Word: belfasters
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Unfortunately, Ulster's Protestant militants seemed to be listening to a different drummer as they drilled openly in the streets of Belfast. The Rev. Ian Paisley called on British troops to "leave their defensive role and go into action against the murderers and rebels." He meant that the British should take charge of Londonderry's Catholic "nogo" areas, where the I.R.A. maintains barricades and checkpoints...
...prove his point, there were more bombings of shops, garages and factories last week. On a single day in Belfast, more than $1,000,000 worth of damage was caused in four explosions...
Other bombs injured at least 20 people in Belfast and destroyed a three-story building in the center of Londonderry...
Tacit Approval. Undisciplined and virtually leaderless, the Tartans roam the streets of Belfast eying strangers with suspicion, occasionally attacking Catholics with sticks, stones and fists. This month Tartan gangs set fire to stores, wrecked bars and rioted in East Belfast for four consecutive nights. In another era, the Tartan gangs would be written off as adolescents bored with the drabness of back-street Belfast, much like Teddy boys of London in the mid-'50s. But Ulster's political chaos has turned them into defenders of the faith who have the tacit approval of many adult Protestants...
...typical Tartan gang member is Jim Tipping, a long-haired lad of 18 who has a crest of Protestant banners tattooed upon his scarred right arm. The scar is a relic of an I.R.A. gunshot wound that Tipping suffered while walking down a Belfast street six weeks ago. Tipping's gang, the Shankhill Tartans, has hundreds of members, who spend much of their time lolling on street corners and shouting anti-Catholic slogans on Saturday afternoons. They were reared in an atmosphere of sectarian bitterness and bigotry, and their attitudes show it. "I hate them," Tipping says...