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ireland, irish, ulster, belfast, northern ireland, british, loyalist, nationalist, republican, unionist Girdwood – Base of Brutality(Andrea McKernon, Irelandclick.com) With Girdwood barracks due to close, Andrea McKernon investigates the end of a gruesome chapter in the history of North Belfast... The announced closure of Girdwood army base will be the end of a horrific and gruesome chapter of the British army's presence in North Belfast. For three decades the installation was the focal point of a reign of terror inflicted on the nationalist population in Belfast. A look back at the history of the base shows it was connected to some of the most notorious episodes in the brutal history of the conflict. But many soldiers and police were also killed in retaliation for outrages committed by the RUC and British military leaving victims from all sides of the community. Within one square mile of the New Lodge Road with a population of 6,500 over 635 civilians were killed and over 2,500 injured during the conflict. Some 1,300 children were affected by the imprisonment of one or both of their parents. In that same period, the conflict around Girdwood barracks claimed the lives of some 30 RUC men and 60 British soldiers. Many of the bloodiest and most controversial incidents in the conflict are linked to the base. The base provided the backdrop for the infamous torture of internees, the killing of six men in the New Lodge in the early '70s, to riots and plastic bullet killings, to collusion murders by the UDA and UVF with files supplied from the intelligence hub of North Belfast and the murder of a New Lodge teenager by two Scot Guards men on patrol from Girdwood. The base was taken over by the British army in 1970 and almost immediately crown forces began a campaign of murder, torture and cruelty against the nationalist people of North Belfast. Some of the first raft of 300 local Catholic men rounded up on the morning of August 9, 1971 announcing the introduction of internment without trial were taken to Girdwood. The RUC's Special Branch and British military intelligence dished out horrific brutality and torture, including sensory deprivation, 'white noise' and electric shocks to local men brought into the horror of Girdwood. Men were forced to stand for days without sleep on tiptoes and holding onto walls with the tips of their fingers. The outrages were documented in Fr Raymond Murray and Fr Denis Faul's report in 1972 about torture in Girdwood and Palace Barracks. In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the so-called five techniques used in interrogation, usually by RUC Special Branch officers trained by the British Army, constituted inhumane and degrading treatment in breach of Article 3 of the convention on human rights. Veteran republican Martin Meehan recalled how men ran the gauntlet of vicious dogs and police with batons in "the tunnel" that ran under Girdwood into Crumlin Road jail. Detainees were also taken in helicopters from Girdwood and dropped blindfolded out of the aircraft craft at six to 12 feet. The tortured men thought they were being dropped hundreds of feet to their deaths. In July 1970 over 1,000 women marched on Girdwood to protest at the shooting dead of unarmed Catholic man Danny O'Hagan. It marked the end of the so-called "honeymoon period" when the soldiers turned on Catholics who had earlier welcomed them as saving them from the RUC and loyalist paramilitary pogrom of 1969. The 19-year-old was gunned down by a high-velocity bullet fired by a British soldier during disturbances in the New Lodge. . That murder was followed with the murder of Christie Quinn in November 1971. The 39-year-old father-of-five, a member of the St Patrick's branch of the Catholic Ex-Servicemen's Association was taking part in vigilante duties when a British soldier shot him near his home on Peter Hill. In July 1972 unarmed IRA volunteer Seamus Cassidy was shot dead by the British army on the New Lodge Road. Louis Scullion was shot by soldiers also in disputed circumstances in the same month. The 27-year-old IRA man was killed near Unity Flats, a few yards from his home. Royal Marines based at Girdwood also gunned down 27-year-old civilian Michael Hayes not far from his Spamount Street home in September 1972. He was shot nine times despite a forensic report finding no lead residues that would have indicated he was holding a gun. Seamus Duffy was 15 when he was shot by an RUC plastic bullet close to Girdwood on the anniversary of internment in 1989. No member of the security forces ever stood trial for the killings The massacre of six men in the New Lodge in February 1973 became known as the New Lodge Six murders. The six unarmed men were gunned down on the night that British troops used for the first time SUIT or Sight Unit Infantry Trilux, giving night vision. Their introduction immediately prompted the plan to begin the shooting on the New Lodge to draw out the IRA, a community inquiry heard 30 years later. IRA man James Sloan (19) and fellow IRA man James McCann were shot dead by loyalists in a drive by shooting outside Lynch's bar on the corner of the New Lodge and Antrim Road. There were claims of collusion when witnesses reported seeing the car come out of Girdwood. Immediately afterwards troops killed Volunteer Tony Campbell (19) and civilians John Loughran (35) Brendan Maguire (32) Ambrose Hardy (26) and James McCann (18) in the street which ran red with blood, according to the inquiry witnesses. Claims that the men were killed in a shoot out with the IRA caused fury among their families at the time of their deaths. The army was later forced to withdraw its first statement in the wake of the killings after outrage from relatives, but it never apologised to the relatives or