jslarkin

Bad Moon Rising by Credence Clearwater Revival was released in April 1969, four months before the release of their album ‘Green River.’

In July, Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon and ‘Something in the Air by Thunderclap Newman went to number one with lyrics very applicable to the changing times in the North East of Ireland.

On August 15th, Woodstock took place for the first time on a New York farm. It was the most famous music festival of the times, with over 500,000 people in attendance, and it echoed the ‘make peace not war’ statements that had been at the very fabric of the anti-war demonstrations continuously through the 1960’s, due to America’s involvement in Vietnam.

While music played out on the other side of the Atlantic. Catholic areas in the North of Ireland were still smoking from burning homes and buildings, having hours earlier come under attack from sectarian mobs led by the R.U.C, the local Police, and their reserve constables known as the B Specials. Launching a Pogrom in an answer to equal rights for all.

The Government of the Free State, to their shame, looked on as they had done for years since the partition of Ireland, and a well-known fact that there were, and still are members of the Dail with no interest in the Northeast of the Island. It’s also a fact that the English Government’s failure to end racism in the six counties, encouraged the sectarianists to act in that manner, having turned a blind eye to the implementation of the Apartheid policies there, by their lackeys.

But there was something in the air, a name hovering, fuelled by a growing civil rights campaign, called equality, and Irish nationalists were no longer prepared to accept discrimination and the mantle of second-class citizens.

The British PM and his cabinet embarrassed by the sectarian brotherhood’s Pogrom, and the consternation of many countries throughout the world to the pictures televised of that heinous crime, decided to act, and the first batch of British Soldiers soon began to arrive in the North east of Ireland, to the delight of the families in the Catholic ghettoes. But, as the soldiers were arriving more families were on their way to refugee camps in the free-state, unaware of the good news, to join those who had already departed. Camps set up as a last minute concession by the free state government, and appease the demands of a small number of very unhappy politicians there, and viewed by them as a weak apology for failing to act and protect their citizens in the North of the Island earlier.

The procession of refugees was reminiscent of old Second World War news reels, including many elderly and sick in what was a mass exodus from many areas of Belfast. Some too frightened to stay, others forced from their humble abodes by frenzied-sectarian-mobs who torched their homes ensuring they could never return.

Out of those ashes arose the Provisional IRA, among them were new visionary republicans merging with some older republican stalwarts to discuss ideas on restructuring the Republican Movement. A movement taking criticism from the ordinary people for failing to protect them and their homes.

It’s a well known fact that those in positions of power refused to accept any criticism, rejecting the idea of anyone stepping aside, and they were defiant against any changes intent on maintaining full control of what was then One IRA, an as homes and buildings smouldered, and people like the CDC, the Civil defence Committee, made up of mainly Confraternity men, did their best to restore some order in the community that was St Peter’s parish, and organise people as best as they could, The Provisional IRA were born. The new group taking their place in the community alongside the old IRA, the CDC, and the able bodied men and teenagers gathered, to protect their people, parishes, and Churches, and when August handed over to September, no one could have envisaged how quickly things would go from bad to worse.

Bad Moon Rising made it to Number One in the UK singles chart in September, and like Something in the Air, also held lyrics of bad times ahead, and Northern Ireland certainly wasn’t going to get any better, for a long, long time.

The events of August 1969, created that war known as The Troubles, and shaped new pathways for so many people, many families, and communities that once lived side by side. It changed many mindsets and saw them take sides in a dirty war that could have been avoided. Ireland had had enough of murder before then, enough of foreign control, and apartheid, and that war changed nothing, everything that was there before, is still there, and those who opposed the draconian measures introduced during the scamdemic, now suffer apartheid.

Irish people, their families, are placed behind foreigners for housing, for benefits, and are lying on cold streets where some will very likely die, glued to the ground by ice this winter, and the enemies of Ireland are at the forefront of that, people like Varadkar, and Martin. FF, FG, Sinn Fein, Labour, the Greens, SDLP, Alliance, and other parties, in a war upon traditional people, traditional families and communities. A war on our traditions, on christianity, that has brough most to their knees in subservience. You cannot fight on your knees, remember that.