My memory of living in Belfast during the 1974 loyalist workers’ strike

​At that time I was living in Ballymacarret's East Bread Street, on the edge of east Belfast's loyalist heartlands. I had spent part of the two years since my graduation from Queen's University in 1972 teaching in secondary and primary schools in Kent and London, but was by this time working at a primary school in the Cregagh/Woodstock area of east Belfast.

We lived in one of East Bread Street's numerous tiny terraced 'kitchen' houses, so reminiscent of Lancashire's terraced housing immortalised by 'Coronation Street', and were a short drive away from east Belfast's main arterial Newtownards Road and the city's shipyard.

Loyalist bunting was a perennial feature of the street and Union Jacks (as well as an ever-growing number of Ulster flags) flew from the chimney-tops, telegraph poles and upstairs windows, and UDA paramilitary personnel frequently marched through the surrounding streets or occasionally conducted doorstep fund-raising visits for 'the Ulster cause' (this force had been established just two years previously).

What with the IRA's ongoing terror campaign, the loyalist paramilitary backlash of sectarian shootings and mounting political tension, precipitated by the implementation of the Sunningdale Agreement which had been signed the previous year, living in loyalist Belfast half a century ago was certainly a challenging experience!

There had been considerable political upheaval in N. Ireland, particularly during the two year period preceding the calling of the strike in May 1974. Loyalists had been shocked by the suspension of Stormont and the introduction of direct rule in March 1972, and the accelerating disintegration of the traditional unionist hegemony was even more apparent after the first assembly elections in June 1973.

The Sunningdale Agreement, signed by both the British and Irish governments six months later, also resulted in a ratcheting-up of the tension within unionism, especially over the proposed operation of a Council of Ireland.

Bill Craig, a former Unionist Party cabinet minister, had tapped into this growing exasperation within the Protestant community over its alleged 'betrayal' by British politicians amid the backdrop of an escalating IRA campaign, and his Vanguard movement, which was established shortly before Stormont's demise, instantly positioned itself as the natural sounding-board for such communal dissatisfaction.

Another feature of this loyalist anger was the increasing involvement of Protestant workers in a number of protest marches against political developments and security policies.

The UWC, which had grown out of an earlier workers' group, the Loyalist Association of Workers (LAW), was led by the charismatic Glen Barr, a future Vanguard Assembly representative with film star looks, and it called a strike involving industrial and other workers protesting against power-sharing and the Sunningdale Agreement, on Tuesday May 14.

Confusion was very much in the air on the strike's first day. Despite the high levels of frustration and anger, especially with Westminster politicians, there was a reluctance amongst the normally law-abiding majority community to take to the streets in a political protest. Most workers therefore turned up for work on the 14th May.

Name-calling and minor scuffles were reported at places like the shipyards, various factories and outside the power stations, where the UWC had a lot of backing, as non-strikers attempted to enter the work entrances. This heavy physical presence outside work-places, as well as the setting-up of road blocks manned by masked paramilitaries, left those who had been sceptical about the calling of the strike with increased feelings of resentment .

I was one who did make it in to work on that first day of the strike. Walking past a couple of placard-waving paramilitaries, I made my way to the staff-room, where the headmaster informed us that he was shutting the school for 'the safety of children and staff'.

There were many ways in which one's everyday life was abruptly changed over the course of the next fortnight or so, most notably the unprecedented restrictions to one's personal freedom.

The UWC decided to issue 'passes' for 'essential' workers driving in and out of loyalist districts, as well as the leading thoroughfares across the city and further afield. Those vehicles which were especially targeted included oil and petrol containers and those belonging to food distribution lorry drivers, with most people in these groups being prevented from conducting their business(there were some allegations of vehicle hijacking by members of the UDA).

Accessing petrol proved to be a constant problem throughout the strike and one had to restrict personal journeys as much as possible.

Petrol stations experienced severe fuel shortages, and if you were fortunate enough to get petrol, this was inevitably limited. Sometimes UDA personnel could be spotted hanging around the forecourts of petrol stations, including the one opposite us at the end of East Bread Street.

One had to reduce the number of road trips, and with places of work mostly being forced to close, car journeys became fewer and fewer.

Another major casualty of the strike was the supply of electricity, a consequence of the UWC's widespread support amongst power station workers.

Consumers were subject to abrupt cuts in electricity, and whilst this did not impact as much on families as it would have done during winter-time, people had little choice but to stock up on boxes of candles.

Confined in the main to one's home, one had little option but to listen to the constant radio bulletins where, for a short time at least, the strike's leaders (especially the mild-mannered Harry Murray) enjoyed unrestricted access to the region's air-waves, advising listeners on what they might, or more often, might not do.

Ordinary people, even those residing in loyalist areas, had been annoyed with both the UWC leaders and the executive administration for their seemingly powerless response to the profound deprivations precipitated by unelected strikers.

The venom of many within the unionist community, however, switched towards Harold Wilson's Labour administration in London. This came about after Wilson's vitriolic denunciation of both the strikers and the wider unionist community, whom he dismissed as 'spongers'. This television broadcast paradoxically led to increased support for the goals desired by by the strikers – the dismantling of N. Ireland's first power-sharing executive – and to simmering tensions amongst the respective unionist and nationalist sections of this executive.

With new threats of raw sewage appearing on Belfast's streets, the Unionist Party's leader of the executive, Brian Faulkner, along with his fellow-unionist ministers, resigned from the executive, which inevitably collapsed soon afterwards.

Despite communal uncertainty over the region's longer term political future, loyalists in places like East Bread Street, staged impromptu street parties, at which effigies of Harold Wilson, Brian Faulkner and SDLP leader Gerry Fitt were burned.

Politically, there were immediate repercussions from the strike's successful conclusion. The five month old power-sharing experiment had collapsed, and it would be nearly a quarter of a century before the next local legislature, involving both unionists and nationalists, would be operational. Direct rule would replace local representation.

Some of the strike's leaders (like Glen Barr) would briefly turn their attention to the political arena, though their main party of affiliation, Vanguard, would fold in 1978.

Grass-roots loyalism had exhibited its clout during this momentous fortnight, and from time to time unionist politicians attempted to galvanise such a crucial source of support for mass demonstrations or campaigns (for instance, Ian Paisley's doomed strike in protest in 1977), but nothing in the years ahead would approach the widespread support for strike action witnessed in May 1974 when the Protestant working class was able to directly influence the province's political direction.

On a personal level, within a few weeks of the strike, I returned to England where I would spend over 35 years more working in the educational sector (I would also be involved in writing several books on modern Irish political history).

Just before we left East Bread Street, our landlord – a Dickensian character who walked around the street in a night-cap and dressing-gown – offered us the property for a mere £500! 'Somewhere to raise a family!' he added, though we respectfully declined his offer. Instead we would shortly return to England, where we have remained ever since.

However, the memories of that momentous period in N Irish history have stayed with me ever since.

l Dr Alan Parkinson is a former senior lecturer in History at London Southbank University and the author of books including ‘The Third Home Rule Crisis, Friends in High Places’, published by the Ulster Historical Foundation, and ‘A Difficult Birth – Northern Ireland's Early Years 1920-25’ published by Eastwood Books, Dublin