Fifty Dead Men Walking

by McGartland, Martin

  ‘On your way,’ he said, and I realised he was feeling guilty at having given me a hard time.

  My life of crime, however, ended when all the lads who had been shoplifting were caught and put away. I had been working with them for nearly a year, sometimes making £200 a week, but I had nothing to show for my ill-gotten gains. I had squandered the lot on clothes, chocolate and amusement arcades.

  I had also received a visit from an IRA disciplinary squad.

  Chapter Three

  THEY CAME TO MY MOTHER’S HOUSE at around 3.00pm one day during the winter of 1985. The two men were in their 20s – one was generally known by the nickname ‘Andy’, and the other was called Martin Morris.

  ‘Where’s Marty?’ they asked my mother.

  ‘What do you want him for?’ she replied.

  ‘We want to talk to him,’ one said.

  ‘What about?’ my mother asked in her belligerent tone.

  ‘We’ve been told he’s running about selling blocks of cheese.’

  ‘Blocks of cheese!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Can we come in?’ one asked.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ she replied. ‘I’ll find out if he’s been selling cheese and I’ll deal with him in my own way.’

  The two men began arguing with her, demanding that they be permitted to search the house, telling her that she must hand me over to them for questioning. Instinctively, my mother knew that they were IRA and also that if she did hand me over then I would be punished. That punishment could entail anything from a heavy thumping with sticks and baseball bats to a kneecapping. My mother would hear none of their demands.

  ‘Just take yourselves off, the pair of you, and I’ll deal with him. Do you hear me?’

  Kate McGartland’s fearsome reputation was legendary on the Ballymurphy Estate and there were few men who had the courage to take her on; her tongue was fast and venomous; her strength of character was challenged only by the strongest or the most foolhardy of men. The two IRA men looked at each other and left.

  When I returned that evening my mother was waiting with that look on her face – the one that spelt trouble.

  ‘Have you been stealing cheese?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I replied honestly. ‘I’ve been selling cheese, but I never stole any.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, challenging me.

  ‘It’s true, Ma, I swear it.’

  On this occasion, my mother believed me and she would later give the two IRA men a dressing down for spreading false rumours. But it was not the end of the matter.

  A few weeks later, I and five teenage mates from the estate left the Matt Talbot Youth Club where we had spent the evening playing pool. We were standing around chatting when we saw a group of ten young men, all wearing masks, running towards us waving baseball bats and hammers. At first we thought it was just some friends having a joke, but we quickly realised that these men meant business.

  ‘Get the little bastards,’ one shouted, and the others began yelling at us. The group of men were only about 20 yards away when we realised what was going on. Someone shouted, ‘Run, run for it, it’s the fucking IRA!’

  We all turned and fled down the street as fast as we could, as we knew full well that if we were caught we would have been subjected to a hell of a beating. We had all seen victims battered black and blue by IRA punishment squads, some with broken bones, others with their heads cracked open.

  Behind us, the mob yelled at us to stop, screaming abuse, effing and blinding. I turned for an instant and saw them swinging their baseball bats and hammers and I could feel my heart thumping as they seemed to be getting closer. I was convinced that I would stumble and fall and concentrated on keeping my footing as I ran faster than I had ever run in my life.

  Suddenly, the yelling stopped and the noise of running feet faded. I looked round. There was no one there. We had run more than half a mile but the IRA gang had given up the chase. Then we realised that one of us, Patrick, a slim lad with a fierce temper and remarkable courage, had disappeared.

  We decided to investigate, to see if the IRA had captured him. Gingerly, we walked back, suspecting that the gang may have laid a trap. As we rounded a corner we saw Patrick standing on the pavement repeatedly hitting one of the IRA men in the face with his fists, giving him a real pasting. Later, Patrick told us what had happened.

