Struggle or Starve by Seán Mitchell

Author:Seán Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2017-04-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

THE ODR RIOTS: BELFAST’S “FESTIVAL OF THE OPPRESSED”

On the evening of Monday, October 10, 1932, the streets of Belfast were tense with anticipation. It was the eve of the banned mass rally that was set to take place in the city the following day. No one was quite sure what to expect, but a showdown was certain.

That night, the RUC patrolled working-class districts of Belfast, as groups of men and women gathered at street corners in anticipation of the bonfires that were to take place across the city. The police confiscated any materials deemed to be of use in building a fire and immediately removed them to Brown Square Barracks. Still, crowds gathered in defiance of the police. On the Falls, a bonfire was erected with a collection of old boots, bicycles, disused articles of clothing, and motor tires. As soon as it was lit, the police emerged with buckets of water to extinguish it: abuse was hurled from the crowd but no one dared relight the fire. The police didn’t have such an easy time in the working-class Protestant districts of Belfast, where the lighting of bonfires was a deeply engrained tradition. Extensive preparations had been made on the Shankill and several bonfires were lit in the district. Small-scale rioting occurred on the road as youths pelted police with stones when they attempted to extinguish the bonfire. It was a frustrating night for the police—as soon as they extinguished one fire, another one was lit, and youths and police engaged in a cat-and-mouse game throughout the night.1

The Shankill was not the only scene of violence that evening. At around eight o’clock, a large crowd assembled in Cromac Square for a street meeting organized by members of the RWGs. Minutes into the meeting, the police forced their way into the crowd and arrested the speaker, twenty-one-year-old Maurice Watters of Fairview Street. Stones were thrown at police, and windows were smashed as rioting ensued in the area for the next few hours. By midnight, the police had extinguished all but a few bonfires, and many people took to parading through their local areas instead. Throughout the night large gatherings of young men and women marched through the streets singing “We Want Bread” and “Up to the Union We Will Go” to the tune of popular songs at the time. The evening’s low-level violence was a foretaste of what was to come. By early morning the police reported to the press that all was quiet across the city: it was the calm before the storm.2

The mass march was scheduled for around lunchtime that day. One person who would certainly not be marching was Watters, who was brought before the courts that morning. The fact that he was a speaker at the Cromac Square meeting was enough for the police to finger him as ringleader, a clear signal that the state intended to target leading figures in the movement. Watters was charged, preposterously, with incitement to murder John Wilson and Lily Coleman,

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