‘Let’s face it’ said one man in his forties – ‘Gerry Adams was greeted
‘Let’s face it,’ said one man in his forties – ‘Gerry Adams was greeted on the Falls like he’d won the World Cup Now I’ve always been a footballing sort of man We all are, on both sides You’ve read the graffiti on the walls on the Falls ‘IRA 2 Army 0. Then they hit the bar.”They write that sort of thing when they’ve blown up some pub or other. But did Gerry Adams look like the captain of a team, who’s just said that he’s going to stop his foul play? No way He looked as if he knew that the game was won The referee had tipped him the wink I hope John Major knows what he’s doing. I hope that he hasn’t scored an own goal.’Bobby has always been fond of his football metaphors. But I told him this whole terrible conflict wasn’t necessarily a game with winners and losers, a zero- sum game where one side’s gain meant the other side’s defeat He looked at me as if I was daft ‘Of course, there are other ways of looking at the Troubles.
Gerry Adams has been saying for years that it was a war, and the IRA tells us now that the war’s over. Well then, if it was a war, I want some IRA men tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity.’Bobby had made his point. ‘Either that or it’s a game, a bent game, and Adams has pulled a few strokes to nobble the opposition.’The view on the streets seemed to be that some serious strokes had been pulled. I heard two pensioners standing in the street discussing the ceasefire. I caught their conversation mid-flow.’They must have been promised something.”Something good.”Something very good.”Sure they have.”Do you think the IRA are going to give up just like that?”You must be joking.”What changed their minds?”John Major’s government has lied to us once, they’d do it again.”They’d lie to you as soon as they’d look at you.”Secret negotiations with the IRA were bad enough. Now, they’re going to do it out in the open.”The British and Irish governments and the Yanks are all going to sit around a table, and decide our future Nobody wants our view. But we’ll not stand for that.”The graffiti’s going up all over the place.
The loyalists are very busy.”Have you seen the one ‘Better to die on your feet than on your knees in a united Ireland’?”There are some new murals going up as well, lovely big, coloured ones.”They’re fantastic those artists.”There’s going to be a civil war.”Definitely.”Oh, definitely.’In the butcher’s, they were discussing the visual images, rather than the words that had been issued in statements or the words that might have been issued behind closed doors. It was the triumphalism among the republicans that seemed to rankle, and what that triumphalism implied The elderly woman waiting for her stewing steak was enraged ‘They were flying the tricolour all over the place. There were these hussies walking along the Falls, swinging the tricolour and all these wee shites climbing up the lampposts hanging them out They were celebrating alright They think that they’ve got our country The English don’t seem to understand why we’re angry We’re British There’s no two ways about it My father fought against the Germans. It would be like watching the Germans flying Swastikas in London after the Second World War.’Her friend agreed. ‘When the Catholics get settled in, they’ll not be like the Protestants were They’ll show us who’s bloody boss. Do you think that the Orangemen will ever be allowed to walk again? And what about what Adams said about the RUC He said it would have to be disbanded. I heard that the Taigs were writing ‘Gardai’ all over the police stations.