  After a few hundred yards, Patrick said he felt exhausted, unable to continue running. As he stopped and turned to face his attackers he realised that most of them had stopped and only three were still in the chase. He had grabbed the first one who was wielding a hammer, disarmed him, threw away the hammer and then belted him around the head and body with his fists. The other two wanted none of the fight and fled, leaving their mate to take a hiding.

  ‘Jesus, Patrick,’ I said when the man had run off, ‘they’ll fucking kill us for beating one of them. What the hell did you do that for?’

  ‘What the fuck did you think I was going to do?’ he said. ‘Let them beat me with hammers and stuff? I’ll not give in to those bastards.’

  We would never discover what the IRA punishment gang wanted that night. They had all been masked so we had no idea who they were or where they lived. But the fright I received that night made me realise that I would have to tread carefully, keep out of the limelight, and make sure that the IRA had no idea of any of my money-making schemes.

  Later, I discovered that the IRA had only authorised two men, Andy and Martin, the men who had come searching for me, as the disciplinary squad in the Ballymurphy area. Their job would be to speak to people whom the IRA considered to be law-breakers, youngsters like me and my mates who were trying to earn a few pounds, as well as the thieves, muggers and shoplifters who were acting without the authority of the IRA.

  From the late 1970s, the IRA had appealed to all Catholics to report civil offences to Sinn Fein centres dotted around Belfast, rather than go to the RUC. And I knew that over the years more and more Catholics had turned to Sinn Fein, knowing the matter would be passed to the IRA to take whatever action they deemed necessary. Of course, I understood that part of the reason was to convince all Catholics that Sinn Fein had both the power and authority to protect them, thus gaining the community’s support for their political activities. And the IRA took advantage of the situation to stamp their authority in all republican areas. Indeed, the IRA did become the community’s police force for many years, using their terror tactics to control the Catholic population.

  I would come to learn of many occasions when Catholics turned to Sinn Fein – when their cars had been stolen, for example, and the car had been found abandoned with the radio, the wheels and most of the interior ripped out. Most Catholics knew that reporting the matter to the RUC would achieve little or nothing, so they began reporting such instances to Sinn Fein.

  If Sinn Fein discovered who had stolen the vehicle, the thief would be taken away and interrogated by an IRA punishment squad and the man would be left shaking with fear, having been ordered to repay the cost of the car or face the consequences. Everyone knew that meant two possibilities; a punishment beating with iron bars or a kneecapping.

  It would be through one of my close friends, Ricky McNally, a boy with a natural talent for football, that I witnessed the viciousness of the IRA. Ricky’s elder brother Martin had been targeted by an IRA punishment squad on a number of occasions for allegedly stealing cars and joy-riding around Belfast. Three times he was picked up by a squad, taken away and given a fearful beating, before being left unable to walk. On each occasion he needed hospital treatment for broken bones and dreadful bruising.

  The IRA, however, believed their beatings did not stop young Martin McNally from stealing more cars. They returned and took him away again, but this time one of the punishment squad produced a powerful Magnum hand-gun and shot him in the ankles, leaving him on the ground, writhing in agony. It would be months before he regained the use of his legs and he would never be ab
le to walk properly again.

  After he had been shot, I went to visit Martin in the City Hospital. I saw him lying there on his bed, pale and obviously under sedation. But I could see pain in his eyes and a sense of hopelessness in the way he spoke. I looked at Martin and a feeling of disgust came over me; that the IRA, the so-called protectors and friends of the Northern Irish Catholics could treat one of their own in such a way.

  Dee Millen, a distant cousin of mine and a good friend, was also targeted by the IRA for what the punishment squad described as ‘anti-social behaviour’. They gave no other reason.

  I was passing Millen’s house on the estate one night and I heard him shouting from a bedroom window. ‘Marty, call the peelers, for fuck sake, call the peelers. I think I’m going to be targeted.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I told him, ‘I can’t call the peelers. If I did, the IRA would shoot me dead.’ And I walked on down the street.

