Taking it back to the old school

The ongoing rioting reminds me of being in Northern Ireland back in the mid-late nineties, when each summer would bring with it the familiar spectre of "Drumcree" and the associated civil disobedience that went with it.

Each year we would be subjected to around a week of riots, with local people rising up against the police in protest at being banned from marching down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown. Unlike London - where the main focus has been on looting shops - the goal was to lock down entrance to, and exit from, key strategic points in the country - be that towns, motorways, ports or airports. The weapon of choice was the petrol bomb & vehicle hijack, allied to the fact that in the majority of cases you didn't have the anonymity afforded to you by the big city - rebel against these people at your peril; hell, you probably recognised them (and they you) even with their faces masked. It had, of course, added significance attached in that it was perceived as being a religious & cultural issue - and woe betide you if you suggested you weren't supporting whoever it was that was taking affirmative action. In Ballymena, they were well served on the main dual carriageway into town, a massive Ford dealership on a hill above the road proving a perfect source for vehicles to roll down to the tarmac and torch.

When I was 17, I helped my sister move back home from university in Warwickshire. My first ever road trip involved a trundle up the M6 in her 12 year old Vauxhall Nova. There was nothing remarkable about the journey up to Stranraer, but the radio was keeping us abreast of developments back home. When we got to the ferry they confirmed that the road to the port of Larne - our destination - had been barricaded by Loyalists, and no one was getting in or out. 

When we docked, imagine our surprise therefore to see our parents waiting for us. Somehow my dad had talked his way through the barricade, where the local "commander" had allegedly not only allowed him to pass through, but had also guaranteed he could get back out once he had collected us. Quite how he'd come to this arrangement, I don't know and if I'm honest don't want to, although I do retain a degree of intrigue and respect for the fact he plied his trade across the rural wilds of Northern Ireland as a salesman throughout some of the darkest periods of the troubles.

We travelled in convoy back up the deserted road from the port, hazard lights flashing as instructed to announce our arrival, only to reach the blockade (a hijacked articulated lorry turned sideways across the dual carriageway) and discover "our man" was no longer there. His replacement knew of no arrangement to let us through, and we were forced to return sheepishly to the port and spend an uncomfortable night with the rest of the ferry passengers, trying to sleep in the food court on plastic moulded seats.

Around 5am, word reached the terminal that a route may be open up the coast road towards Glenarm. Some discussion and decision amongst a discrete group of passengers later and we were slipping into our cars in the early morning sunlight. My dad somehow emerged as the ringleader once again, and he and mum headed up the convoy as we quietly eased out of the port and turned towards the back roads along the shoreline. My sister and I followed in the Nova, followed by a couple of other cars who were willing to take the risk to get back home.

It was an incredibly surreal experience - the watery daylight, the early hour, picking our way round and through still-smouldering car shells in the middle of the road. At any moment, I expected to round a corner and be confronted by a group of men in balaclavas - but it never happened. It seems that, wherever the intelligence came from, we had timed it perfectly to coincide with the night shift heading home to get a few hours kip. Eventually, after around 30 minutes, we turned left, tooted the horn in solidarity with the cars heading further north, and rose into the hills to head back towards home.

A few years later I was working for Belfast International Airport during my summer holidays from uni. My shifts started at 6am, and I remember plotting my route to avoid the roadblocks based on the information available at the time (as a rule of thumb, "take the most remote roads you can find"). I found myself high on the side of a hill overlooking the plain on which Antrim & Ballymena nestle, and remember just looking down through the mist at fires burning across the countryside - I could spot at least ten spots where burning barricades were clearly blocking access on the main roads. 

Its weird - at the time it was just something you dealt with and were used to. Guys I knew at the airport had tales of previous years where they'd had to stay overnight at work because there was no way in or out. They ended up at the airport hotel having a by-all-accounts raucous party with some stranded air hostesses. Every cloud, and all that.