We had first met Patricia Breen on Sunday, 23 June, 2002 after our visit to the Memorial at Sean Graham's Bookie Shop on the Ormeau Road. This interview took place on Monday, 24 June, 2002 at the Lower Ormeau Community Centre.

DVB: Patricia Breen you live here on the Lower Ormeau Road in County Antrim. Tell us a little bit about this picture (we were looking at a picture with Lucy Rice, Clara Magee and Patricia Breen from 1992 when they learned of the five murders at Sean Graham's Bookie Shop on the Ormeau Road. Clara Magee's 17 year old son was one of those murdered).

PB: This was a picture taken directly after the murders at the Bookies Shop. We had Protestant forces coming in and shooting dead five people and injuring nine others. That picture shows me taking my cousin, Clara Magee, after she found out her 17 year old son was murdered. He was a twin and they were her youngest kids, it just devastated her. They are cousins of mine as well. When that happened at the Bookies', we ran towards it, but the smell of the burning flesh was awful. My brother was there as well, he had run on in, it was getting too tough, and he was stopping peoples blood from coming. He pushed me out again and said don't be coming in here. One other man did run in and ended up being badly disturbed after it.

DVB: What is your role now on the Lower Ormeau Road?

PB: I have always been a member of the community relations and worked with the kids. But when that happened at the Bookies we decided to start up a group. We call ourselves 'The Lower Concerned Community" (LOCC).

The murders at Sean Graham's Bookie Shop took place on Wednesday afternoon at 2:20 PM, February 5^th, 1992. At the end of March that year, a group of Protestants came through with a parade, danced in the middle of the road and a woman held up five fingers, for the five murdered people at the Bookies'. We couldn't let the families see that, it wouldn't be fare, so that's when we decided to set up our group.

Since then we have been fighting to have the parades rerouted. We have never asked for a parade to be banned, we always asked them to be rerouted. Everybody has a right to march, we never said they didn't, but not over fields watching them shoot five men.

DVB: Do you have any idea what is going to happen with the parades this year (2002)?

PB: Because of all the things that are ongoing on at the minute at the interfaces with the Catholics and Protestants fighting each other, which are near at hand, we are hoping the parade will be rerouted for the 12^th. If you had been here earlier, you would have seen three wee boys at the embankment, firing a catapults over at the kids on the walkway. You see, that is how the trouble starts.

DVB: In the information I have read in the past, the Parades Commission usually waits until the deadline to come out with a decision, how do you feel about that?

PB: Everybody wants to know what is going on. Will there or won't there be a parade. There is a lot to do, if they decide to let the parade go through, we have to get people's houses made secure in case something happens the night before.

DVB: What do you do to make the houses secure?

PB: Making sure they have their drop bars, and have their windows covered up and things like that.

DVB: Was it not this area, last year or the year before, that the RUC came down and barged into the homes at 4:00AM in the morning?

PB: That was a couple of years ago.

DVB: The RUC did that before the parades so that you wouldn't come out of your homes. How many days does it take, if the parade marches down the Ormeau Road, for life to get back to normal?

PB: A couple of days, especially with the kids. We are out and about watching the kids, that is our main priority. I have four of me own, I have to make sure they are OK. When the peelers come in, they don't care who they hit. Afterwards, it is so quiet you could hear a pin dropping, that is even more errie than people standing about.

DVB: It also has to be pretty bad for the business owners?

PB: Yes, it is very bad for the business owners. We have had business owners going to meet the Parades Commission, and we (LOCC) have met them. Just this year, for the very first time, we had the families from Sean Graham's Bookie murders, meeting the Parades Commission. This was a very emotional time.

DVB: What kind of response did you receive from the Parades Commission?

PB: Actually, a very good response. They heard it 'from the horses mouth' as they say. They experienced what we were going through for the past ten years. It is the tenth anniversary of bookie shop murders.

DVB: These kids that were catapulting from the other side, what are their ages?

PB: Fifteen to seventeen years old.

DVB: Is it the young ones that create the problems?

PB: Oh yes. This is what happens, the other day there were a few kids coming down on the bridge, we had a Tricolour up, it's not very often Catholics get to fly a Tricolour here.

DVB: You mean, even on the Ormeau Road, you can't fly a Tricolour?

PB: No, you can't do that, it would be wrong. But they were standing as the Tricolour went up. The three kids were coming over the bridge throwing bricks and shouting at our kids. When our ones ran up and started throwing bricks back, they tried to get them into the wee garage up there, where the rest of the men were hiding. They send all the kids out to throw the stones to entice our ones to come up. Then there are men standing there ready to do them in.

DVB: Men attacking children?

PB: Oh Yes. We have even had that from the Holy Cross School.

