THE sectarian attack on Catholic homes in Annalee Street on Wednesday evening is a case of history repeating itself for one Belfast man.
As Tony Neeson watched news reports of shocked and frightened families standing outside their homes in the newly-built street in the Oldpark area, with windows boarded up after having been smashed by a gang of masked men, he was transported back 56 years to August 1969 when he and his young family fled the original Annalee Street.
In November last year, families were handed the keys to their new homes in the housing development just off Clifton Park Avenue. This morning the street was empty despite the warm summer weather. No-one is out in the bright sunshine. The windows of several homes remain boarded up.
Now living in Lenadoon, Mr Neeson (83) said watching news reports of Catholic homes being attacked brought him back in time to over half a century earlier.
“Annalee Street was a mixed street,” he recalls. “But mostly Catholic. They were big town houses and Catholics had started moving into the street over the previous years, but by 1969 things began to change and the intimidation started.
“That summer bands started coming into the street at night, playing their music and intimidating residents. The tension was starting to rise and then loyalists would drive into the street shouting sectarian insults. After that they started breaking the windows of Catholic homes and people were fearful of what was coming next.”
Boarded up windows in Annalee Street in North Belfast this morning
With riots in Derry and Belfast, Tony said he made the decision one night to take his family out of Annalee Street to stay with his mother in Ballymurphy, believing the move would be for a couple of nights only until the tension eased.
“I went to a taxi firm in Clifton Park Avenue and got a taxi to take me, my wife Ethel and our two children – who were one and two at the time – to my mother’s house. We didn’t bring much with us because I thought we’d be back in a couple of days.
“I remember as if it was yesterday the taxi going down Northumberland Street and the place was packed with people, RUC men and B-Specials all shouting over to one another and heading down towards the Falls, and the taximan saying to me ‘The Fenians are gonna get it tonight. They’re going to burn out Divis Flats.’ That was the night Bombay Street was burnt to the ground and other streets around it.
“I’ll never forget it."
By the 1970s as the Troubles raged, Annalee Street lay derelict. It was eventually demolished in the 1980s and given over to waste ground.
"I didn't even know that a new Annalee Street had been built until I saw the news reports," said Tony. "I had happy memories of living there, raising a young family but all that ended in August 1969.
“The images of those new houses being attacked and young families living in fear brought it all back to me. It may be 56 years later, but nothing has changed.”
