On This Day / September 19, 1970

Fatal Curfew Recalled

THE Central Citizens Defence Committee (CCDC) in Belfast has launched a 25,000-word attack on the British army tactics in the Lower Falls area of the city on July 3 when a thirty-six hour ‘curfew’ was imposed.

The indictment of the Army, and General Sir Ian Freeland in particular, is contained in a fifty-page book entitled ‘Law? And Orders’.

It is subtitled: ‘The Story of the Belfast Curfew, 3-5th July’.

Mr Tom Conaty, chairman of the CCDC [a local businessman] said: ‘For those of us who remember the reception given to the British army on the Falls in August 1969, in appreciation of their intervention, this is a sad moment because these pages sum up the reasons for the continuing disillusionment of a section of our community for whom disillusionment has been a fact of life for decades.’

In 1969 the British army ‘rescued the minority here from outright slaughter after the Stormont government had abdicated responsibility for law and order in the face of its own sectarian extremists.

‘The pages of British-Irish history were torn up and in the Falls Road the troops were plied with tea and kindness.

‘This, of course, did not suit the Stormont government…’

[Dr Phoenix notes: The Falls Curfew of July 1970, in which five men died, was the definitive turning-point in relations between the Belfast Catholic community and the British Army.

The following months would see the winding-up of the CCDC, an emergency response to the crisis of 1969 in the Falls area involving the church, local businessmen and veteran Republicans as the Troubles intensified.]

Irish Language Club Bombed

TWO explosions – making the North’s total to date 104 – in Belfast early today damaged the offices of Independent Newspapers and a Gaelic-speaking social club off Springfield Road.

The explosion at the newspaper office in King Street blew off part of the roof.

The other explosion caused slight damage to the Cluan Ard Hall in Hawthorn Street, an Irish cultural and social club which was used as a first aid centre during the recent Troubles.

MP Criticised over Strabane Jobs Crisis

STRABANE Labour Party yesterday strongly criticised Mr W S Fyffe, Unionist MP for North Tyrone for his alleged activity in pressing for employment and industry for his constituency.

The statement recalled that it is six months since the unemployment march was held in the town about which Mr Fyffe had stated he did not find it necessary to speak on the platform as to what he was doing for the Strabane area was sufficient.

‘Would he please state publicly what he has done since then?’ the statement asks.