Christmas in Ulster

Press, 18 December 1976, Page 8

Christmas in Ulster

By CHRISTOPHER WALKER, of "The Times,” through NZPA Belfast After seven years of guerrilla warfare, the citizens of Belfast were thought to have become hardened to the rigours it imposes on ordinary life, but, as in the recent past, the ritual of Christmas shopping under the threat of fresh attacks has again served to bring home the realities. Yesterday, as the long queues of shoppers waited in pouring rain at the im-i posing steel search gates ; ringing the commercial heart | of the city, they had ample' opportunity to contemplate' the callous wording of the Provisional I.R.A.’sl justification of its latest! wave of violence: “The inconvenience to the bourgeois business class ■ means little to us in comparison with the plight of our prisoners and the increasing harassment of our people.” The frustration and tedium of living in the grip of ter-

rorism is as noticeable as the fear among Belfast shoppers this year.

“You get to such a state,” that you are almost prepared to walk past a bomb just to finish what has to be done,” one young housewife said.

Often, the mundane facts of everyday life are forgotten among the statistics of violence and the details of terrorist incidents, but they stand out more starkly : against the annual attempts by the city’s hard-pressed .traders to provide a show of I normality.

| Much of the brief speech 'made by the Lord Mayor of 'Belfast as he switched on I the Christmas lights was (drowned by the noise from a (low-flying spotter-helicopter. I The same fate has befallen I many of the carols sung in the city centre as British Army bomb-disposal teams have rushed by. Because of the risk of ini cendiary devices concealed in small cassettes, extra precautions are being taken this (Christmas: thousands of fes-

tive posters have been distributed by the security forces in an effort to reconcile shoppers to body-and-baggage searches. These begin at the gates that have stood round the city centre since April, but which have failed to prevent the bombers from setting off some devices inside. Security is also the reason why no parcels can be wrapped properly, and why, except at main post offices, cards have to be posted one at a time through the metal grilles placed over boxes to frustrate letter-bombers.

Added to the predictable difficulties are the constant bomb alerts, often hoaxes, which may force stores and streets to be cleared at a moment’s notice.

But fears about the miniBudget have proved more potent for the citizens of Belfast than any efforts made to terrorise them by the Provisional I.R.A.

By last night, traders were reporting an average increase of 40 per cent in turn-over on last year. .