  Later that night, I heard that poor Dee had indeed been taken away and badly beaten. I felt awful that I had not done something to try and save him. Yet I knew that if I had called the RUC I would probably have been shot dead by the IRA. Betraying the ‘cause’ would certainly have earned me a kneecapping, for the act of calling the police would have been seen as treachery.

  But Dee refused to go to hospital and lay for days on the settee at his mother’s home. I called in to see him on a few occasions and felt angry that the IRA needed to stoop to such repulsive violence against young teenage boys.

  During the following 18 months, I would be warned on a dozen occasions or more by various IRA members. They would call at my house or stop me in the street, ask me questions, grill me and pretend they knew more about my activities than they in fact did. I would deny everything, never revealing that I was ever involved in buying or selling stolen goods. Some were Sinn Fein officers, other junior members of the IRA trying to make a name for themselves within the organisation. There were others, though, whom I knew to have been fully fledged members of criminal organisations prior to joining the IRA. Sometimes I would be warned for no reason whatsoever, but the fact that I always had money to spend made them suspicious. I had continued to sell goods that other people provided, taking my cut and handing over the rest to my suppliers.

  In some ways I brought attention to myself, for I would always give small amounts of money away to kids whose parents I knew were having a tough time, without work and trying to survive on the dole. It was around this time that I earned the nickname ‘Money Bags’, and the kids would run after me in the street shouting my nickname and begging for money. That worried me and so I scaled down my generosity, only giving money away to young kids whose parents really needed it.

  I knew that my buying and selling activities were illegal; I knew in my heart that the vast amount of goods I was selling around the estate had been stolen, mostly from shoplifting expeditions. But I also knew that the great majority of the people I sold the goods to were on the dole, many with large families to care for. Nearly all were living a hand-to-mouth existence and I provided them with goods at half price or less. I felt it was worth the risk and it made me feel good. It also earned me good money. It wasn’t only the IRA who troubled us. My pals and I also had to make sure we kept one step ahead of the RUC and the Army.

  One summer’s evening, my mother and a few of her friends went to consult a fortune teller called May, renowned as being one of the great professional fortune tellers of Belfast. She agreed to spend a few hours at a house in our street reading tarot cards and telling fortunes. She knew that my mother and her friends would cross her palm most generously for an evening’s work.

  May was, in fact, a Protestant from the Donegall Road, a strong loyalist area of Belfast, but she was perfectly happy crossing the line to tell fortunes in the Catholic areas. That night, a dozen women crowded into my Aunt Agnes’s home waiting for their cards to be read.

  As they sat waiting for May to arrive, an RUC foot patrol, backed by the army, was seen in the street. The squad stopped a man, searched him, questioned him and gave him a hard time.

  ‘Leave him alone, you bastards,’ one of my mates shouted. ‘He’s done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Shut up,’ shouted the officers, but we had no intention of keeping quiet.

  ‘Leave him alone, let him go,’ we all shouted.

  At that, one RUC officer ran across the street and grabbed one of us. The officer took hold of the lad and began to drag him towards the squad across the street. But the RUC man had misjudged our mood and courage. There were perhaps 12 to 15 teenagers on the street that night and we were not prepared to see one of our own lads taken away by the police for simply shouting abuse at their rough treatment.

  A friend of mine, Dave, grabbed the RUC officer by the arm forcing him to release his grip on the lad. As he did so, the other members of the foot patrol, 15 in all, raced across the street towards us. Within seconds there was a general melee with all of us trading punches. I hit one soldier on the chin and other friends of mine connected as well. But we also took some stick.

  Suddenly I heard a shout and looked up to see another dozen or more peelers and soldiers running up the street to join in the fray.

  ‘Run for it! Run for it!’ we all shouted, knowing full well that if we were caught and taken away we would all face serious charges for assaulting the officers.

  As we broke off, a woman began screaming at the soldiers ‘Let them go, you bullies, let them go.’

