LESSON 5
THE TROUBLES AT THE BORDER
WORDS OF THE DAY
We are not out of the woods yet ( on est pas sorti de l auberge)
but there is a light at the end of the tunnel = there is still a glimmer of hope
STEP 1 YOU ARE A YOUNG MEMBER OF THE IRA ;You have just shot down a possible informer and you need to flee.
1. Where do you go and why ?
2. What will the British army stationed in Northern ireland do ?
3. Which route will you take ?
This one
Or this one
AN EXPLANATION
With an escalation in fighting in Northern Ireland in 1969, British troops were sent to the province, fueling nationalist resentment. The border was heavily guarded to stop weapons smuggling from the Republic. The South Armagh stretch was particularly notorious. The Irish Republican Army’s South Armagh Brigade is thought to have killed about 165 British troops and police from 1970 to 1997.
South of the Border
The border was also policed by the Republic of Ireland’s security forces, who intensified their anti-terror efforts in the late 1970s. They worked with the British, but the working relationship was not an easy one. To communicate with Irish counterparts, British troops at one time had to speak to the Northern Irish police, who would contact the Irish police, who would then call the Irish army.
Right now there are 205 border crossings. Firstly, they found that there was too much border to guard at one time. A 1973 Home Office report stated:
There are 303 miles of the border. There are 20 approved roads, 187 approved roads and 17 concession routes… The facilities for crossing the border are much greater than the number of cross-border roads. In particular there are 30 miles of water, numerous lanes and smugglers’ pads and border lands which are easily negotiable on foot.
STEP 2 TAKE YOUR PICK : life at the border in the 1970’s
TAKE YOUR PICK AND DESCRIBE TO YOUR COLLEAGUE
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THE BORDERLAND
VOCABULARY SHEET
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Some barbed wires A checkpoint Sectarian violence A guerilla war A custom checkpoint To blow = to blast The border community A spike A sniper A custom officer A watchtower An unapproved road A smuggler A crossborder road A detour A crater A steel girder Defiant A road closure A barrage A blockade a police search to stop and search
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( les fils barbelés) Un poste de contrôle La violence sectaire/ communautaire Un poste de douane Faire exploser
Un pic Un tireur Un doaunier Une tour de garde
( une poutre en acier)
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sʌm bɑːbd ˈwaɪəz |
STEP 2 SOME TESTIMONIES :
Read the following testimonies then create your story .
1) Where do you live ?
2) What is your name and age ?
3) What is your occupation if you have one ?
4) What exactly happened to you ?
TESTIMONY A : Approved roads versus unapproved roads
- Another
thing I should mention – at that time, up until about thirty years ago, it
was mandatory, anyone who would have had a vehicle, motorcycle or, em,
car, there would have been a few roads, and one would have been Clady, a
few miles from Strabane, which was a wee border village, and it was known
as an unapproved road . . . There were more unapproved roads than there
were approved roads, because any approved roads, there was a custom post
on each side of the border.
Well, on those unapproved roads, you could not use a motor vehicle, and the only people who . . . were immune from prosecution would have been, eh, clergymen, or doctors, anything on emergency calls. Everybody else had to go through the custom post. Not only that, but you had a wee book, and when you went through the Republic customs, you got it stamped in and . . . stamped out.
Now, you could not go in before eight o’clock in the morning, or you could not come out after eight o’clock at night, unless you had a request. If you were coming out, say maybe you were courting or something and it was maybe about ten or eleven o’clock at night, when you were going to come out, you had to, when you were crossing the border, you had to say to the custom official, I’ll be coming back at ten or half ten the night, and I need a request, which was two shillings . . . and he would have been there to stamp you out." Frank Eliott, Strabane, Co, Tyrone
TESTIMONY B from THE BORDER by Diarmaid FERRITER
TESTIMONY C : from THE BORDER by Diarmaid FERRITER
TESTIMONY D : from THE BORDER by Diarmaid FERRITER
TESTIMONY E : from THE BORDER by Diarmaid FERRITER
Extra information
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1971: Army blasts N Ireland border roads British Army engineers have begun systematically to blow up several minor roads crossing from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland. Shots were fired from across the border during the operation and one soldier was injured. The destruction of the roads forms part of new security measures announced in Stormont yesterday by Ulster Prime Minister Brian Faulkner. Border security will also be reinforced by increased patrols of regular troops and the part-time Ulster Defence Regiment. The Ulster-Eire frontier is criss-crossed by dozens of narrow roads and tracks which paramilitaries often use to smuggle weapons into Northern Ireland. Senior military sources say the number of tracks and trails make security along the 335 mile border difficult to enforce. Soldiers began work this morning with plastic explosives to destroy between 20 and 50 of the frontier's 200 'unapproved routes'. They used plastic explosives to blow holes approximately 10 feet (3m) deep and 20 feet (6m) wide. In one incident a sniper's bullet hit the rifle of a soldier guarding a team of sappers near Rosslea, County Fermanagh. Asked whether the measures would be effective in stopping gun runners and bombers, Colonel Simmonds of the Royal Engineers appeared confident: "Nobody is going to use this road for some time without a major piece of engineering repair work," he said. The decision to tackle cross-border smuggling of arms through the systematic destruction of minor roads was approved in a meeting between Prime Ministers Edward Heath and Brian Faulkner last week. But local residents on both sides of the border are likely to find the 'cratering' a major inconvenience. A loss for words One local farmer looked at a gaping hole between himself and his farm further down the road. Asked how he was going to get to it he was at a loss for words. He shrugged. In past incidences roads blown up that are regularly used for access have simply been refilled. Republican Taoiseach Jack Lynch has made it clear he disapproves of the measures. In a statement today he said they were directed at the wrong problem in the wrong place and that they were unlikely to succeed in their "overt intention".
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In Context |
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By 19 October, nine roads had already been repaired by local people. But the UK's official policy of cratering border roads was not only resented by local communities. Off the record it was also criticised by senior British army officers and senior figures within the British Government. Disputed roads marked by the British army for destruction caused frequent stand-offs between the British and the Republic of Ireland soldiers. By the late 1970s it was generally accepted that the policy was not a success and it was largely abandoned. In 1971 the situation in Northern Ireland was rapidly deteriorating. Some 174 people died that year in Troubles related violence. There were 11,800 British Army personnel in Northern Ireland. That number was to double in 1972. |
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HOMEWORK
READ AND LEARN THE LESSON
GROUP 1 READ THE TESTIMONIES AND INVENT A NEW IDENTITY
Read the following testimonies then create your story .
1) Where do you live ?
2) What is your name and age ?
3) What is your occupation if you have one ?
4) What exactly happened to you ?
GROUP 2 LEARN THE LESSON
