We look at the stories that were making the headlines this week back in 1983
Open the gates of cemetery
BALLYMURPHY housewife, Mrs Mary Conlon, has pledged to continue her campaign to have a gate on the Upper Whiterock Road into the City Cemetery re-opened so that local people can visit the graves of their loved ones.
Next month the City Council is set to bow to popular pressure and re-open the gate to funerals coming down the Whiterock Road but, unless a last ditch effort by Councillor Alex Maskey succeeds, pedestrian access will remain impossible for the foreseeable future.
Mrs Conlon, whose husband is buried in the cemetery, told the Andersonstown News that easy access to the cemetery was a basic right.
"We collected a petition in New Barnsley, Turf Lodge, Whiterock, Springhill, Westrock and Ballymurphy, and it was obvious that all the people here want to be able to visit the cemetery without walking all the way down to the bottom of the road.
"All we are asking is that a gate be open, even for a couple of hours on a Sunday, so that we can visit our dead." Mrs Conlon went on: "We have been told that the gate, which has been closed since 1970, can't be opened because of vandals. But vandals can just climb over the gate. The old people are the only ones kept out."
Sinn Féin councillor for the area, Alex Maskey says he is dismayed at the lack of unity in putting over the case for having the gate opened.
"Since July I have met the local priests, Mrs Conlon and the Director of Parks and Cemeteries, Mr Craig Wallace, on this issue," he said.
On Tuesday, 27th September, members of the Parks and Cemeteries Committee attended a "site" meeting in the cemetery itself to discuss the problem. There Alex Maskey outlined his support for the gate on the Whiterock Road to be open for funerals and for a turnstile type gate to be installed for pedestrian access.
"I was led to believe that my arguments had been accepted and that the issue would be speedily resolved. Even Unionist Councillor Tom Patton remarked to me, ‘I see you have had your problem solved today anyway.”
However, at the Parks and Cemeteries committee meeting on October 6, a deputation including Councillor Owen Allen and Corpus Christi priest Fr Parker, asked solely for the gate to be opened for funerals. A request acceded to by the Committee.
“It is my opinion that, had they continued with the same approach as I had adopted, then we would have won pedestrian access to the cemetery,” Mr Maskey stressed. “I have since made it clear to Mr Allen that I am very disappointed that he should interfere in this issue, which is outside his ward, without first consulting me.”
The’victorious St Agnes’ competitors at the Waterford International Festival of Light Opera. St Agnes’ won four trophies for Best Northern Entry, Best Costumes and Best Make-up. Pat Lundy won Best Female Referee.
Editorial: Adult education in West Belfast
WE carry a few letters this week from students attending the Community Further Education Project in St Louise's, highlighting the fact that the project is threatened with closure next year.
These letters make sad reading, coming as they do from people processed through the conventional education system and discarded for one reason or another as having no further use for education. The fact that 300 part-time adult students are attending classes under the project, and that hundreds of others have had to be turned away through lack of resources, is on the one hand a damning indictment of the education system as a whole, but also a manifestation of the determination and hope of thousands of young people in the West Belfast area, who will not be cowed down by their environment or disheartened by the system in their search for enlightenment and fulfilment through this further education process.
One would have thought that the phenomenal success of the project would have prompted the authorities to expand on the idea and divert money from other areas if necessary to keep it going. But the exact opposite seems to be the case, and they have opted for extinction rather than expansion. We, in the West Belfast area, cannot allow this to happen. And this newspaper, will throw whatever resources it has, behind every campaign to have a proper Further Education College established in this area, which has the highest unemployment and incidence of poverty in Western Europe.
The will is there, the buildings are there, and the teachers are there. The only thing preventing the establishment of such a college is lack of financial assistance from the authorities. It is in that respect that the Catholic Church, as the main provider of education facilities in the area, has a prime responsibility. If the Education Authorities don't provide the funds, then the Church must mobilise the public to provide the necessary money.
