On This Day / September 25, 1971
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
September 25, 2021
Publication Date
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Summary: On This Day – 25th September 1971, Harold Wilson blamed internment for deepening Northern Ireland’s crisis, while violence, protests over Army behaviour and intimidation continued in Belfast. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Wilson on Internment | On This Day – 25th September 1971
THE decision to introduce internment and the way in which it was carried out had created a new and grave situation in NI, Mr Harold Wilson, the Opposition leader, said at Westminster.
‘There should be established, as a matter of urgency, a Government of National Reconstruction representing, to a great degree, the elected majority in NI but including responsible leaders of the Catholic community.’
‘There could be no doubt that the sharp deterioration in the situation, the deepening divide between the two great communities, owed a great deal to the decision to engage in an internment operation’.
Three Shot from Speeding Car
SHOTS which injured a Belfast man and two young girls in Durham Street did not come from the Divis Flats complex in Lower Falls, local residents emphasised last night.
Injured in the shooting were 32-year-old Mr Edward McCloskey, schoolgirl Mary Magee (13) and six-year-old Linda Parker. They all sustained chest wounds.
Reports that the shots came from the flats were denied by residents who said that the fire was directed from a car which sped over the Boyne Bridge afterwards.
Paras’ Behaviour Sparks Protest
ABOUT 250 women and children held an impromptu meeting in Holy Cross Primary School in Butler Street, Belfast to protest against the behaviour of the Paratroopers in the Ardoyne area since last Friday.
Some of the women wanted to keep their children home from school as a protest about the soldiers’ attitude to women and children on the street.
Mrs Rita Magee said that on the previous night when she was standing beside Fr Ailbe, CP [Holy Cross Monastery], who was trying to calm an excited crowd, a Paratrooper had fired a rubber bullet at the priest. The bullet had instead hit Mrs Magee.
Impact of Intimidation
ABOUT 10,000 men, women and children in the North have been driven from their homes by violence or the threat of violence, said Mr Oliver Napier of the Alliance Party.
Intimidation, he said, was the most common single crime today. Vile letters circulated in many estates to back up bands of thugs who threaten women and children.
Mr Napier said the Government had not simply got a duty to root out gunmen and bombers.
It had at least an equal duty to protect ordinary Protestant and Catholic people in their homes and in jobs against threats and violence.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: BY 1971 Belfast was undergoing the biggest population movement in western Europe since the Second World War, with at least 60,000 fleeing their homes due to violence and intimidation. Among them were the family of Bobby Sands, intimidated from Rathcoole.)
On This Day – 25th September 1971
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
On This Day is a daily column in the Irish News looking back either 50 or 100 years. The column was compiled by Dr Éamon Phoenix from the mid 1980s until autumn, 2022. The Foundation is very grateful to the Irish News for giving permission to reproduce Eamon’s columns. Funding gratefully received from Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and the Magill Trust.
* The Foundation has worked hard to recreate Eamon’s distinctive voice through AI. Since this is an emerging technology, occasional imperfections may be audible.