We look at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in 1985...
Unionists moves to shackle local groups
A UNIONISTS inspired motion in Belfast City Hall will enable Loyalists to hamper the work of community groups by having the right to sit on their management committees.
Already the 13 enterprising community organisations, five of which operate in nationalist areas and together incorporate over 100 tenants and community groups, have been told by City Hall that they must accept the new political appointees. However, all the voluntary organisations in Belfast have already reacted angrily at the new proposal which is seen as an attempt to shackle their independence. All the voluntary organisations are politically non-alinged but their tireless work for the unemployed and their promotion of tenants’ campaigns in areas such as Moyard, Divis Flats and even Rathcoole, has angered many unionist councillors.
Commented one community worker: “These groups have been running successfully for twelve years without political interference. The presence at executive meetings of a councillor with views hostile to that of the local people, will jeopardise our standing within the nationalist communities. It is also clear that the Unionist politicians are keen to keep a tighter rein on voluntary organisations within their own areas, so that they can capitalise on their work and block radical politics.”
It is believed that the DUP councillors on Belfast City Council are behind the new proposals.
A Spokesman for the Community Service Department of Belfast City Council said that the action had been prompted solely by the number of complaints received by councillors about the inefficiency of the larger community groups operating in both Nationalist and Unionist areas. The councillors felt, said the spokesman, “that a direct council input was needed to ensure value for money."
If ratified, the Community Services Department will be responsible for implementing the Council decision.
FAMILY TOGETHER: Mr and Mrs McKenna from Ballymurphy Road celebrated their Silver Wedding Anniversary at home with family and friends back in 1985. They were married in 1960 by Fr McQuillan in St John’s Church, Falls Road
Editorial: Questions for Fr Faul
FATHER Denis Faul of Dungannon has often shone out like a lonely beacon on the dark shore of injustice in our community. He has often defended the rights of those hit hardest by the armed might of the establishment, and suffered anger and scorn because of it. We feel that this anger and scorn was all the more vehement because he never for one moment took the risk of being discredited by issuing statements that were not backed up by facts and figures which could not be easily refuted.
The Association for Legal Justice to which he was closely allied, did sterling work in this regard, and in fact acted as Fr Faul's personal fact finders for more than a decade, helping him to build up his reputation as a champion of the underdog who knew what he was talking about. For a priest schoolteacher living in a priest's house and working in the rarefied atmosphere of a Dungannon High School, to gain such a reputation was a master stroke of public relations and one not to be cast aside lightly.
Hence it is with some amazement that people in the Nationalist areas observe his one-man campaign against the Republican Movement which seems to be gaining momentum since the 1981 hunger strike, when he was accused of having undue influence on prisoners' relatives and attempting to undermine the prisoners' will to continue the fast.
It was at this stage that he began to make outlandish statements not backed up by facts or figures, but totally depending on conjecture, at which Fr Faul is no better at than you or I.
At that time he stated that the IRA were in direct control of the hunger strike and intended it to continue when, to the vast majority of observers, this was not the case, and in fact the IRA was so sure that it was going to end in defeat that they were anxious that a formula be found to end it, hence the co-operation with everyone involved – including Father Faul.
Since then his attacks on the IRA and Sinn Féin have become stronger and stronger, but bereft of the objectiveness which characterised his previous attacks on the British Army and their political masters. We don't mind him attacking the IRA because, like all military organisations it's not a bad thing that they be criticised if, for no other reason, than to curtail the excessive use of the firepower they possess. But to do so with outlandish and generalised statements lacking in facts, figures, times and places, is not only counterproductive, it's verging on the dishonest.
Where we take issue with Fr Faul most strongly is when he asserts that the people in the Nationalist areas are cowering in their houses for fear of the IRA, that business people are being milked dry, and that members of the Republican Movement are living the good life on the proceeds of crime and extortion.
No matter how reprehensible some acts of the IRA are, such as the killing of the Mahons at the weekend, we know that the above statements are simply not true, and are reminiscent of the British black propaganda churned out in the early seventies by the British military machine.
Fr Faul still has contacts in the Nationalist areas of Belfast. Good people who have assisted him for years in his work on behalf of prisoners and their families. But how much longer can they remain silent and acquiesce at Fr Faul's obsession as he heaps ignominy on their friends and neighbours, and helps denigrate the very community of which they are part.
There must come a time when even past friendships must have their price. At the moment Fr Faul is preparing a dossier on so-called ‘Republican Extortion’ in Nationalist areas. We wait with excited anticipation the results of this investigation and hope that it won't be marred by any assertions that intimidation made it impossible for information to be collected.
Fr Faul's declining reputation for objectivity depends on its full and frank publication.
