Eimear O’Callaghan

Belfast Days


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I have definitely failed – only got one sum out of 6 done. However, I’m not the only one in that position.

       Walked home. Had hoped to go down town but no buses – and I’ve no intention of walking down that road again. Might tomorrow.

       No tests tomorrow so I didn’t do a pick of revision. Watched Winter Olympics on TV and read for a while. Intend to go to concert in Methody tomorrow night – depending on situation. First time I’ll have been out in months.

      Fri, Feb 11

       No exams at all, therefore I’m off all day. Didn’t surface till about 11 o’clock. Walked round to the shops with Mammy and treated myself to a new mascara, 25p. Bought cream buns, just to get fat!

       Mammy went off to work. I was left alone in the house and for a change, I didn’t really mind. Washed my hair, Eleanor rang me and I rang Vera. Fixed heel on boots, darned school cardigan, washed few things and did other footery odds and ends.

       At 6.30, Lizzie called down and we all met in Oonagh’s. Frankie, Vera, Lizzie, Oonagh and I went to Methody and waited for Eleanor, Mary-Clare and Peter – they’d been off having, as Eleanor said, ‘a wee drinkie-winkie.’ Eleanor was supposed to meet a friend of Peter’s but alas, he was sick. Concert was brilliant – a gorgeous fella there, all fancied him, called Gordon ‘X’?

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      Around that time, I was hanging by my fingertips to the edge of the ‘in’ crowd, the girls who – emboldened by the example of older brothers or sisters – weren’t as fearful as I was and acted and looked older than their sixteen or seventeen years. I listened with envy to tales of their romantic trysts. I listened with a mixture of wonderment and disapproval as they boasted about their drinking exploits while my closest friends and I observed our Confirmation pledges to abstain from alcohol until we were 18.

      As an only daughter, with no older trail-blazing siblings, I opted for the low-key, safer nights out and derived a vicarious thrill from hearing what the braver girls got up to. I could have counted on one hand the number of social outings I had during that winter but their rarity made me treasure them. We used to flock to the events which local schools occasionally organised: concerts where young aspiring rock musicians – usually the trendiest current or former pupils – flaunted their talents and impressed their peers. Such occasions gave sheltered girls like me a welcome excuse to ‘slap on’ some make-up and get dressed up.

      My parents weren’t strict, commanding rather than insisting upon obedience. ‘I trust you,’ my father would say, shifting responsibility for proper behaviour onto me. He and my mother left me in little doubt that, at 16, licensed premises were out of bounds. I wasn’t on my own. Hotels, pubs, clubs and restaurants had become popular targets for republican and loyalist bombers, with the result that many nervous adults avoided them too, both in the suburbs and in the city centre.

      Trips to ‘the pictures’ offered occasional diversions and early ‘home times’, although we avoided the big city-centre cinemas because of the risk of car bombs. The growing number of bombings and night-time shootings meant that even the simplest outings – like a visit to a friend’s house – could be a logistical nightmare. Every expedition had to be planned thoroughly, approved by parents and meticulously choreographed so that lifts to and from home were confirmed. A thousand questions accompanied every request to be allowed out for an evening: ‘Where are you going?’, ‘Who’s organising it?’, ‘Who else is going?’, ‘How are you getting there?’, ‘What time is it over?’, How are you getting home?’, ‘Where are you going to stand to get your lift?’ Often it wasn’t worth the bother.

      In early 1972, Queen’s University Students’ Union became our Mecca; the one place which promised the excitement, normality and feeling of being grown up that I longed for. Being under age, we only gained admission a couple of times that year when ‘someone who knew someone’ signed us in. But it gave us a taste of what normal teenage life was surely like elsewhere and showed us what we were missing. It was only three miles away from West Belfast, but a world apart.

      ‘Blitzed, strife-torn corner of the earth.’

      Sat, Feb 12

       Daddy had to go to a meeting to represent the Citizens’ Defence Committee with other businessmen etc. In afternoon, we decided to go to Lisburn where Mr Craig was having a rally of the new movement he has created, ‘Ulster Vanguard’.

       I got a new pair of shoes – suede – and I think they’re lovely. Turned on the heater in my room tonight, planned to do Maths revision. However, I couldn’t be fussed and turned it off again. Spent night watching television.

       Mrs Gordon came up and we all sat and had bowls of vegetable soup. Daddy and Mammy gave me a long, interesting and ‘wise’ lecture on getting married and the risks involved. Made me feel I wanted to be a spinster – I don’t think!!

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      I was an ordinary 16-year-old living in extraordinary circumstances. Our lives had been turned upside down and yet, closeted in my bedroom night after night, I was beset by the same concerns as many adolescents the world over: would I be afflicted with teenage acne like so many of my classmates? Why hadn’t I been born with straight instead of curly hair? Why were my breasts not as developed as those of lots of my friends? Would I ever have a boyfriend or would my physical shortcomings stop me having a teenage admirer, husband or children?

      In my earlier teens, with no prospect of romance on the horizon, I used to worry that my parents wouldn’t live long enough to see me married. By the spring of 1972, as violence tightened its stranglehold, I added the absence of a social life to the list of obstacles blocking my path to true love.

      My mother and father had no cause to caution me about not rushing into marriage. I had never even come close to being asked out on a date, let alone ‘going steady’ with anyone. My all-girls school afforded me few opportunities to become acquainted with members of the opposite sex. My world was small and intimate, revolving around my family, St Dominic’s and a small circle of friends and companions. The escalating violence provided me with a distraction from what I considered to be an otherwise boring and mundane existence. I struggled to stay focused on my schoolwork and, like everyone else, began to adjust to the new ‘normality’.

      By the middle of February I was accustomed to walking to and from school, to having my homework interrupted by the sound of explosions or gunfire, to listening to every news bulletin that I could, and shopping well away from the city centre. I expected my father to go out to meetings a couple of nights a week, to spend hours on end writing at the living room table, and that neighbours would call to our home at all hours of the day and night, in a way they had never done before.

      Sun, Feb 13

       Daddy going to annual Civil Rights Association meeting. Shock news of new proposals for settlement here announced in Sunday Times – later denied by Heath, probably true.

       Body of unidentified man found in Fermanagh, sack over head, shot. Did Maths revision in case we get test tomorrow. Went over to shops at 9.30 with Mammy. The road was really eerie – not one street light, due to power cuts or else riots, no shop lighting and no people. Glad to get home.

       500 attended Northern Resistance meeting and march in Enniskillen, therefore broke ban on parades again!

      Mon, Feb 14

       No St. Valentine cards – didn’t really expect one.

       The buses are back, a joy to see them. Place almost back to normal, boys don’t even stone troops now – IRA have threatened them!

       Soldiers in grounds of our school this morning – apparently a bomb scare. We didn’t