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Prologue

Gareth Mulvenna
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Summary

Saturday 18 March 1972.

Marc Bolan's T-Rex are preparing to play their largest gig to date at the Wembley Empire Pool Hall. Hordes of young fans queue outside on the streets of London to see their hero.

On the same day in Belfast hundreds of young men, many of whom are also fans of T-Rex, are congregating in the city centre to attend a large open-air event in Ormeau Park in South Belfast. Dressed in denim and carrying Ulster flags and banners reading ‘Shankill Young Tartan’ and ‘Shankill Battalion’, these young men are members of Belfast's latest youth gang movement, the Tartans.

Walking up the Ormeau Road they will meet another gang ‘Pass Young Tartan’ and as they come across Catholic properties on the road they will jeer and charge.

Members will play accordions and drums and the mood is one of resistance.

On arrival at Ormeau Park they will join thousands of other Protestants, young and old, from across Northern Ireland.

There they will hear the former Northern Ireland Government Minister of Home Affairs William Craig state:

There can be no compromise or concession to the enemy that assails our province today. We must build up the dossiers on the men and women who are a menace to this country because one day, ladies and gentlemen, if the politicians fail it may be our job to liquidate the enemy.

For many of the young Tartans things will never be the same again.

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Chapter
Information
Tartan Gangs and Paramilitaries
The Loyalist Backlash
 , pp. ix - x
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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