Ardoyne Runaways

Ardoyne Runaways
By Paul McCann

At the onset of riots on the streets there were lots of great people who could maintain a sense of togetherness and calm for the people of Ardoyne in the things they did and said ,. One of these men was Jacky ,someone I respected and his efforts over the years in appealing for peace and calm between the British Army and members of the community ,who felt uneasy with armed foot patrols walking around the district .
I laughed the day when Jacky jumped up and sat on the top of a armoured car on the Crumlin Road when the troops first arrived in Ardoyne . Jacky decided to go and take a seat up there ,on top of an armoured vehicle . Sitting on his hunkers, he started waving his arms in the air . The British Army never bothered to get  him off and so Jacky  began to echo ohis thoughts in front of everybody who had gathered there airing his feelings about the injustice of what was going on in Ardoyne .
Most of the audience were women and children who cheered every  time Jacky started talking . The British Army saw no threat with Jacky’s antics and took it all as a good fun . No one was being hurt and the armoured car eventually moved away slowly down the Crumlin Road with Jacky still sitting on the roof
.A small crowd of people marched behind the armoured car with no intent to harm anyone .That day for me was just  like watching a movie that suddenly began to unfold and the thing was it was actually happening right before my eyes in my home town . Jackie eventually jumped off the armoured car  to the ground to the applause of those gathered around . 

It never took that long for the fun to all came to and end and now more serous times arrived with riots in our streets and house’s burning around us .
It was the August  of 1971  and all our neighbours stood outside their back yard doors watching the flames and smoke rising up in the air as the  houses behind us  in Cranbrook and Farrington  were being burnt to the ground  . We heard the sound of windows smashing with the intense heat and the sparks  cracking that shattered the  silence of a twilight evening I stood there with many others and watched the senseless destruction of hundreds of homes in our village but what  a difference a day makes because the next day a promise was made to rebuild the houses and give them back to the people at no cost to the community who had seen enough of violence at their door .  A great sense of pride returned to the district as three streets of new homes where built . An unconditional love was placed in every brick and a prayer over every rooftop to protect those within .
There was a heartfelt generosity from all sectors of the community during the rebuilding of the houses , many business people donated building products and tradesmen offered their skills free of charge .Labourers came from every corner of the district to offer help .  After six years the homes were finished but not the troubles .
No one really wanted the trouble on our streets and hoped it wouldn’t  last but it did for a long time until the Good Friday agreement introduced an uneasy calm .  

During the troubles so many lives had been changed .  Many families left Ardoyne for other countries and tried to establish a new life in a foreign land where living as exiles away  from their home .

Then there were the Ardoyne runaways who took off across the water to find work and many of them never returned . In the end they just forgot to come home and remained where they were . No longer could return home to Ardoyne and sadly no longer were they happy to be living in London . They became like absent friends ,

From 1989 to 1991 I had lived in London working with the homeless  During that time I met some of those Ardoyne runaways in places like Belgrave Children Hospice near the Oval cricket ground on Lambeth and the Salvation Army in Blackfriars and St Martin in the fields drop in centre .  They watched on TV sets , the troubles escalating with daily rioting , and looting in Ardoyne . Young men like Eamon from Brompton Park , Pat Me Keown original from Bangor who came to Ardoyne and Liam Barney and Michael who I met in the Isle Of Dogs who luckily found some work there  on the building sites . I always enjoyed the company of those people from Ardoyne who I met and they were some of the funniest characters I have ever know  . Real hard men with the will to survive under extreme hardships and part of a generation of men and women who had to accept the reality of life and tried to escape that situation in any way they could .

Eamon and I went to the movies one day to see a new movie out called “DA” . I had a laugh at the way he went about London . There was never a dull moment with Eamon . His carefree attitude about life never change and no one ever challenged him , He was over 6 foot tall and built like tank . He never bought a tickets when he travelled on the Tubes and walked through on the other end with people screaming at him “ Where your ticket ?”

Pat Mc Keown uses to deliver whiter good around Ardoyne . the Falls and Shankill and he knew a lot of people in Lambeth . I moved in with Pat for 6 months and he introduced me to all the Irish people he knew . Most every day we would all meet and sit talking in the Kennington Park talking about how we all ended up in London . I met Barney, Michael and Liam after a football match in Upton Park . We spoke about our family and friends in Jamaica Street and the hard times people were going through over there finding work . In one sense we were all  runaways from Ardoyne in one way or another .

The End