a Somebody. My parents had done the groundwork but I and my wife. we did well.

So Parity of Esteem? how are ya?

Who could possibly be against that? Not just those old bigots in Belfast Corporation and their successors in politics and journalism. Parity of Esteem is not given. It is taken. It is right and proper that no orange feet are on Garvaghy Road.

But in taking parity, it is surprising that those calling themselves liberals, progressives or just middle of the road seek to limit parity. Don’t ask for Irish language cos it’s…divisive. And Orange parades and bonfires….no that’s traditional. Yes I get it that people are far too sophisticated to put Catholic symbols, Irish flags, Sinn Féin posters, SDLP posters, Alliance (!!!) posters, GAA stuff on a bonfire….no not personally. And tyres and pallets and LGBT flags and Polish flags and racist stuff about migrants….oops that’s not traditional and even the progressives would be upset.

Still work to be done. Parades. Bonfires. Scarva.

There is a hierarchy of groups that progressives think it is ok to offend or not ok to offend. It was easier when Basil Brooke was still around.

Who could possibly object to the sons and daughters of Nobodies becoming graduates in science, politics, law, and becoming doctors, dentists, solicitors….journos at the BBC. It’s not as if others are losing out. It is not as if the new Somebodies are taking something from anyone else. We are not “DEI hires”.

It is not as if there are quotas. Except of course in the PSNI…and we have far too much sense for that.

Young people are the Future…GOD help us.

Some young people say….Everything has changed from my day.

Some young people say….Nothing has changed from my day.

They are both wrong.