Another excerpt from my work in progress on Anatomy of a Backlash: Militant Loyalism and the Early Troubles
Please forgive any typos etc., this is a rough ongoing piece of work and not representative of any final manuscript.
As autumn arrived the people of Northern Ireland must have hoped that the summer had been a bloody, nightmarish aberration. Many loyalists were still pushing for a political route out of the chaos. Jean Moore, whose brother Ingram ‘Jock’ Beckett had been shot by fellow UDA members on 25 March, had become a prominent spokesperson for LAW throughout the year. She had held the position of chairperson of the women’s section since January, yet initially Moore had been reluctant to take on what was a fairly prominent role. Having lived in Crimea Street since birth she understood better than many the social problems facing residents of the Shankill. While loyalists in general felt under pressure to defend what little they felt that they had left politically after the proroguing of Stormont, the people of the Shankill in particular were being forced to hold the line against developers who seemed intent on destroying the very community they called home. ‘I feel it is time working class men and women had a say in the affairs of Ulster. For too long we have had the landed gentry coming round at elections and promising us the earth. But once they are voted in, they don’t want to know you. It’s the cloth cap working man who suffers.’
Moore was a familiar figure in the Shankill political scene. In October 1970 she had stood for the Shankill Redevelopment Committee in the City Council elections. Moore and her running mate Agnes Steele, chairperson of the committee, campaigned on two issues of huge concern to local residents: the rising cost of corporation bus fares and the redevelopment plans for the area. Steele, who lived in Klondyke Street just yards from her friend Jean Moore, later described the frustrations of ordinary people who had to tholed houses which were no longer fit for habitation: ‘I think the whole thing is through lack of housing. All the people in this area need to be re-housed. I brought ten children up in this house, which has only two bedrooms and no bathroom. The Housing Trust were supposed to have the west side of the Shankill rebuilt for January 1970 and it’s still not done.’
Moore subsequently recalled what turned out to be a disappointing election for herself and Steele: ‘… [we] stood against Unionists and Labour but for that election the Unionists pulled out all the stops and of course they won. I never stood again although I had plenty of encouragement. If it had been on a one-man-one-vote basis we would have been elected.’ In November 1971 Moore had contacted the opposition leader Harold Wilson in anticipation of his visit to the province where at the behest of Gerry Fitt he planned to visit the Falls Road and Derry. Writing on behalf of the SRC Moore suggested that once Fitt had shown Wilson around the ‘main trouble areas’ of Divis Towers, Andersonstown, Ballymurphy, Turf Lodge, Unity Walk and Artillery House where the ‘allegedly oppressed people’ lived in ‘modern housing estates’ ‘… we request that you then visit the Shankill Road area, which includes the other sections of Mr. Fitt’s constituency, and view the appalling housing conditions of the law-abiding citizens of the area.’ The Catholic areas identified by Moore contained modern housing schemes as wretched and ill-devised as any of the old Belfast stock, and the Shankill had plenty of people operating outside the law by the end of 1971, yet Moore was adamant that if Fitt brought Wilson to the Shankill he may see a very different picture. ‘You can then judge for yourself who are the oppressed people in Northern Ireland in regard to housing.’
Moore was adamant that LAW wasn’t anti-Catholic and would fight on bread and butter issues for anyone. However she was clear that a person seeking the assistance of LAW must be loyal to the constitution. Things had changed dramatically for the working class people of the Shankill between the end of 1970 and 1972 and Moore was not immune to the realities of the situation surrounding her. Despite her political ambitions she couldn’t rule out the potential for a civil war scenario, something that UDA leaders and Vanguard’s Bill Craig had spoken of often over the previous nine months. ‘One of the things we are doing is to help as many of our women to learn to drive for we will need as many drivers as possible in case of civil war’ Moore stated. She boasted that the 5,000-strong women’s section of LAW was working on the ‘same scale as the UDA or the Army, with first aid units, nurses and doctors.’ Like the UDA the majority of the large number of members wouldn’t be capable of or expected to engage in military activity. Some of the women would, according to Moore, have to stay behind the ‘front line’ and organise evacuation to safe areas and relief centres where children and old people could go.
Moore was of the opinion that the only way to prevent civil war and bloodshed in Northern Ireland was to restore Stormont and avoid the system of proportional representation in any future elections. ‘I was born and raised here in Crimea Street, I love every brick and paving stone and I was quite content with Ulster the way it was.’ Even the most optimistic loyalist would have realised by the autumn of 1972 that things had changed irrevocably. For those who firmly saw no other option than the previous status quo any ‘appeasement’ or ‘peace at any price’ forced on the loyalists would be catastrophic: ‘We will die for our country first’, Moore warned.