“You find this bloody funny, mate?” he asked menacingly, with a gun pointed at my head.
I had been chatting with two young Cork girls who were travelling to Donegal for the first time. They were worried about the journey through the north. I, being a gentleman, confirmed all their fears. It was likely that we would be stopped, questioned at gunpoint and all aboard would be strip searched. It seemed like fun at the time to tease them and see the anxiety in their faces as we approached the border. It was 1981 and I was travelling on the express bus from Dublin to Letterkenny.
On this occasion the bus was stopped. Two young British soldiers boarded asking where people were travelling to, and searching bags. One of the Cork girls, now fearing the worst, and not totally sure of her destination quietly whispered,  “I hope they don’t ask where I’m going as I can’t even pronounce it” she said with a nervous smile. I laughed at this, wondering about the complexities of a Cork accent describing unpronounceable Donegal place names to a cocky Cockney soldier.
“No, sorry, I don’t think it’s funny” I said looking down the pock-holed barrel of his sub-machine gun. A young soldier stood in front of me kitted out in military uniform. I have a memory of how he actually looked, but now,  I now clearly remember him dressed like a Looney Tunes Mexican Bandito with two strips of bullets, criss-crossed over his chest, a gun-slinger’s six shooter around his waist and a large sombrero on his head.
For many years, travelling through the borders added significantly to the journey. A trip to Dublin from Donegal would require an additional hour to get through both border crossings. When approaching the border at Aughnacloy, one joined a long unmoving queue. At night time, car lights and engine had to be turned off, Eerie shadows slipped around outside. The army, equipped with night-vision and listening devices, scanned the long motored queue before eventually allowing the cars through. The traffic was deliberately held up in an attempt to prevent car bombs being driven in. It was a part of life for those living along the Irish border.
To most from the south, Northern Ireland was a foreign place. A place where the war being fought, they felt, had nothing to do with them. Tensions were very high. Ten Republican prisoners would give their lives whilst on hunger strike in the Maze prison during ‘81. The British press would hail the hunger strike as a triumph for Thatcher, but the election of Bobby Sands to parliament would change the direction of politics in the North forever. IRA recruitment was also boosted, resulting in a new surge of paramilitary activity. Peace was a long way off.
Living in Letterkenny, it was difficult not to be affected. During the hunger strikes, the town came to a halt most evenings. Large vigils were held at the Market Square in the town, as one by one, the volunteers gave up their lives.
I worked at the border, in the motor tax office in Lifford in the mid 80’s. There was no requirement to cross over to Strabane other than on short shopping trips during lunch. I did this on a few occasions with my colleague and friend Sylvester Maguire. Sylvie, a member of Donegal’s first All Ireland winning panel in ‘92, had developed a healthy disrespect for the British army growing up near the border. We crossed at the Camel’s Hump, just over the bridge between Lifford and Strabane. To make the crossing and be back for work on time required keeping your head down and trying not to stand out, neither of which came natural to Sylvie. Driving through the crossing on his well worn Alfasud now decorated with different coloured doors, plus a knack of saying exactly the opposite to what was required, meant we were sure to be pulled over. We spent the rest of our lunch break being searched and questioned in the large green corrugated tin shed. This site of the Camel’s Hump is now occupied by a 20 foot steel art structure affectionately known as “The Tinneys”
The Motor Tax office was an awful place to work. We spent alternate weeks on the public counter. Long queues, up to fifty people, out the door and down the hall, in silence, waiting to part, unwillingly from their hard earned money. The rules governing Motor Tax then, although understandable to us, were deemed totally unreasonable to the public. If you travelled from Glencolmcille to Lifford, a round trip of more than 100 miles, and had forgotten to have your application signed at the local Garda station, yes, the local Garda station back in Glencolmcille, then your application was refused and you were sent on your not so merry way. The argument that pursued on informing the applicant of this detail turned the, up to now, quiet and shuffling queue, into one where ears were pricked up and applications were rechecked. They were all on edge now.  On a normal day you’d ‘fall out’ with half a dozen unroadworthy citizens. It was a stressful days work. Sylvester knew how to handle the stress and had on more than one occasion ‘cleared’ the counter and chased same said citizens out of the office.
One morning, we had just arrived at work when the building shook violently. The windows slammed shut and the raised counter fell. There was general panic in the building. My boss, Bartley and I walked outside. Every inch of Lifford main street was covered with broken glass. A huge bomb, left in a van on the Strabane side of the Lifford bridge, had been detonated. Part of the van had blown through the window of the county manager’s office, who on this occasion was late for work. Strabane had suffered many fatalities during the war, on this occasion no one had been killed.
