Ulster urged to stay calm after killings

Press, 17 November 1981, Page 8

Ulster urged to stay calm after killings

NZPA-Reuter Belfast Government Ministers, churchmen and security chiefs, fearing a Protestant backlash against Northern Ireland's Catholic minority because of renewed violence in the province, have issued fresh appeals for calm.

The assassination of a Protestant member of Parliament, the Rev. Robert Bradford, in Belfast on Saturday by guerrillas of the Irish Republican Army was followed on Sunday by the killing of a Catholic teenager in the city. Thomas McNulty, aged 18. was shot dead and another youth injured in attacks which their families said were Protestant retaliation for the murder of Mr Bradford. Three men were killed and

seven injured when I.R.A. guerrillas struck against security forces earlier last week. The Northern Ireland Secretary (Mr James Prior) cut short a week-end in London to review the tense situation with Ulster’s Chief Constable (Mr Jack Hermon) and Army commander (Lieu-tenant-General Sir Richard Lawson).

Mr Prior urged the 900,000 Protestants and 600,000 Catholics not to take the law into their own hands and to leave any necessary action to the police and Army. Mr Prior said that the I.R.A. was determined to cause the maximum amount of civil unrest and urged everyone to remain calm and not be provoked. The Dublin-based president

of the Methodist Church in Ireland (the Rev. Ernest Gallagher) also called for moderation. , “We should not allow ourselves. any of us. to be. trapped in a vicious circle of retaliation and counter-retal-iation." he said in a sermon in a Belfast church. In Dublin, the Irish Prime Minister (Dr Garret FitzGerald) said the I.R.A. wanted “to create a collapse into violence in the North and ultimately in the South, so they (the 1.R.A.) can establish their military dictatorshin” Three of Mr Bradford's close political friends, including a member of Parliament, John Dunlop, yesterday called for an emergency session of the House of Commons to discuss what they

said was the worsening security in Northern Ireland.

Speaking from the pulpit of his Belfast church, the Rev. lan Paisley called for a mass demonstration on November 23.

“It is gong to be Ulster's day of action." he said without elaboration.

Mr Paisley, also a member of the House of Commons, said Mrs Thatcher was “going to be taught a lesson.”

“The people we have to deal with are the representatives of a treacherous government ... these are the men who are based in Ulster to destroy us. These are the men against whom we must struggle and we must place our might,” he said.