Symbolic renaming of former RUC stronghold

Posted by Jim on January 19, 2019

The site of the former Andersonstown RUC barracks in west Belfast has
been renamed Groves Reilly Corner, in honour of Clara Reilly and her
late friend, plastic bullet victim Emma Groves.

Relatives for Justice chairwoman Ms Reilly established the first
monitoring organisation of human rights breaches by the Crown Forces
during the late 1960s and 1970s.

She said: “Anybody deserves justice if they lost a loved one and they
have not gotten the truth and answers – that is all they want.

“People are not afraid to go up front and fight for justice.”

Ms Groves was blinded by a Crown Force plastic bullet in 1971. She and
Ms Reilly founded the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets, which was
responsible for taking giant strides towards an outright ban on the
lethal projectiles.

Andersonstown was itself the location where one victim, John Downes, was
killed by the RUC with a plastic bullet in 1984.

Ms Reilly said she was honoured by the ceremony. “They said no matter
where you go in West Belfast it is royal this and royal that, they
wanted to bring the names back to the ordinary people.”

The married mother of six recounted how she lived in Turf Lodge in West
Belfast in 1969 and was the only person with a phone.

“The red phone, they called it the hotline. “At that time there were a
lot of arrests and complaints of ill-treatment, in Castlereagh and
different holding centres, and we felt that there was a need for a human
rights organisation monitoring all this.”

They formed the Association for Legal Justice in 1971.

“From that day on my house was like an advice centre,” she said. “People
were coming to say that their father, their son, their daughter had been
arrested and were not getting any information from the police.”

She drew up a list of lawyers, including the murdered Pat Finucane, who
could find out what had happened to them.

“He was a solicitor in a million, he went a step further in challenging
things in the courts. That is why he was selected to be murdered.”

She said Emma Groves was standing in her own living room when a soldier
fired a rubber bullet through the window and she was blinded. Ms Groves
went on to lead the campaign against their use.

Ms Reilly concluded: “I was doing this since 1969 and I would do every
minute of it again.

“It is our history and what the nationalist people suffered, and I was
not prepared to take it lying down.

“I thought you had to speak out no matter what.”

Speaking ahead of the unveiling Relatives For Justice (RFJ) Director
Mark Thompson said: “What these two women have given our community and
achieved is remarkable and as a community, a society, a country, we have
been privileged and blessed to have had them there for us all.”

Paul O’Connor from the Pat Finucane Centre described Emma Groves and
Clara Reilly as “two lives of resistance”.

“Two women who were leaders in their community – and Clara still is,”
said Paul.

“Many communities would be lucky to have had one of these indomitable
fighters. Belfast and beyond had two but for the saddest of reasons. We
say that Emma was ‘blinded by a rubber bullet’ in November 1972 but she
was actually blinded by a British soldier, a Para, who deliberately
fired a rubber bullet at her face.

“There wasn’t even an allegation that she was a phantom gunwoman or nail
bomber. She simply refused to turn off the rebel songs she was playing
in her own home. At some level the British Government must have
regretted that day because Emma Groves went on to campaign, highlight,
expose, denounce and bear witness to the dangers posed by rubber and
plastic bullets in the following decades.

“It is totally appropriate that the site of the former Andersonstown RUC
barracks, scene of so many pickets with Emma and Clara, should now be
renamed to honour these two strong working class women who did so much
for others.

“The chattering classes can keep their MBEs and CBEs. Clara and Emma are
and were real heroes. And Relatives for Justice is a fitting tribute to
all those years of dedication and struggle.”