IRISH-AMERICAN-L Archives

From: "Jean R." <>
Subject: From "The North In Agony" - Charles LUCEY,Irish-American newspaperman (1970s?)
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 18:09:08 -0800

SNIPPET: Traveller Charles LUCEY, Irish-American newspaperman (1970s?) contrasts pastoral scenes of the surrounding countryside of Northern Ireland with the ravaged city of Derry. "It is, in the airy rhetoric of the tourist guidebook, 'a country where you relax and go as you please along open roads to unspoilt beaches, shimmering lakes and rivers that beckon anglers and boatmen .. peace and beauty of mountain, glen and forest ...the friendliest of people extend an openhanded welcome.' The travel brochure hyperbole seemed within allowable limits and I thought, rolling easily through fertile Armagh and Tyrone in Northern Ireland, that here indeed could be haven from a world's discord and jackassery. The day had a late summer indolence about it; tractors crawled like great beetles across fields coming golden with harvest from the fast-running Blackwater to the old fortress-town of the O'Neill's at Dungannon. The beauty of 'mountains, glen and forest is alive and real eno!
ugh. It is more pastoral, less spectacular than the beauty of Donegal or Kerry on this same island but, the ubiquitous British Union Jack notwithstanding, it is unmistakably part of Ireland. The miles slip away quickly through Omagh and Newtownstewart and Strabane and then one drops down into the green valley of the River Foyle and after that the fan-out into Lough Foyle and the endless northern sea. Here above the Foyle, behind the finest old city wall in Ireland and one of the finest in all Europe, is the ancient city of Derry, arrogantly called Londonderry by the English, its high hills climbed by winding streets of cobbles long bloodied by hate and history. But I find no peace in Derry, as I find none in Belfast. I find British troops sin full battle dress with automatic rifles, with bayonets at the ready, patrolling streets barricaded with barbed wire, timbering, and overturned trucks and buses. In both cities I see gaping holes in business and residential blocks !
that bring a flash-back to the devastation I saw in London and in Germany and Italy at the end of World War II. Here and now it is vengeance by incendiary gasoline bomb. No midnight is safe from the tension that bursts into violence. Physical fear as strong as a hand in the face and families intimidated by bigots flee from their homes. In Derry I walk block after block where plate-glass windows are smashed jaggedly open to a melancholy drizzle. Sidewalks are littered with broken glass. A car, burned and overturned to block off an area of Derry's Catholic Bogside ghetto, lies derelict. A bulldozer pushes away the brick and mortar of a burned-out building. Small shopkeepers go about the task of boarding up shop fronts. Some wonder whether it is worth while to try to go on. Pitifully, after windows are boarded, a 'Business as Usual' legend is lettered crudely across the boards. It is not business as usual, of course, but business under terrible strain. No one knows !
where it ends or what new rioting night might bring ..." (to be concluded)

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• From "The North In Agony" - Charles LUCEY,Irish-American newspaperman (1970s?) by "Jean R." <>