Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland (77 page)
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Authors: Ed Moloney
Zionism,
1
August 1969. Catholic families in Belfast flee their burning homes in the wake of Loyalist attacks. The IRA’s failure to defend their communities split the republican movement and brought the Provisionals into being.
The Falls curfew in 1970 was a turning point for the Provisionals in Belfast. Afterwards support in Catholic parts of the city swung towards them and away from the Officials.
IRA Belfast commander Seamus Twomey confronts British troops at Lenadoon during the IRA ceasefire of 1972. At his signal, Brendan Hughes and other IRA members opened fire, ending the two-week-long cessation.
British troops patrol Divis Street, in the heart of D Company territory, after rioting. Brendan Hughes first met Gerry Adams during a riot in the same area: ‘I can’t remember if he threw anything but he certainly directed everybody else to do it,’ he recalled.
Bloody Friday, July 1972. Brendan Hughes was operational commander that day, in charge of the IRA bombing teams. Twentytwo bombs exploded in the space of around an hour, killing nine people. Six of the deaths happened at Oxford Street bus station above. The violence persuaded David Ervine to join the UVF.
Jean McConville with three of her ten children. The widowed mother was killed and disappeared after the IRA discovered she was an informer for the British Army. Hughes interrogated her and said she admitted her role.
Gerry Adams, Ivor Bell and Brendan Hughes photographed by British military intelligence after their arrest in July 1973.When soldiers asked him what he was going to do next, Hughes replied, Im going to escape.
A Mass card for Paddy Joe Crawford. His death was judged a suicide but the IRA hanged him in jail.
Robert ‘Basher’ Bates, one of the Shankill Butchers, a UVF gang that murdered Catholics indiscriminately in the mid-1970s. Bates befriended Hughes in jail and halted a UVF plot to assassinate him in his prison cell.
Brendan Hughes in prison hospital during the failed 1980 hunger strike. Guilt over his decision to end the first hunger strike, which led to the second strike and ten deaths, haunted him for the rest of his life.