Lurgan - a microcosm of the nationalist experience in the Six Counties

By Laura Friel

Eight-year-old Caitriona Duffy is singing carols with a school friend in the kitchen as her mother, Susan, prepares the evening meal. Her father, Colin, gently rocks baby Sinéad to sleep.

The house is cosy and quiet. Apart from a copy of the Proclamation in the hallway and a Celtic cross and harp in the living room, there is nothing to distinguish this house from any other family home in the run-up to Christmas.

Yet for the last five years the Duffy family have been the focus of unrelenting crown force intimidation. Their story encompasses the full spectrum of harassment experenced by nationalists in the Six Counties, from petty stop-and-search harassment to arbitary arrest and detention, from verbal and physical abuse to collusion.

The Duffys live in one of three small nationalist estates in Lurgan, County Armagh. Lurgan sits on the edge of what became known in the 1970s as the murder triangle. Less than ten minutes drive from Portadown, it is a small market town with a population of around 25,000, almost a third of which are nationalist.

In the last twelve months the nationalist communities in the area have endured intense RUC and British army activity. ``They're a law unto themsleves,'' says Colin, ``The level of harassment and Crown force activity is unprecedented, it's greater now than before the IRA ceasefire.''

After three years of imprisonment, Colin Duffy was released in September 1996 when a conviction for murder was quashed by the Appeal Court. The prosecution case collapsed when it was revealled that their key witness, screened from view during the trial, was a loyalist gunrunner.

``When I was released in `96, I noticed a quite striking escalation of Crown Force activity compared to `93 prior to my arrest.'' Colin Duffy and his family have been targeted for constant harassment by the British Army and RUC. ``I can't walk to the local shops without being stopped and searched,'' says Duffy, ``I can be stopped three or four times on a day. I am often held for over half an hour.''

On the Kilwilkie estate the year began much as it was to close. It was 4.30 on a cold February morning when over a thousand members of the RUC, RIR and British army moved into the estate. ``There's only about 700 houses in Kilwilkie,'' says Colin, ``The area was sealed off and remained curfewed for three days.'' Twelve homes were raided, with one left uninhabitable. ``They told us they would teach us a lesson and they certainly tried,'' said one resident at the time.

During the raids, RIR soldiers threatened nationalists and said they would give their personal details to loyalist gangs. Malachy Toman returned home from his father's funeral to find his home being raided. ``We can do what we like,'' said an RUC raider.

Constant Crown force harassment of her family is taking its toll on eight-year-old Caitriona Duffy. ``She has stopped going out with me,'' says Colin, ``and has become very anxious and fearful for my safety.'' Caitriona continually asks, ``Are they going to take you back to jail daddy?''

In July this year Colin Duffy was arrested and charged with murder yet again. This time he was charged with killing two RUC officers. In a blatant example of arbitrary arrest and detention, the RUC deliberately ignored evidence which established Colin's innocence. ``There were about a dozen witnesses who could place me in the Kilwilkie estate, more than a mile away, at the time of the shooting.'' Colin was held for almost three months before the charges were dropped.

An escalation of harassment against young nationalists in the Lurgan area reflects the experience of nationalist communities throughout the Six Counties. In April 13-year-old Gavin McKenna was almost blinded when he was shot in the face with a plastic bullet fired by a British soldier. Gavin was to be one of the first nationalists to be seriously injured in a year in which the RUC fired thousands of plastic bullets at the nationalist community. In one Sunday in Derry over 1,000 plastic bullets were fired, resulting in hundreds of injuries, forty serious injuries. In the aftermath of the Orange march through Garvaghy Road, 2,500 plastic bullets were fired, seriously injurying 30 people and leaving 14-year-old Gary Lawlor in a coma for over a week.

Rosemary Nelson is a solicitor working in the Lurgan area. In one month alone, this year, she recorded over 30 complaints against crown force personnel, including serious assaults. ``Where's fucking Rosemary Nelson now?'' yelled one RIR soldiers as he dragged Christine McCauley from her car.

In the Six Counties of Ireland, defending the rights of the nationalist community is a dangerous business. Rosemary Nelson is Colin Duffy's solicitor. After representing the family of Robert Hamill, kicked to death by a loyalist mob after the RUC failed to intervene, Rosemary has been targeted for harassment.

In November, Colin Duffy was again targeted for a brutal orchestrated attack by the RUC. It was the night of his new daughter, Sinéad's christening. ``The RUC were waiting for me,'' says Colin, ``I was travelling in a car with friends but we were stopped as we drove out of the pub carpark.''

Colin was punched by an RUC officer as he sat in the back of the car. Within moments two carloads of baton-wielding RUC arrived at the scene. Colin and his five companions were attacked and beaten. ``One girl was bruised head to toe, she was covered in baton and boot marks,'' says Colin,'' a second girl needed four stitches to a wound in her arm.'' Following the attack, Colin was arrested and remanded in custody on a charge of Grevious Bodily Harm.

``It's sinister,'' he says, ``unlike an assault charge, a magistrate can't grant bail for a charge of GBH.'' Colin was imprisoned until a High Court hearing granted bail. ``The RUC knew that the High Court would impose restrictions,'' says Colin, ``forcing me to sign bail at Lurgan's RUC barracks.''

Colin Duffy has good reason to suspect the RUC's motives. In 1990, Colin Duffy was signing bail with Sam Marshall who was murdered by the UVF. Crown force collusion in the killing has always been suspected. A known loyalist has already been sighted in suspicious circumstances on a night Colin should have been signing bail.

Crown force collusion, long suspected by the nationalst community, became a matter of public record during the trial of British agent Brian Nelson. To date over 2,000 nationalists have been informed by the RUC that their personal files have been passed into the hands of loyalist death squads. In one week in November, twenty nationalists informed Sinn Fein that the RUC had warned them that their lives were in danger.

``This community is sick and tired of crown force harassment,'' says Duffy, ``people are asking, `where is the peace dividened?', since the IRA ceasefire things have got worse. The British can't be serious about peace.''