DVB: We saw that around the world. What sort of satisfaction could a grown man get from beating up a little kid?

PB: Just look back on the Shankill Butchers, they have always been like that. The Protestants don't care who they hurt, they just want to hurt.

DVB: How many parades come down the Ormeau Road over the course of a year?

PB: We could have about one a month, maybe 12 or a few more over the year. Maybe they will have a 'widows parade' or something else. They are always thinking of ways to come down here.

DVB: So this is the Orange Parades, coming up with a parade a month, marching down your road to intimidate you?

PB: Well they haven't gotten down the past couple of years because we have been fighting that. There was one a couple of weeks ago, it came down to the bridge, on the other side of the bridge. They got on a bus, the bus went the other way and came out at Donegall Pass at UTV, and they walked down that road between the bridges. Later on that night we had everything sealed off between the two bridges while they done this parade.

They are so sad, I mean they could have a parade, and be where they are going, half an hour earlier. By the time they come down, do the bridge, do their shouting, get on a bus, get off there, and go around there. They are so sad.

DVB: You are the ones who end up being the victims.

PB: Oh God yes, Lately we have been really, really lucky because they are not getting down the road. The police have been blocking the two bridges off, so we are being able to walk about and do what we want.

DVB: Do you have to go through this whole process every month?

PB: There is a parade on Sunday, they probably more likely will come to the bridge.

DVB: What about your parades? Do you have parades like that?

PB: Yes, we are allowed to have parades. But we have never walked from the Ormeau Road up to the Markets as a parade. We had a Lord Mayor show up two years ago and we were stoned because we were from the Lower Ormeau. We were actually stoned and jeered at. We had to get our kids into a big lorry that had closed-in covers and drive back up the Ormeau Road after the Donegall Pass.

DVB: How do the children in the community react to all of this?

PB: They are used to it. It is part of life.

DVB: How many children are in this community?

PB: There are 550 families in this area, I'm just talking about this part of the area. Not the University area. Now a good many students have moved in, but I am talking about 550 families. So there are about 1,100 children, and this is just a part of their lives?

DVB: Since the murders at Sean Graham's Bookie Shop, has anyone else lost their life as a result of the parades?

PB: Not so much the parades, but we had a woman murdered, wife of a Sinn Fein Councillor, in 1994 or 1995. They came down and smashed her window with a breeze block, and she was shot 27 times. It is scary because it just proves they will shoot anybody, it doesn't matter who. They were in the house next door to her, prior to shooting her, so they knew what they were doing.

My youngest one, who is 16 now, she was a bit scared, she was coming in sleeping beside me and all. It must have just been fear, because I was involved in all of this.

DVB: Have you or been threatened?

PB: No, never. I have my drop bars.

DVB: Do they really protect you? If someone wants to get you, can't they get you?

PB: By the time they kick in the doors, we would be out the back.

DVB: How many people are involved in the LOCC?

PB: There are about eight or nine and we represent all the families in these 550 homes. The Ulster Unionists felt we weren't speaking for all the Ormeau Road, so they did a survey. The results came back that 99.9% of the people want the LOCC to speak for them. Cooper-Price Waterhouse conducted the survey. The UUP were shocked.

Now we have done a lot of things over the years. We have a memorial outside Sean Graham's Bookie Shop, have you been up to the Bookies?

DVB: Yes, as a matter of fact, I called into the show yesterday from the Memorial. I introduced Sean to the Pittsburgh community. Sean informed the audience about the Memorial. So Patricia, what sort of things are you going to work on for the immediate future?

PB: Seriously, we do believe in a couple more months, there will be no more parades coming through our area that are not wanted.

DVB: In a couple of months? What do you mean?

PB: Yes, the Garvaghy Road is next week. We don't think they will get down the Garvaghy Road. Too many of the unionists are splitting up and fighting among themselves.

DVB: Would you still maintain the organization?

PB: Oh yes, we will always be there.

DVB: Sean took us on a walking tour around all the perimeters of the estate. I see there are new homes being built, and a big complex.

PB: We are actually in the Community Centre which is owned by Belfast Council, which we are trying to sell. As you can see it is a youth group tonight. We do an after school group, a Mother and Toddler group and a Women's Group.

DVB: Who finances that?

PB: The Belfast City Council finances most of it, however there are grants that fund it as well.

DVB: It would make sense to me, if the Belfast City Council is funding this community centre, they wouldn't want people to wreck it, or wreck the homes the people live in who utilize this centre? Right?

PB: (laughing)

DVB: You are kidding? I am amazed at the mind set. It just doesn't make sense.

PB: We just have to get up and go and just keep going. Don't stop.

DVB: You can never quit.

