WE look back at the stories that were making the headlines this week in the Andersonstown News in 1982
Veteran republican Billy Hines looks at the exhibition in the Felon's Club, Andersonstown Road
Loyalists dictated De Lorean recruitment
WITH the impending closure of the De Lorean car factory in Dunmurry, the Andersonstown News can now reveal for the first time the paramilitary involvement in the employment policy of the company
Shortly before the factory began production Northern Ireland Office officials met with members of Loyalist paramilitary groups in the Belfast City Hall. At these meetings the car company was told that unless the workforce was at least 50 per cent Protestant, then the whole operation would be sabotaged. From subsequent personnel policy at the factory it would appear that the company bowed to the paramilitary threats and implemented a policy of 50-50 Catholic and Protestant recruitment, even though the factory was specifically built to relieve unemployment in the mainly Catholic West Belfast.
The Andersonstown News did not reveal the information at the time so as not to add to the controversy already surrounding the new factory, and further diminish its slim chances of success.
St Paul's Dance team Bronagh Carolan, Mary Monaghan, Ann Toal, Colette Valente, Elizabeth McCrory, Cathy Carey, Bronagh Murphy, Jennifer Morrell at Cumann Ceilí Naomh Pól in the Lake Glen
Residents rally for improved Lenadoon housing
THE newly formed Middle Lenadoon Housing Action Group will be meeting the Housing Executive shortly to discuss the area’s housing problems.
The Group was set up by a number of tenants who felt the Housing Executive was not doing enough to rectify the area’s problems.
The first meeting of the Action Group have been well attended and a questionnaire on housing issues has been distributed in the district.
The Group will be pressuring the NIHE on five main areas of discontent. These are heating, legalisation of squatters, rent increases, repairs and environmental improvements.
Meetings of the Housing Action Group are open to anyone from Kerrykeel, Falcarragh, Cresslough, Glenties, Carrigart Flats, and Lenadoon Avenue.
Wilson School of Dancing girls Bernadette O'Hagan, Lorraine Burns, Eileen Harvey and Roisin Groves at Cumann Ceilí Naomh Pól in the Lake Glen
Raid on Emma Groves’ home
EARLY on Tuesday morning a large force of British soldiers and RUC personnel descended on the home of Mrs Emma Groves, an Andersonstown mother blinded in 1971 when struck by a rubber bullet fired into her home by a British paratrooper. Mrs Groves has only returned from a successful tour of the USA to highlight the plastic bullet crises here.
Mrs Groves and four of her family were placed under house arrest while the raiding party carried out a full-scale search of her home.
The British officer in charge of the raid refused to allow a family relative to collect clothes for Mr Groves who was to be released from hospital at mid-day on Tuesday.
Two members of the Andersonstown News staff who had a prior appointment for 10.30am with Mrs Groves were also refused entry to the house. Permission to speak to her at the door to ensure that she wasn’t in a state of distress was turned down by an RUC man who denied she was under ‘house arrest’. The police constable gave his ‘word as an RUC officer’ that he would tell Mrs Groves that the Andersonstown News teams had arrived to see her.
The search party finally left the house at 10.45am – four and a half hours after their arrival.
Speaking later Mrs Groves, who had not been made aware of the attempt by the Andersonstown News to contact her, said: “I have been expecting this since I came back from America.”
A representative for the ALJ described the incident as a “blatant act of intimidation against Mrs Groves.”
Ossie Unsworth, Patsy, Brian and Sandra O'Halloran, Harry O'Harra, Sean Taylor, Sean and Christine Stewart at Republican Prisoners' Transport presentations in Turf Lodge Community Centre
A’town credit union expands
A NEW storey is being built onto the premises of the SAG Credit Union at Commedagh Drive. When completed the extension wil provide additional office space equivalent to two-thirds of the ground floor.
Work should be finished by September and until then the committee is calling on members to park where possible, away form the building.
Starting from Tuesday 1 June SAG members will be asked to collect loan application forms and to return them, completed, to the CU. Loans will then be paid out between 7pm and 9pm on Tuesdays and Fridays. No cash collections will be taken up on these nights.
SHARE fundraiser in St Louise's College with Jim Carty (MC), David Rowlands, Alice McEvoy (SHARE), Gerry Millar, Anne and Francie Brolly, Eileen Depo, Eilleen Rocks and Susan Lavery