formally retracted its first statement. Instead as witnesses reported, grieving families were hounded and harassed by British squaddies who gloated about the murders. "We believe it would have been an officer in charge of North Belfast or further in charge of stationing and placing troops in a large-scale operation," said Ed Lynch, US litigator and New Lodge Six community inquiry member who looked at who was responsible for the murders. He also said the killings had to be planned and orchestrated by high ranking officers within the British forces. British military and RUC personnel in the base also colluded with loyalist paramilitaries in the murders of local nationalists. Using intelligence files from Girdwood on former internees and republican prisoners, the army's Force Research Unit (FRU) unleashed the loyalist death squads of the UFF onto the nationalist community in North Belfast. Those murdered included Catholic man Terry McDaid in a case of mistaken identity in 1988. Three people working for the British army were implicated in Terry McDaid's murder, including British agent Brian Nelson. All walked free from the courts. The first was Corporal Cameron Hastie, a British soldier attached to the Royal Scots Regiment. It was Hastie who first passed on to crown forces details regarding a North Belfast republican to Joanne Garvin, a member of the UDR, in full knowledge that the information would be passed by her to the UDA and used to assist a loyalist death squad to target its victim. Neither Hastie nor Garvin was charged with conspiracy to murder, despite the fact that their actions had directly led to the UDA killing of Terry McDaid. Instead the two were charged with making the document available to a third person. Hastie received a conditional discharge and was allowed to return to his regiment in Scotland as a training instructor, a position he continues to hold today. Despite Garvin admitting she knew the information would be used to kill Catholics, she was given an 18-month suspended sentence. The information "leaked" by Hastie and Garvin was finally to fall into Brian Nelson's hands in his role as intelligence officer for the UDA. Nelson, while still acting as a British army agent, targeted republicans and passed details on to a UDA assassin. Despite details of the planned killing of Terry McDaid being passed to the British army by their agent Nelson, no action was taken to prevent the killing. The most high-profile murder was that of North Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in his Fortwilliam home in 1989 during the collusion terror. A 15-year campaign is still raging for an independent inquiry into his death, a demand ignored by successive British governments. Another victim Billy Kane was murdered in his New Lodge home by the UVF. His mother claims information was passed to her son's killers from soldiers at Girdwood who had been watching his movements. His mother Bridget said it was collusion from Girdwood that led to the murder of her son in Upper Meadow Street in January 1988. "I have always said there was collusion in the murder of my son," she told the North Belfast News in 2002. "An eyewitness said they saw his name in a UDR notebook in Girdwood barracks. I believe the army were watching him from an observation post. Billy was never in the house at the time he was shot. They saw that he had not come out of the house, unlike his usual movements, and tipped off the UVF. He came home at 4.15pm and the gunmen arrived at 5.45pm," she said. Collusion between the British army and RUC Special Branch and the UDA resulted in more than 80 shootings, 29 of those fatal – all sanctioned by the state. But the full story of the base's involvement in collusion has never been revealed because 15 of the 34 charges against the British army agent loyalist killer Nelson, including the two charges of murder, were dropped by the crown in return for guilty pleas on lesser charges. The deal prevented the full details and extent of crown forces' collusion with loyalist death squads coming out in court. Had the case been contested, the British authorities would have been faced with the possibility of Nelson's `handlers' in the crown forces and others in 'sensitive posts' being cross-examined. Nelson, a former convicted paramilitary and former British soldier served only four years in jail for his catalogue of crimes. The soldiers who gunned down New Lodge teenager Peter McBride were stationed in Girdwood and it was there they returned on the day the 18-year-old was murdered in 1992. Later found guilty of murder the Girdwood soldiers James Fisher and Mark Wright were later released from their life sentences and rejoined the British army. During their time in prison the convicted murderers remained on the MoD payroll. Peter McBride's mother Jean is still seeking the sacking of the pair from the army. The British army also had their victims during the Girdwood reign as well as the RUC. William Kenny, a 28-year-old UDR man was abducted from his home at Mountcollyer Street in March 1973 by members of the IRA. The father-of-one was found 12 hours later shot in the head. The full-time soldier had been on his way to Girdwood barracks when he was abducted. Damian Shackelton a Scots Guardsman from Blackburn was shot by the IRA as he rode in a Landrover at Duncairn Avenue in 1992. The last victim linked to the bloody legacy of the base was a kitchen porter working at Girdwood. David Cupples was mistaken for a Catholic and brutally murdered as he walked to work in December 2002 along Clifton Park Avenue. The 25-year-old from east Belfast died on Christmas Day after a four-day fight for life. April 3, 2005________________ This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web site on 11, 2005. |
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