Facebook helpfully reminded me this morning that a year ago today, I was cycling out of “Bandit Country” in South Armagh.
It was a gorgeous day.
I spent the previous night in “Cross”, how the locals refer to the community of Crossmaglen, which was the epicentre of British Army activity in the frenetic, chaotic and violent periods during the height of the Troubles - and an IRA hotbed.
The night before, I was regaled by locals with stories of visiting prisoners, of evading police and army units, of being detained and tailed (and worse) by those same enforcement authorities, as they enjoyed a pint at Murtagh’s Bar.
Its owner, Aidan, showed me photos, paintings, bullet holes in his entry-way and talked me through some of the life and times in those heady days.
They talked about Brexit, a ‘hard border’, and what life was like in those days; and many worried over a return to that state of existence…even if less militarized.
They used to go across one of the ~268 border crossings “into the South” to dances in Dundalk on a weekend night - something each of my own boys might do these days (although: Dances, dad - really? People don’t do those any more!). But you get the drift - heading out with friends for the evening.
For them, in the 1970s, and 80s, that was a choice they made recognizing there could be serious consequences. They might end up on the wrong side of a British weapon, in a melee, or in jail.
Just up the road from Murtagh’s, past the town square (where there used to be British Army watchtowers - see above painting), is the football and GAA pitch. I read stories in Dervla Murphy’s “A Place Apart”, about how the soldiers used to use those pitches as landing areas for their helicopters. When things were particularly bad, or after some violent incidents, they’d deliberately land and take off enough times to tear up the pitches, so no one could play.
Indeed, as I walked across the town square to watch a football practice, past the still-present eyes of the Police Services of Northern Ireland (PSNI), at their fortified compound with 11 cameras peering down at me, volunteers were putting up yellow flags for an awareness campaign.
Coming as it did during an Assembly Election campaign, one man confused these for election paraphernalia. He asked me “Those wouldn’t be Alliance Party signs and flags, now would they?” Having just spoken with a volunteer who was putting them up, I said “no, they’re for the charity event.” “Ah,” he said “right. You’d never see Alliance adverts around here sure anyway!”, and he walked away laughing and shaking his head.
So staunchly Republican, are they, that a moderate party like Alliance (which deliberately aligns neither Unionist or Nationalist) wouldn’t even really be allowed to put up their signs.
The town itself is a living monument to Republicanism, Irish Nationalism, and looks to the future in only one direction: a United Ireland. Many of those who live in town commute either to Belfast, or Dublin, to work each day; and come home to Cross at night.
I’ve plenty more stories, anecdotes and observations from Cross that I’ll share in future.
As I cycled out of town that morning, and crossed the border a half-dozen times in the next few hours of cycling, I had the warm sun on my face, met up with a nice man from Dublin who shared his coffee and lunch with me - and told me stories of the split loyalties of his grandparents (one grandfather an IRA man, one a British soldier)…I thought of Dervla Murphy, and how different it would have been to wander that area at night, and what a different experience crossing the border would have been, the year I was born a few hours’ drive North of there; in 1977.