A number of years earlier my Dad had been contracted to build a new home in Doonin, Kilcar for Maurice and Cecily Gibson. The house was to be designed by Liam McCormick, one of Ireland’s greatest architects. McCormick designed seven iconic churches around Donegal including the wonderful St. Aengus’ Church in Burt. I had studied the circular designed church during college and remember our lecturer explaining that ‘entasis was the application of a convex curve to a surface for aesthetic purposes and also served to strengthen the building’, which proves I had actually learned something there. It always amazed me that Burt Chapel shared this architectural feature with the Grianan of Aileach, the round Bronze Age fortification that dominates the landscape above Burt
The Gibson’s house, also circular, would be built on one of the most beautiful sites in all of Ireland. With it’s high vantage point in Doonin overlooking Port a’Chabhlaigh beach and Teelin Bay, they had a wonderful view from Ben Bulben to Sliabh Liag.
I had never heard of the Gibsons before they had contracted Dad to build their house. All we knew was that he was a senior judge in the North. They would arrive at our home in Carrick with two armed detectives in tow. Apart from their hoity-toity accent, they seemed very friendly and relaxed. For my Dad this was just another job, albeit a well paying job during tough times.
Unfortunately, the house at Doonin didn’t last long and was destroyed by fire a few years after.
Later we heard that Justice Gibson had been targeted by the IRA following the acquittal of three RUC officers who had been charged with the murder of three men. When freeing the RUC men, he commended them for their “courage and determination in bringing the three deceased men to justice – in this case, to the final court of justice”. His comments were central to the accusation that the British had adopted a shoot to kill policy.
On the 27th April 1987, Judge Gibson and his wife were killed by a remote-controlled car bomb as they drove over the Irish border back into Northern Ireland after a holiday in Britain. As the judge’s car reached Drumad, the townland on the County Louth side of the border, he stopped to shake hands with the Garda Síochána security escort who had completed their part of the assignment. The couple had only a short drive to meet the RUC escort to Belfast. The explosion threw the Gibson’s vehicle across the road, killing the couple immediately. The explosion also injured Ireland national rugby union team players Nigel Carr, David Irwin and Philip Rainey who were in a car on the same road.
During the troubles that followed the Easter rising of 1916, many of our forefathers were directly involved, brothers and sister in arms, in the war for independence on this island.
My grandfather JW was in charge of the purchase of munitions in Birmingham for the IRA from 1920 until the civil war broke out, then working directly under Liam Mellows.
During that time he spent a number of spells in prison, once in Winson Green jail in Birmingham. He had been arrested for an attempted raid on a factory, set up on the outskirts of Birmingham for the purpose of breaking down surplus ammunition to get the brass and nickel content.
JW describes an attempt to prevent the hangman John Ellis from going to Derry to execute two republican prisoners. Ellis served as Chief Executioner from 1907 and was involved in a total of 203 executions. Among those he executed were Dr. Crippen in 1910, and Roger Casement in 1916.
“I was in Liverpool at the time and was asked to go along. Sean Ó Murthuile came over from Dublin with instructions. Daly was in charge and we were to take a car from Liverpool and go to Rochdale where Ellis lived and keep his house under surveillance, pending further instructions which were to come from London. Negotiations were going on there at the time and the executions at Derry were to be discussed. If the men were reprieved we were to take off in our car for Liverpool. If not we were to make sure that Mr. Ellis would not reach Derry. As it happened the men were reprieved and the incident passed over.”
On another occasion during the civil war, he spent many days on hunger strike. The civil war had split the country and set brother against brother.  The forces of the Provisional Government, which became the Free State in December 1922, supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty, while the Republican opposition saw it as a betrayal of the Irish Republic, proclaimed during the Easter Rising.
JW and his brothers were on different sides during the war. During his spell on hunger strike, JW’s mother sent his brother Charles, who later built and ran the Glenbay Hotel, to try and talk him out of it. My grandfather would not even shake his hand, something he later described as one of his greatest regrets.
On the 31st of August 1994 my son Nathan started school. On the same day, the IRA announced “a complete cessation of military activities”. This was an integral part of the developing peace process. It felt like a new start. Too many good people have been dragged into the war this country has endured down through the years. Fate determined the part we all played. We, in the south of this island, escaped the worst of the terror the war brought to families and maybe sometime we are too quick to categorise those who stood up and fought for the right to be recognised as Irish. In another place or time, I know I’d have been proud to fight side by side with my grandfather. Those who went before cleared a path for our own children to walk safely.