October 1970: 1 Death and 2 Bombs
It's scary to think this was a quieter month...
In October 1970, Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon was born. You’re probably wondering what tedious link I have to get this back to the troubles in Northern Ireland. Well, my initial question in my mind was; do you think those involved in the riots, shootings and bombs at any point felt they were in an action movie? Did they see themselves in a war movie? I don’t know, it was just a thought…
There wasn’t a great deal to report on in October 1970, so this edition of our timeline is a bit more brief than usual, unfortunately.
October 1970 began with political developments in Northern Ireland. On the 2nd, it was announced that the local elections would be postponed. It turned out that this was a bit of a lengthy postponement with the next local government elections not taking place until May 1973! Within the following week, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) proposed that a system of Proportional Representation (PR) should be used in elections in Northern Ireland. In the context of voting systems, PR means that the seats in an assembly are allocated in proportion to the vote share each party receives. In systems that don't involve parties, PR ensures that each successful candidate is elected by a roughly equal amount of voters.
Just 2 weeks into October, unfortunately, we had another death to add to the tally. Father of four, Liam Walsh died in a premature bomb explosion on the railway embankment at the rear of McKee Irish Army base, off Blackhorse Avenue, Dublin.
In the June 1970 edition, I mentioned that Bernadette Devlin was jailed for 6 months for riotous behaviour during the ‘Battle of the Bogside’. On the 21st of October, she was released from prison having served four months of her six-month sentence.
In another flashback to an earlier edition, May 1970, I wrote about the illegal arms importation allegations made against Charles Haughey and two others. It was on the 23rd of October that they were found not guilty by a Dublin jury.
On the 29th of October, we had another bomb. The electric sub-station at Banbridge, County Down is blown up by a Provisional IRA bomb, with the blast badly damaging the sub-station. Thankfully, there were no injuries. I’ve found some BBC Archive footage that shows the damage caused by the blast. You can view it here.
October finished up with further serious rioting in the Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast which lasted for three nights, as well as some political developments. On the 30th of October, Chichester-Clark, Northern Ireland's Prime Minister, met with Reginald Maudling, British Home Secretary, on matters related to reforms and security.
In the absence of more to report on, or document, I was hoping that I could get a little feedback on what I’ve written so far. Some thoughts on what you like/dislike, and where you think I could improve what I’m doing? If you could click on the button below and leave a comment, I’d really appreciate it. Many thanks, and I look forward to sharing the next instalment on Friday. Have a great week!
Loving the series and find it very interesting. Thank you