Short Strand Eyweitness Account.

Thursday June 06, 2002 17:41

by Shane OCurry - Pat Finucane Centre

By Bimpe Fatogun of the Irish News.

Irish News Reporter Bimpe Fatogun tells the story of the loyalist attack on mourners at St Matthews in the Catholic Short Strand enclave in north Belfast.

'Terror and disbelief' as mob attack funeral

EYEWITNESS

By Bimpe Fatogun

WORD that St Matthew’s was being attacked spread like wildfire through the Catholic enclave of the Short Strand yesterday morning.

Residents – some still in their pyjamas – streamed out of houses on Mountpottinger Road, cars did quick U-turns in the street.

Everyone just desperate to reach the church at the heart of a community under siege.

Soon the grounds of St Matthew’s were filled with hundreds of residents, taking shelter behind the church building itself as rocks and bricks were fired over the walls.

At the back of the church, away from the bombardment, a hearse waited, it’s

windows adorned with wreaths spelling out the tribute –‘GRAN’.

Inside the funeral mass for 54-year-old Short Strand resident Jean O’Neill continued, interrupted only briefly as her grandchildren and their school friends were whisked away by teachers through the vestry.

The congregation thinned steadily as mourners ran outside to defend the church from attack.

One man told of attempts by a loyalist mob to storm the church itself and of hand-to-hand fighting between mourners and

loyalists at the gates.

As police and army arrived on the scene the crowd were split apart and the

automatic gates finally closed.

Men using scarves as make-shift masks and with hoods pulled up over their heads continued to throw stones over the heads of soldiers and into the church compound.

Inside the grounds, a few men and women prowled the perimeter carrying sticks and baseball bats.

The mood was one of terror mixed with appalled disbelief.

“They won’t even let us bury our dead,” said one woman.

“They were trying to prevent the funeral from taking place,” said another.

“She was a good, quiet woman with a good family, well respected in the area. They won’t let us go to the post office, the

doctors or the chemist and now they don’t even want us to bury our dead.”

The mourners was finally forced to carry the coffin out through the side door of the vestry to the waiting hearse.

There was palpable anger among the crowd at the picket by loyalists outside the nearby post office and pharmacy on the mainly Protestant Newtownards Road.

In an area which has seen a constant

barrage of attacks for the past four weeks, the action yesterday increased the feeling of isolation.

Most of the anger was reserved for media coverage of the on-going violence.

“We are under siege here. We can’t get out to go out our front doors. We’re living in caves with no natural light,” said one man.

“Whole streets have had windows put in with bricks, ball-bearings and petrol bombs and blast bombs and all that is being reported is that it’s tit-for-tat.”

In such an atmosphere it was not long after the blockade began that a rumour began to circulate that one or more nationalists were “trapped” inside the pharmacy.

One resident said it was when a group of nationalists “went to the rescue” the simmering tensions on both sides exploded into violence.

The church became the focus of disturbances for more than an hour, before protests broke out on the lower Newtownards Road.

By late afternoon the doctor’s surgery and local post office had been closed and short term emergency measures had been put in place to deal with the medical and social security needs of the community. Last night the area was quiet but tense. The question on everyone’s mind: ‘What will happen next?”