We look at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in 1985 ...
Residents to be walled-in
MARY McMahon of the Workers’ Party has hit out at plans to "wall-in" the residents of the new Springview/Malcolmson Street redevelopment area in order to increase security for the nearby Springfield Road Barracks.
The wall already constructed across Springview Street, and the wall planned for Malcolmson Street, means that the residents will be completely cut off from access to the main shopping centre and facilities such as doctors and dentists' surgeries on the main Springfield Road. It will mean terrible inconvenience to the people moving into the new dwellings. Already the people at present living in these areas find themselves having to go all the way around by the Falls Road in order to get to shops and facilities such as bus stops which are, in fact, almost at their back doors.
"We live only a few yards from the Springfield Road," said one local woman, "but we will have to go round about four streets just to get to it.
"The Housing Executive have denied responsibility for the building of this wall", said Mary Mc Mahon. "The RUC have admitted that it is being constructed for security reasons. Even on that basis, it is unnecessary. There has been little if any activity against the barracks originating from that side of the Springfield Road. Attacks have come from the side and back of the barracks despite all the walls and fortifications there. This wall will serve no useful security function that I can see. In any event, there is no reason why pedestrian access could not be left in the walls, in order to allow local residents to have convenient access to the Springfield Road. They could still cut off the road to vehicles.
"To wall people up completely in this way, shows contempt for their living conditions. Despite the fact that these walls are already being constructed the Workers' Party will be continuing its campaign to have them removed, or at the very least, to have a gate or some pedestrian access incorporated in each wall.”
Ronnie McCartney, who is serving a term of imprisonment in Parkhurst, sent over a collection of soft toys to raise money for the Naiscoil Chill Uaighe, at a function in the Kilwee social club last week. The toys were presented to the secretary of the Naiscoil, Eilish O'Hanlon, by committee members Liza Devine, Maura McConville and Deirdre Leatham
Editorial
Despite the understandable attempt by the other political parties to play down Sinn Féin's success in the local elections, winning 59 seats was a considerable achievement and we can't see any reason why this shouldn't be acknowledged.
For a Republican party to put up 13 candidates in Belfast and have seven of them elected is nothing less than miraculous, because Belfast, despite all reports to the contrary, has not got a long Republican tradition, as was borne out by the election of two Alliance-type Unionists in Upper and Lower Falls.
John Hume has stated that Sinn Féin has harnessed a Republican vote that was always there but which never voted. We think this is an over-simplification, and having been deprived of the personation excuse this time out, we suppose it's just a case of any port in a storm. We would agree that Sinn Féin has cornered voters that never voted before. But they are mainly young people, many of them just on the register for the first time, and not a Republican vote as such.
In this paper's close observation of the election in the West Belfast area, we were struck forcefully by the number of young voters Sinn Féin had secured, and many of them from staunch S.D.L.P. backgrounds. We suspect that this must be the most worrying aspect of Sinn Féin's success as far as the S.D.L.P. is concerned, because this is a massive growth area for future elections.
Also, in these elections the professionalism of the Sinn Féin machine was amazing. For a fraction of the cost of other elections they succeeded in aiming at specific targets and hitting them. Nowhere was this more evident than in the spread of first preference votes between their various candidates. The vast majority of whom were absolutely unknown to the general public.
Despite the S.D.L.P.'s protest to the contrary, if the present trend continues, then we suspect that the two parties will be in a neck and neck race in the local elections in four years’ time. That is, of course, if there are any local councils to vote for in four years’ time. Who knows, maybe the Paisley/Molyneaux wolfpack may puff and puff and blow them all down!
Despite what the media has been saying, it will not be Sinn Féin who will make the councils unworkable, but rather the Unionist thickheads who would never countenance any other point of view but their own. There is no doubt that we are in for an interesting four years at local government meetings, where the Sinn Féin terrier will be forever snapping at Unionist heels, and highlighting much of the bunkum attached to our form of representative democracy. But it is not only in this area that Sinn Féin can make an impact.
