We look at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in 1980
Andersonstown Leisure Centre Disco Dancing winners at Avoniel Leisure Centre: Siobhán McAree, Janette Breen, Paula Philips, Eithne Carville, Brónagh Donnelly and Patricia Dugan
103 stitches for 15-year-old plastic bullet victim
15-year-old Anne McMullan was just another statistic for the media, but here we show that injured and suffering people are not just statistics.
She received 103 stitches and a very bad fracture from a plastic bullet fired point-black at her face by a thug in an unlighted jeep at the corner of Horn Drive and Doon Road. It will be a long time before Anne forgets that horrific night.
While being rushed to the RVH by a neighbour, their car was stopped in Broadway and live rounds were pumped into it by hysterical British soldiers. Anne now attends the hospital regularly and is receiving therapy, but she will carry the scars both mentally and physically for the rest of her days.
No, Anne is not just another statistic.
Brendán Mac Ghiolla Domhnaigh and Liam Mac Aindréis at Cumann Chluain Ard
Brits air gun attack during bonfire
A 17-year-old Cavanmore youth has had two lead pellets removed from his nose and skull in a minor operation this week. These were fired at him in the early morning of August 9, as he stood beside a bonfire at the top of Slievegallion Drive.
Several other lads were also hit, and they say that the shots were fired from the nearby ‘Silver City’ British Army fort.
Michael Canavan was among a crowd of young people who had lit the bonfire as part of the commemoration of internment in 1971, when he felt a sudden sharp pain in his head as if he had been struck by a stone. This was followed almost immediately by another pain in his nose. Although rioting was taking place in other parts of the area at the time, the Slievegallion area was reasonable quiet.
Michael’s wounds bled for some time, and during the following week he complained of some pain but was able to continue without treatment. However, by Sunday last the pain had become acute, especially in the nose and Michael went to the RVH where he was X-rayed and on Tuesday morning he was taken in again for a minor operation to remove the two pellets.
“Whoever fired the shots,” said his father Mr William Canavan “were intent on causing serious injury.”
Soldiers from Silver City had been spraying the young people with hose-pipes since the bonfire was lit. The latter has been reported to the RUC and Andersonstown Barracks, and to a solicitor at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau.
People in the Suffolk area told our reporters that it is common practice for soldiers to fire these air-gun pellets from the Woodbourne British Army/RUC Barracks.
“I got hit in the bum just last week,” said one ten-year-old.
Residents in the Ladybrook area have vivid memories of a ginger haired RUC man from Dunmurry Barracks, firing air-gun pellets at children in the area a number of years ago.
Kathleen Lynch, Rosemary Donnelly and Maureen Montgomery at the Ardoyne Martyr's Memorial Dart Tournament
Large sums lost as estates go unclaimed
SINCE the printers’ strike put newspapers out of circulation earlier in the year, thousands of pounds are literally going for the asking because people don’t know that distant relatives are dead.
Quite often, newspapers are the only means by which people find out about the deaths of distant relations, with whom they have lost all contact for 40 or 50 years.
When an old person dies, with no known relations, the estate passes into the hands of the Crown solicitor and eventually passes to the state if not claimed.
One Belfast undertaker told us that the problem of old people dying intestate is an ongoing one, but the printers’ strike definitely added to it. He personally had handled dozens of cases, and he thought that other undertakers were in a similar position.
Sometimes thousands of pounds can be involved. He had been contacted on numerous occasions by banks and other investment agencies informing him that the dead person had enough resources to pay for a substantial funeral if necessary.
“In the month of July alone, we handled five such cases from the inner city area of Belfast, and in one particular case, a large sum of money was involved. We have even known of people being buried in new graves by the Belfast City Council’s Executor’s Office, because they were not aware that the deceased had a grave already bought,” he informed us.
B McCourt (runner-up), Rosemary Donnelly and Maureen Montgomery at the Ardoyne Martyr's Memorial Dart Tournament
