ireland, irish, ulster, belfast, northern ireland, british, loyalist, nationalist, republican, unionist

(Editorial, Irelandclick.com)

We won't deny it: there's a certain pleasure to be had from watching Andersonstown Barracks and its vast array of spying and monitoring equipment disappear in a cloud of dust.

That's entirely natural, but it's impossible too not to think of how many raids, how many assaults and how many murders were planned and plotted behind those forbidding walls.

Because let's be clear about this: Andersonstown Barracks was never there to serve the people immediately outside its walls. Never for a single second was ordinary policing as it is understood in other countries the business of its inhabitants. Rather, its role was to dominate, intimidate and subjugate – something which it energetically attempted, but which it never came close to achieving.

The station's dread history holds many bad memories for this community, but it is important that that history is never forgotten or swept under the carpet. The PSNI may hope that as the lofty communications towers come crashing down and the blast walls and reinforced sangars are demolished, the real truth about Andersonstown Barracks will disappear into the air along with the brick dust.

But whatever appears on the site of Andersonstown Barracks – and a few live proposals are being considered – there should be something left there to remind us, and to remind generations yet to come, of the reality of 'policing' in the 20th century as experienced by the people of this community; to remind them that the RUC were not the good guys desperately trying to hold the ring while chaos raged around their blameless heads, but that they were a malign and central protagonist in the conflict.

Andersonstown Barracks was a powerful symbol of that reality. Let's always remember that.

This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web site on January 17, 2005.