WE look back at the stories that were making the headlines this week in the Andersonstown News in 1982

Kitchen trainees at Clowney workshop
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Kitchen trainees at Clowney workshop

Strand residents start own security

THE people of Short Strand have decided to take their area’s security into their own hands, after the massive bomb explosion on April 25.

The explosion is only the latest in a series of sectarian attacks which locals feel shows that the RUC and UDR do not have the inclination or ability to defend the district.
The secluded Short Strand, lying as it does on the far side of the Albert Bridge, has always been a vulnerable target for loyalist assassins. However, protective measures taken after the shooting of Markets pensioner Mary McKay last year, have been sabotaged by the RUC and UDR.

After the murder of Mrs McKay certain streets in Ballymacarrett, used in the past by loyalist attackers, were blocked with concrete filled barrels. Although these streets were not main thoroughfares and their blocking did not hinder the flow of traffic, the RUC removed the barrels. In spite of protests by locals and the fact that the DOE had approved their positioning, the RUC did not replace them.

In early October four weeks after the removal of the barrels, a young Short Strand man, Thomas McAnulty, was shot dead by assassins as he made his way home around midnight. McAnulty was the 15th Short Strand person to be murdered by loyalist extremists.

Now, concerned groups in the area have come together to draw up five security recommendations. The group think, that if adhered to these measures could save lives.
Posters and leaflets have been published detailing these proposals which include:

The replacement of the concrete barrels – any attempt by the RUC to remove these barriers being resisted by all locals;

Residents-only parking in the streets;

Visitors parking on a specified area of waste ground;

And, clubs and pubs being responsible for checking all cars in their vicinity.

In the near future, there will be a public meeting in Short Strand to discuss these proposals.

Community worker Stiofán Mór and children on the site of burnt-out youth club on the Lower Ormeau Road beside the Lagan
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Community worker Stiofán Mór and children on the site of burnt-out youth club on the Lower Ormeau Road beside the Lagan

Market man refused bail to attend father’s funeral 

SEAN McGrady, an innocent Market’s man, languishing in the Long Kesh cages, has been refused even four hours compassionate parole to attend his father’s funeral.

As highlighted in this paper in February, Sean has already served six years of a life sentence for a murder he didn’t commit. Arrested at the height of the government’s campaign to increase the number of convictions, Sean was brutally beaten at Castlereagh. Special attention was given to a broken arm in a sling until Sean finally broke down and signed a confession. In spite of the fact that a doctor testified to Sean’s injuries and that his arm had been broken at the time of the alleged crime. Sean was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Sean’s father, 63-year-old Desmond McGrady, died in the Foster Greene Hospital on the 16th of April. For a long period he had been ill and had received hospital treatment on several occasions. It was six years previously, almost to the day that Desmond’s wife May, died of cancer.

At that time also, Sean and two brothers on remand in Crumlin Road Jail, were refused parole to attend their mother’s funeral.

A friend of the McGrady family, who contacted the prison after Desmond McGrady’s death, was informed that for Sean to attend the funeral was out of the question.

Because of ill-health Mr McGrady had been dissuaded from visiting Sean in recent months. His friends felt that the trauma of a visit would only worsen his already chronic condition.

Jean Black, Annie Adams, Bernie Tohill, Ann and Maura Ward and Hester McCarthy at the National Graves Association Ceilí in the Green Briar
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Jean Black, Annie Adams, Bernie Tohill, Ann and Maura Ward and Hester McCarthy at the National Graves Association Ceilí in the Green Briar

Rats and rubbish in the Ladybrook river

THE residents of Trenchard in the Blacks Road area are demanding that a river running at the back of their homes be culverted. The stretch of the Ladybrook river behind Trenchard is, they allege, infested with rats and full of rubbish.

A quick examination of the river reveals the extent to which it is being used as a dump. A 30-yard stretch has the appearance of a small scrapyard with bicycle frames, a scooter, two binlids, a bin, scaffolding, several supermarket trollies, a pram and even a table tennis bat lying in it. Astonishingly the river had been cleaned only a few weeks ago, the first time in over a year.

Locals also fear that the river, especially when flooded, endangers not only their own children but also the pupils of the nearby Suffolk Primary School. There are no safety railings between the main road to the school and the river. A teacher has remarked to local people that “the stream won’t be culverted until a child drowns in it.”

The river, which according to one local housewife, was “only a shuck” ten years ago, has widened considerably over the years, washing away large areas of back gardens in the process. One tenant has erected three back fences in recent years to hold back the encroaching river, but all including the last – an eight foot timber construction – have collapsed as the river bank subsided.

Finding out who is responsible for the river has proved a headache for the people of Trenchard. No government department including the DoE, the Housing Executive or even the Fisheries Department, contacted as a last hope – will claim it as their property. 
The tenants have been told by the Housing Executive, however, that they can’t build on it – dashing any prospect of the locals getting together and culverting it themselves.

Members of the National Graves Association at their Ceilí in the Green Briar
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Members of the National Graves Association at their Ceilí in the Green Briar