Bottle Green Bastards

St. Malachy's Primary School rests on the edge of the townland of Carnagat. Built in the eighties on the crest of a drumlin, at elevation, it sits above a valley carved by the recession of a glacier eons ago. Below, lies the town of Newry, slightly obscured from view by the stretched brow of this broad hill.

The school was surrounded by fields that acted as a sort of impromptu, agriculturally demilitarised, buffer zone between us and the raging conflict outside. Of course, even from the school there were visible signs of conflict and colonial occupation. We only had to look up at the mountain to see the Brits based on it, or tilt our heads to the sky to see the continuous Chinook and chopper movement, but young minds become conditioned to such things when thrust into an environment from the day and hour they land with a thump and a scream in the delivery suit at Daisy Hill Hospital.

Adjacent the school was a narrow, idyllic, country loanan, lined on either side by a row of hedges with a trail of grass running up the middle. Often in the spring, as we began to wind-down for the summer, we’d be gifted with a guided walk down it by teachers. A welcome reprieve from the monotonous rhythm of school routine.

At the end of the lane was an old derelict building, spattered in graffiti. Put to new use, it acted an informal notice board with such announcements as, “Rambo luvs it up the hole.” Which left minds young & innocent to ponder, “but what does Rambo love up the hole?”

I hadn’t known it at the time but subsequently learned that this building was an old Orange Hall, abandoned during another tumultuous period in our history. There are deep historical fissures that run through this land. Inherited trauma exists in our collective psyche. We suffer shame through our subjugation as a colonised people - isn't that the very reason I'm writing this in English and not Irish? - and it means that no one really wants to speak about the past. It doesn’t take much digging to know that these townlands once ran red with blood and even now, so very little is spoken about the 6th of July 1921.¹ 

I remember the palpable tension during Drumcee. All the adults in my daily life were talking about it. 

"If the' let them bastards down tha' road, there'll be war!" 

"They'll b'fuckin' singin' Dolly's Brae, da bastards!" I heard one elderly man say.

On an analogue TV In our living room, as I played with an assortment of toys, I caught glimpses of the nightly news reports broadcasting raw sectarian rhetoric straight into our home. As ignorant as I was, I still knew it to be something nasty. If this was what Orangism and Orange Halls - through its sashed-up, reactionary proponents and Peep o’ Day proxies - facilitated, then I wished that the doors of that old hall remained eternally bolted, shut-tight and its windows bricked up forever. Let it always be covered in ridiculous graffiti.

In recalling these memories, I'm evoked to sing a line of yearning from the Shan Van Vocht:

"Oh The French are in the Bay, they'll be here without delay,

And the Orange will decay," says the Shan Van Vocht."

    Me and our Aveen, Camlough Road 1997, during the Drumcee Standoff. 

One weekend, while the school was closed, there was an incident. Faceless, humanesque figures, bogey-men even or interstellar beings, had been beamed down from the cosmos. Sent to salvage lead from the roof or seek provisions under lock ‘n’ key. A chance pit stop before making their on-ward intergalactic space voyage.

The Crown Forces likely concluded that it was too much of a security risk for them to investigate over the weekend; more appropriate to mount an investigation on Monday because children make the best human shields.

That Monday morning the RUC, in a heavily armoured convoy of Tangies, bolstered by Brits in the ditches and eyes from their surveillance post on Sliabh gCuirín, landed at the school.

From our class room we could see them roll up Martin’s Lane and even Mr. Tierney, our Teacher, let out a “fuckin’ bastards” under his breath as he scoped them with strained eyes coming up the road.

Even as a child, yet unable to articulate it, I remember having an inherent feeling of wariness and dislike for the whole British "security" apparatus. It had an omnipresent and oppressive feeling. I had questions like: “Why is there a man at the end of our street with a strange accent and a gun?” and: “how come there's another man with a balaclava, painted on the wall at the other end of our street, with a bigger gun? an’ how does everyone know his name is Micky Mural?” 

I'd actually thought his surname was ‘Mural’ as in ‘Merrill’ because someone once scolded me by shouting:

“Don’t be kickin’ the ball at Micky Merrill!”

     Micky Mural, Raymond Kelly Park.

And now, standing in class, I asked myself, “why does it take a convoy to investigate some mystery men on our roof?” These questions, in the years that followed, would later be answered for me. This caused me to have so many epiphanies that I’m certain for at least a small part of my life I was constantly walking around with my mouth open, a symptom of the relentless intuitive grasps of reality that smacked me over and over again.

“Right everyone!”

“Whistles out!” ordered Tierney.

The Feis was coming up soon in Warrenpoint. Most of us had entered and we were all diligently blowing away on our whistles. I’d chosen 'The Star of The County Down' but those with real ability on the whistle had chosen the 'The Kerry Polka'. Clare McShane from the other class could play it brilliantly. Her fingers moved in a timing I could never quite figure out. Its plausible that my wee, feeble, Ulster brain was maybe just impermeable to the pace of a Munster Polka. Although, at least I wasn’t encumbered by being one of the real musically challenged pupils, burden with the holy mortifying shame of struggling to play 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' or ‘Bah Bah Black Sheep’.