PB: Sometimes you just feel like quitting and saying the hell with it. But you can't, we just keep on going. Have you seen the tapes of when the Orangemen came down the road and we were beat off the road? It might be hard to locate one now.

I was doing a tour in America and took them. We were trying to tell people this is what happened, we were hemmed in. So we showed them the video of what actually happened. It was unbelievable the change in their whole outlook.

DVB: What can the people in America do to help you?

PB: Last week for three nights, the Short Strand was attacked. It would have been good to have Observers there. Where you in the Short Strand yet?

DVB: Yes, Sean took us there today and I got stoned. We were there such a short time, how did they know I was there? It must have only been a minute or so.

PB: They knew you were there, they are so wicked. We are surrounded here, they are up over the Donegall Pass and the Sandyrow. Really we are stuck in the middle, similar to the Short Strand. At the Short Strand, they are surrounded all the way around, they are in a worse situation.

DVB: So those tapes you showed in America really did help?

PB: Yes, it brought a lot of international observers over.

DVB: Does that really help? What does that do for you?

PB: If we turn around and say to the Chief of Police "this is what happened", they are not going to believe us. But, when Americans supply the details in their reports, like times they were someplace, photographs and video tapes. This proves a good point and the police can't deny it.

DVB: Do the police really take action on this information?

PB: Sometimes they do, like two years ago when they stopped the parade coming down.

DVB: With the problems that have occurred around here and the Short Strand, and if the Parades Commission say 'no, you can't march down the Ormeau Road, do you think the Orange Order / loyalists, will create additional problems? How will you prepare for that?

PB: Oh yes. The same, making sure everyone's houses are safe and people watching the area to make sure no one is coming in. Usually because where I live and a few others at the other end, we see them gathering. Someone is always watching the safety of our area to make sure they don't come in. We phone each other to make sure all are safe.

DVB: One of the things I saw in Belfast were the CCTV cameras throughout the city, on the roads, do you have cameras in this area?

PB: Not as yet. The only place is the Ardoyne and the Glenbryn Estates because of all the trouble, like the Short Strand at the minute. The Protestants are blaming the Catholics, the Catholics are blaming the Protestants. The Protestants fired a petrol bomb a few weeks ago on a old man and set his house on fire, just a couple of doors down from my Aunt. But they were alright.

DVB: What about the teenage boys in this community, when they see their community being attacked, what sort of reaction do you get from them?

PB: You have to try and calm them because there is so much anger in them, they want to get in there and fight. Then the peelers come in and beat them. It is a no win situation for us here. Even if you fight back, the peelers come back in and beat you.

Two weeks ago, they were able to come into the bridge and put a flag up, a Union Jack. The police came down, surrounded them while they put the flag up, and chased our ones. That was unbelievable! The police were coming to protect the Protestants while they put the flag up. It didn't stay up too long, we took it down the next day.

DVB: We were in Dublin over the weekend for 'World Cup Fever', there was the Tricolour everywhere. Do people in this community put the Tricolour out?

PB: World Cup was the first time we could put them out. We put them on our front door, one or two houses here and there. You don't automatically put the flag up because it makes you a target.

DVB: We drove through the Shankill today, the street is wider, there was grass in the fronts, the homes looked a little bit bigger, and the Union Jacks were up on the poles.

PB: They had a community festival last week and they usually invite the Lord Mayor, but they didn't invite our Mayor because he is a member of Sinn Fein.

DVB: In this new era of 'equality', I didn't see things being too equal.

PB: Thank you very much. Now you can go back and tell the people how equal and what equality we get, we don't get any at all.

DVB: Saturday afternoon, Maureen and I were in front of Belfast City Hall, which is a beautiful building. I had my camera, I went closer to take a picture and there was a Union Jack. I said 'Maureen, where are the rest of the flags?' (Patricia is laughing at me now). I'm in Tourism. If I am to bring people to Northern Ireland, I have to know they are reasonably safe and things are reasonably equal. Not reasonably, but EQUAL

PB: I rest my case.

DVB: I am taking your message back to Pittsburgh, do you want to emphasize a particular point?

PB: Just as long as we have Observers coming over to see what's happening to nationalists people in the small areas. Now you wouldn't see that happen up the Falls Road and Andersonstown. Andersonstown is far too big of a place to start to go in and beat people. Because we are a small place, a wee enclave, they will do that to us.

I was just there over Friday night and the peelers and soldiers were firing plastic bullets at the nationalists. But it was the Orangemen that came in and started on them. Whenever they chased them back out, the soldiers opened up with the plastic bullets. One man had a massive bruise where his keys were hit with a plastic bullet

DVB: And of course, we all know the plastic bullets are not used on the mainland.

Well Patricia Breen, I will take your message back to Pittsburgh. Maybe we'll get some observers over here yet