We look back at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in 1979
Paddy McAuley (St Mary's) beat Kenny McAuley (St Malachy's) in the National Handball Day at Andersonstown Leisure Centre
Brooke man’s murder: Targeted by Brits and RUC
Thirty-five-year-old father of one Davy White, was shot in his bed at his home in the mainly Catholic Brooke estate on Monday morning.
The ultra loyalist group, Ulster Freedom Fighters, claimed that he was murdered because he was a quartermaster in the Provisional IRA.
The RUC went to the house after a telephone caller rang Downtown Radio and claimed responsibility for the murder. Relatives, neighbours and the IRA denied that Davy was politically involved.
He was a stallholder in Castle Street selling electrical goods, and was also at the Sunday market at Nutts Corner. A relative of Davys, Frankie Hawkins, claimed that the British Army constantly harassed him, both at work and at home. During the summer the British Army came to his home while the family were away for the weekend and attempted to break in. They called for assistance from the RUC who broke the glass panel on the front door and kicked the handle off the back door. Our photographer took a picture of Mrs Maura White beside the broken door, but she was afraid of further harassment from the Brits and the RUC and asked us to leave the picture out of the paper.
Last week while Mr White was working at his stall in Castle Street, a Brit photographer took a number of pictures of him. He was then approached and asked for his name and address. According to friends of the murdered man the manner in which the murder was committed (entry into the house by a back window) and the recent harassment would appear to have sinister connotations and not just another sectarian murder.
David White was buried in Milltown Cemetery yesterday, after Mass in St Teresa’s.
On page 1 we reported on the harassment of Mr David White, murdered this week supposedly by the UFF. Residents of Divis Flats told our office that on Wednesday afternoon a group of British soldiers painted the following slogan on a wall of a flat in Whitehall Row: “We got D White, you’re next, Taig. So be on the lookout.’
Sandra O'Neill from Corrib Avenue celebrates her birthday at the Greenan Lodge
Editorial
AS the latest British pretence at ‘solving the Irish problem’ flounders (whether the SDLP talk or not); and as it becomes obvious that Atkins’ proposals are all bluff; the forces of unionism are drawing closer together and becoming even more vicious in their activities.
British soldiers and the RUC are back to their old tricks, like planting ‘evidence’, general harassment, etc. The Protestant terror gangs are back in business and, as before, there is every evidence that they are being assisted in their work by the ‘security forces’.
The latest murder of a Catholic, Mr David White, has been claimed by the UFF which is the same thing as the UDA. Just last week two UDA/UFF men tried to assassinate Michael McGirl in Co Leitrim. UDA/UFF leaders have boasted openly about the number of Catholics they have murdered. And still the UDA is a legal organisation, on the best of terms with the ‘security forces’ as witnessed in the 1977 loyalist strike.
There is no reason why the British should be hard on the UDA/UFF because they are on the same side. Their task is the defence of the Union by every means at their disposal.
Of course, the Union can’t be defended in logical argument or on democratic grounds. Unionism is so patently, and blatantly wrong that its exponents can only defend it by ruthless, unjust means – discrimination, disfranchisement, internment, crooked laws and judges, judicial murder and violence, and by the use of Loyalist paramilitary gangs. Over the last ten years these have been used singly, or in combination, in an effort to defeat the struggle for justice, and the democracy which Britain feared would be established.
Britain and Unionism, which of necessity work hand in hand, are simply two sides of the one base coin; and they can’t have even a temporary measure of success except through the use of illegal and immoral methods.
Britain is a past master in these methods, but we should remember that Britain’s success, all over the world, has been temporary. She’s been kicked out of most of her colonies, and is now being kicked out of this, her last colony. If the Unionists had any savvy they’d realise this and come to terms with the rest of us. Perhaps some of them have begun to realise it. For their sake, let’s hope so – before it’s too late.
School children and Virgo Potens Praesidium of Turf Lodge Legion of Mary raise money for Cambodia for Anni Hamilton, Oxfam
St Agnes’ Choral Society on tour
ST Agnes Choral Society have returned after spending a weekend of music in Shannon, Co Clare.
In conjunction with Shannon Music Society and Cumman Ceoil Naomh Pádraig, the St Agnes’ team presented a concert at St Patrick’s Comprehensive School, Shannon and proceeds from the venture are donated to the interdenominational Shannon Schools’ Improvement Committee.
The undertaking was the result of a friendship made with the St Agnes’ members at the International Festival of Light Opera in Waterford last September. The idea for the Shannon visit was initiated by Aidan White, Chairman of the Shannon Society, and Eithne Gallagher, his Belfast counterpart, and this was ratified by the members of both societies at specially convened meetings.
Both groups are members of the Association of Irish Musical Societies (AIMS) and the venture has been hailed as a very practical indication of what the Association is about.
Mary McCullough and Bernadette Hamill with Mary Devine and John McConnell at the St Teresa's Annual Bazaar
