SATURDAY 12th of July, a scorching hot day in Galway and probably the same in Moygashel or the Village area of Belfast, just across the M1 motorway and the Bog Meadows where Ballymurphy sits beneath the Black Mountain, and where a distinguished visitor to the Galway Film Festival hails from.
Yes, Gerry Adams was in town for the international premiere of a new documentary about the former MP for West Belfast and TD for Louth, but more importantly a working class activist and revolutionary leader of his community during the armed struggle phase of resistance to British rule in the partitioned statelet in the Six Counties, and finally a central influence on the peace process as it morphed from armed struggle to democratic dialogue involving world leaders in London, Washington and South Africa.
Gerry made the trip out West to Galway as his ‘neighbours’ in the Village insisted on lighting their bonfire built near asbestos and close to two hospitals while in the County Tyrone village of Moygashel they were burning boats full of mannequin migrants as the loyal sons of Ulster defended our shores from foreigners 330 years after William of Orange became the first migrant. We may laugh but the reality is we will have to live with these people in a new Ireland. Gerry Adams has spent his life trying to achieve that.
I grew up in Belfast in Turf Lodge just across the Whiterock from Ballymurphy. We were neighbouring working class estates built to ease the overflowing two-up two-down houses in the inner-city lower Falls. As energetic 12-year-olds we would have an odd battle with our peers from Ballymurphy in fields separating us during summer holidays. We discovered quickly why the British Army would find them a handful a decade later.
I didn’t really know Gerry as such but our paths in life have ironically crossed at various times. Gerry passed the infamous 11-plus exam and went to St Mary’s Grammar School in Barrack Street in the early 1960s and a few years later I passed the same 11-plus and followed him to St Mary’s. While being academically gifted in a sense I suppose, we both left at ‘O’ Level stage (15); he started working in the Duke of York bar in downtown Belfast and a few years later I left and started working in Lavery’s bar just off the city centre near the High Court. Fairly appropriate! Hailing from a republican family tradition Gerry made his way seamlessly into the republican movement pre-conflict. I, with no republican background, became one of the '69’s as older republicans referred to the thousands who flooded into the movement as the Six Counties imploded at the end of the ’60s. I first met Gerry in the old Felons club in mid-’69, a serious-minded thinker and non-drinker.
I met Gerry again the night of the Falls Curfew. We just made it out of the lower Falls before the Brits enforced a curfew for three days in a modern city in Western Europe. Hard to believe. As always a man of vision he said there would be more appropriate times to take on the might of the British Army. Our paths would then cross again 18 months later as we were interned on the prison ship Maidstone. A few days after our arrival seven of the guys made their way through a porthole and shimmied down mooring ropes and swam across Belfast Lough to freedom. A few months later our paths crossed again as we were interned in the Cages of Long Kesh. Those were difficult but exhilarating years; part of a community that hit back at the statelet who had kept our parents subdued in a sectarian cesspit for 50 years.
The documentary was a powerful reflection on the life of one of the most iconic leaders of our time. A man who defined the republican struggle but also personified the route to peace. Have no doubts about it, although many others were involved: John Hume, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Albert Reynolds, Nelson Mandela, George Mitchell, Bertie Ahern, Mo Mowlam, Martin McGuinness and David Ervine, without Gerry Adams’ involvement there would have been no peace.
There were no surprises in the two-hour long documentary as the media have gorged on the Ballymurphy Man for decades and gruesome headlines in the pathetic English tabloids created some sort of anti-Christ figure, yet he is a man who loves nothing better that walking his dogs on the Cooley Mountains or down by Errigal in Donegal or indeed on the Black Mountain above the home where he still lives.
After those halcyon days of the ’70s I’ve been domiciled far away from those now peaceful streets of Ballymurphy and Turf Lodge. After gaol times I swore I would never go back as the horror of a H-Block cave beckoned. It was a decision I don’t regret. Political activism isn’t for everyone, just as I’m sure Gerry would say the same about golf. Gerry emphasized that in conflict everyone played their part, gave what they could when they could. He gave more than most. Thirty years of conflict brought sadness and sorrow but thankfully sunshine and harmony in the new millennium. The documentary will be shown around the world and will be widely viewed. It certainly deserves it, as the standing ovation in the Town Hall Theatre for the screening showed.
The documentary was produced by an English native domiciled in Mexico, Trisha Ziff, as well as Ross McDonnell, who sadly passed before it hit the big screen. It was made in Mexico with many trips to Ireland and 800 clips of archives painstakingly scrutinized to deliver the final product. It contained pathos and empathy for the victims of conflict but no doubt to paraphrase the words of Fratnz Fanon: Violent resistance lets the colonized reclaim their humanity.
The documentary brings to light the story of one man who dedicated his life to the basic civil rights of working-class people and the establishment of a free Republic without foreign interference and one that is shared with our unionist friends. He was a central figure within his community; he brought his community with him; in turn that community nurtured him, sheltered him and followed him. He brought the community with him on a journey which has finally found peace. He was a ‘man from Ballymurphy'.
Paddy McMenamin is author of From Armed Struggle to Academia. A Ballymurphy Man will be shown in the Omniplex Cinema, Kennedy Centre, on August 7, 7pm.