  At that, a soldier turned, took aim with his rifle and fired a plastic bullet at the woman who was standing only three feet away. The bullet hit the poor woman full in the chest, knocking her to the ground.

  As we fled, the sound of the fracas and the shot had brought scores more people, mainly women, out on to the streets. At least half a dozen had witnessed the woman collapse in a heap, felled by the plastic bullet.

  ‘She’s dead! She’s dead!’ one yelled. ‘They’ve killed her! They’ve shot her dead.’

  Within seconds, word had spread that the Army had killed a woman. My mates and I returned to the attack, now supported by others who took up rocks and began hurling them at foot patrols. I saw one soldier kneeling, his rifle in the firing position, aiming at a group of women a few yards away. I was convinced he was about to kill another women so I grabbed a wooden stake, ran up behind him and smashed the piece of wood across the back of his neck, sending him sprawling unconscious.

  At least a dozen separate fights had broken out across the street but once again we could see reinforcements, Land Rovers this time, racing up the road towards us, their blue lights flashing.

  ‘Run for it!’ people screamed, for we knew we faced arrest. As we ran towards the houses the soldiers pursued us, determined to catch up and take us away. I followed four lads to my Aunt Agnes’s house, running through the open front door into the hall, but as I turned to shut the door, a soldier put his boot in the way and I could not hold it.

  The house was full of people trying to escape out of the back door, as well as the fortune teller and a dozen of my mother’s friends who had been sitting and standing around in the kitchen. As I ran through the group of women, I could see the fortune teller hiding under the kitchen table.

  I escaped into the back garden and ran like hell with the others across a number of gardens and over innumerable fences before finally reaching safety. That night, the crack troops, members of the Divisional Mobile Support Unit, were called in but not one of us was arrested. We hid in a number of homes until the police and the Army had left the area. That was the closest I came to getting into serious trouble with the RUC or the Army.

  Later I heard that as the soldiers burst into my aunt’s house, desperate to catch us, she collapsed with a heart attack in the hallway and had to be rushed to hospital.

  Neither my mother nor her friends ever invited the fortune teller back again. ‘If she had been any good at predicting the future,’ my mother would say when recounting the story, ‘she would have k
nown the Army and the police were about to invade the house and warned us.’ And she would roar with laughter. Despite the attentions of the RUC and the Army, as well as the ever-present IRA, I continued making money selling goods throughout the neighbourhood and beyond. But I didn’t want money simply to enjoy life. Now I needed the money.

  I had become addicted to CB radio. From the age of 14 I had dabbled with a friend’s CB and when I bought my own radio, and stuck a 20-foot-high aerial on top of my mother’s house, I discovered a new set of friends. I would stay awake half the night chatting to my new-found friends throughout the Province.

  One night, when 15, I heard a young woman chatting on the CB whose ‘handle’ (call sign) was ‘White Suspenders, Shankill’. Understandably, the girl and particularly her handle, interested my burgeoning sexual awareness, and from that moment White Suspenders and myself would talk to each other for three or four hours a night, usually signing off, tired and half asleep at around 4am.

  Being the Shankill, of course, I realised that White Suspenders was probably a Protestant girl, but that never bothered me. Through my CB I had made friends with a number of Protestants also addicted to CB. Many of us CB freaks would meet outside Boots the Chemist in the centre of Belfast every Saturday morning and we would chat and drink coffee for a few hours. Some of those I met, from both the Protestant and Catholic communities, became good friends.

  One evening, a CB friend drove to my home and hooted the horn for me to go out and see him. Sitting next to him was a lovely girl I had never seen before.

  ‘Do you know who this is?’ my pal asked me, pointing to the girl in the car, a good-looking tall blond with a good figure. She was wearing jeans and a short, white cotton bolero top.

  ‘No,’ I said, my pulse racing, hoping the girl was White Suspenders.

  ‘This is Liz.’

  By this time, of course, I knew that Liz and White Suspenders were one and the same.