Word: belfasts
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...political prisoners. But the initiative stirred little response from either the Stormont or Westminster government, leading one I.R.A. leader to declare: "It's now total war." The day after the truce ended, a 200-lb. gelignite bomb shattered windows and tore the roofs off several buildings in downtown Belfast. Another I.R.A. explosive, left in a parked car, killed two British Army specialists who were trying to dismantle...
...predominantly Catholic town of Newry (pop. 15,000) in Ulster. As Sunday approached, thousands of demonstrators -and newsmen as well-poured into the town in expectation of another bloody confrontation between British troops and Ulster Catholics participating in an illegal protest march. Only 40 miles south of Belfast and a 15-minute drive from Dundalk, a major south-of-the-border refuge for Irish Republican Army gunmen and arms smugglers, Newry is well known to be an I.R.A. town. The British expected the gunmen-some even disguised in stolen army uniforms-to be there in force for the march...
...many of the Ulster moderates-notably members of the nonviolent Social and Democratic Labor Party-who until then had still hoped for a rational political solution. A case in point is Gerald Fitt, 45, a Catholic who represents both a district in the Ulster Parliament and the constituency of Belfast West in Britain's Commons. "Until last Sunday," Fitt told the Commons, "I regarded myself as a man of moderation. I have consistently condemned violence." But because of Bloody Sunday, he said, "whether we like it or not, the British army is no longer acceptable in Belfast, Derry...
...recently split Unionist ranks now have closed behind Faulkner and his no-nonsense rejection of any form of Irish unification. From Stormont came cold statements blaming the marchers for "a meaningless and futile terrorist exercise." The typical Protestant worker's reaction was expressed by one laborer in a Belfast pub last week when he said, "I wish it had been 1,300 of the bastards...
Londonderry remained quiet that night; it was said that the I.R.A. was ob serving a truce until the obsequies were finished. But the violence did not stop completely. In Belfast, a sniper killed a British sentry. A 100-lb. gelignite bomb exploded in a downtown department store, wounding nine civilians and two policemen. Two soldiers were slightly injured by sniper fire in the Catholic Andersonstown district. After the funeral it was business as usual for the terrorists and their sympathizers. In the Lower Falls Road district of Belfast, Catholics rioted for more than four hours and pelted army patrols...