“There’s six notes on tha' whistle.”

“B. A. G. F. E. D.”

“It’s what a horse ates out'a”

“Remember it!”

That's what Cosgrove our music teacher told us. I've never forgotten it.

Time had elapsed and suddenly, without a knock, the door swung open breaking the cacophony as three RUC officers marched into the classroom.

"There's been reports of people on the roof of the school at the weekend” announced a thick waisted officer in a mid-Ulster accent. His accent instinctively asserted that I should hold him in suspicion, as he stood in his bastard brigade, bottle green uniform.

“Has anyone seen or heard anything?” He inquired.

The class remained silent. Thirty pairs of small eyes all glared at the gestapo in green. It was then that a single solidarity pupil rose from his chair and made his way towards the three officers. Our eyes were all now locked on Micky McClelland. I braced for an admission of guilt, a confession of “Yes officer, it was me on the roof". He lived in Carnagat, so it wouldn't have been a stretch of the imagination to imagine. Plus, he was our designated class madman. A position that was unelected, undisputed and wholly accepted. Every class had a madman and Micky was ours.

He had twin Sister Maria but the two of them were nothing alike. Michael had black hair, Maria, Red. Michael was mental, Maria, sensible. Maria did her homework, Micky didn’t. And because he did fuck all else in school too, but mess, just to keep him settled and to burn off some energy, Benny Tierney - Armagh All Ireland goal keeper but more importantly, our Teacher - would let Micky McClelland get up in front of the blackboard and serenade us with renditions of 'Candle In The wind' and many other Elton John classics.

He was like a young Elton John, standing there with this eyes closed. A young Elton John, if Elton was from Carnagat, loved to burn shite and write 'IRA' on the wall of the toilets in 5ft letters.

On a trip to Tayto Castle once, one of the lads working for Tayto let us wing spuds at a humongous potato mountain. I'd never seen so many spuds in my life - I have never seen so many since. This Sliabh Lady Rosetta would offer a challenge even to the likes of such accomplished people as Banjo Bannon, such was its mass. Spuds, still covered in soil, reached to sky. It was impressive and Micky relished the opportunity to winged them like he was trying to bust a peelers skull open. Maybe Micky imagined that, if it was a Peeler’s head, maybe it was like a Cream Egg and if he threw it hard enough he could get to the runny bit in the middle. I don’t know.

“Right that’s enough Michael” quipped a Teacher, which really meant, "Calm the fuck down son!”

    A mountain of spuds

On another occasion, out on the yard, he walked right up to me and kicked me straight in the balls. As though swiftly delivered from the field to Tayto, I dropped like a sack of spuds. The pain shot up into my stomach. Other children began to gather and tower over me, watching the spectacle as I wiggled and rolled in pain on ground. I later got my own back. He swung for me one day after lunch and missed. I lunged forward and managed to get him in a firm headlock. Caught in a haze of adrenaline, I hadn’t realised I’d had him gripped for so long. As his face turned purple, classmates demanded I let him go.

“ahll only let’im go if he promises t’ nat start swingin’!” was my counter demand.

“Brian!”

“Fuckin’ hell Brian!”

“Let ‘im go, he can’t fuckin’ breathe !” Someone pleaded, while others tried to pry open my headlock that I'd injected every ounce of my strength into.

Back in the class there was a thud.

"Ahhh fuck!" groaned Micky, as he stood toe to toe with one of the Peelers. The class erupted into laughter as we witnessed Micky swing a dig straight into an RUC officer's mid section.

“It’s fuckin’ bullet proof!” Micky confirmed for us, still shaking his hand.

"Michael, Get back to your seat!" Rebuked Tierney quickly, though not so forceful that it was actually threatening but rather to be seen to be the voice of authority in the room.

It seemed then, that we as a class of giggling children, induced to laugh by Micky’s spontaneous impulse to act, had caused some embarrassment to the custodians of the crown. And because no one had anything to say but rather just stared which made the RUC feel uncomfortable; without wasting anymore time, they promptly moved onto the next class.

I’m not au fait with biblical drivel but surely this mirrored the story of David and Goliath, where:

David, the oppressed Irish, working-class lad, armed with only a sling-shot, picked stones from the riverbed and slung them at Goliath, the RUC chief Constable’s head, killing him and exposing the runny Cream Egg centre. This prompted the British Occupation to flee. People were jubilant and everyone lived happily ever after in a thirty-two county socialist Republic.

No?

I still see Micky occasionally when I’m over the town. I'd never pass him.

As a 10 year old child I’d been unable to articulate in words my abject frustration with the whole colonial apparatus present around me – I didn’t understand the mechanics of this world yet, maybe I still don’t - but Micky answered his own questions with action. 

Yes, bullet proof vests are hard and peelers do make dismal situations worse, to paraphrase Brendan Behan.

¹.On the 6th July, 1921, four young men were shot dead by a loyalist murder gang close to Altnaveigh. Those men were: John and Thomas O’Reilly: (brothers) Cloughoge, Newry; Peter McGinnitty (sic), Bellymacdermott, and Patrick Quinn, Derrybeg, Newry.