'Then to Rosemount and the British Army, soldiers training their rifles on me but relaxing a little after a ‘Good morning’ or ‘Happy Christmas’.'
‘Derry Christmas’, by Will Warren, from January 7, 1972
‘I looked outside to see two shops burst into flames.’
The contradictions, the contrasts, ever present in Derry are accentuated at Christmas time.
During the preceding days the explosions were stepped up considerably. One day I was talking to a Derry Friend in the War on Want shop as dusk was falling. A sudden blast shook the building, and customers scurried away. I looked outside to see two shops burst into flames. Crowds gathered, shots rang out, youths collected stones. Soon afterwards came four more explosions, one of them at the Waterside Boys’ Club, run by Fr. Jimmy Doherty, a pacifist who is a good friend of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. One of our FoR boys was caught by the blast. After a night in hospital he was allowed back home. He returned to work, only to faint at a bomb scare in the shop next door.
On the streets, soldiers patrolled with guns at the ready. Guards on the Craigavon Bridge were increased. The Guildhall carols blared out and a large poster announced ‘On earth peace, good will to all men’. All men? A handbilll stuck on the wall, published by the Standing Conference of Peace Committees, said simply: ‘Peace on earth includes Northern Ireland.’ The shops were filled with people, streets were festooned with lights. And back streets were alive with children playing with toy guns.
Late on Christmas Eve I was told that the Provisional IRA had declared a forty-eight hour truce. This lightened my heart. But the Official IRA were not willing to take a similar step, and the British Army were on full alert.
From about one till three on Christmas morning I walked round the Bogside and the Creggan with a friend. In the valley were many lighted windows, and some drunken men staggered along the streets. The barricades were unmanned save one at Brandywell, and the vigilantes were friendly and pleasant. Then up the hill to the Creggan, where a solitary candle shone in many windows, a gesture of solidarity with the prisoners at Long Kesh. In this area the barricades were manned, and everyone was questioned about his reason for being there, but the young men were as polite as the Provos in the Bogside. Outside a dance hall in the town centre young people were laughing and chatting, watched attentively by many RUC men. At nine I walked round again, alone, and saw crowds of people coming out of church, barricades unmanned, a strongpoint (a wooden erection high up on poles, reached by a rope ladder) with an Official IRA man on look-out. Then to Rosemount and the British Army, soldiers training their rifles on me but relaxing a little after a ‘Good morning’ or ‘Happy Christmas’.
Various people have said to me that it seems uncanny, this quietness, and they wonder a little fearfully what will follow. Surely Friends everywhere must have Northern Ireland on their conscience and in their prayers. Maybe the best Derry Christmas will be a renewed concern to make 1972 a peaceful one for all of us in this old city.
Will (1906-1990), a Quaker CO in world war two, was a peaceworker in Northern Ireland.
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