Belfast barriers open for 3000 runners

Press, 8 May 1985, Page 76

Belfast barriers open for 3000 runners

NZPA-Reuter Belfast Sectarian barriers in the segregated and troubled city of Belfast opened for a day yesterday to allow nearly 3000 athletes to run a marathon.

The Belfast City Marathon, now in its fourth year, provides an opportunity for many local people to visit parts of the city they would normally avoid.

“It is one of the few days in the year when people can mix regardless of their beliefs,” said Mr Paddy Murphy, of the Northern Ireland Sports Council.

The marathon takes members of the Catholicnationalist minority in the province through some strongly Protestant-loyalist

areas such as Sandy Row, where, on any other day of the year, they could face trouble if they identified themselves.

For many Protestants the race provides a rare glimpse of the Falls Road area, a tough Catholicnationalist ghetto in west Belfast from where the Irish Republican Army (1.R.A.) guerrilla group, fighting to end British rule in the province, draws most of its recruits. “I have met runners from both communities who have seen some parts of Belfast for the first time on the marathon,” said Mr John Kinahan, a senior executive for Guinness, the main sponsor.

“For one day in the year,

the Irish tricolour and shamrock symbol are cheered in loyalist areas and the British Union Jack cheered in nationalist ones,” said Mr Kinahan, who has competed in all four Belfast marathons.

There were 300 competitors from mainland Britain, who ignored a recent threat from a breakaway Irish Natonal Liberaton Army (INLA) to attack British sportsmen competing in Ireland.

The winner of this year’s marathon was a local runner, Marty Deane, who finished in a record 2h 15min 525, while the women’s race was won by Moira O’Boyle in 2:45:40, also a record.