Background
A week before the Falls Curfew, on Saturday 27 June 1970, Belfast experienced severe rioting after an Orange Order parade in the north of the city. During that evening, republicans claim that groups of loyalist rioters began to make incursions into the Catholic and nationalist Short Strand enclave of east Belfast. Loyalists claim that the violence was begun by the republicans; allegeding that Orangemen and supporters came under attack on Newtownards Road when returning from a parade.
Members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army took up sniping positions in the grounds of St Matthew’s Catholic Church and engaged in a prolonged gun battle with loyalist gunmen. Across Belfast seven people were killed, of whom five were Protestants and one was a Roman Catholic shot by the IRA. Meanwhile, the Official Irish Republican Army arranged for a large number of weapons to be brought into the mainly nationalist and Catholic Lower Falls area for distribution. The area was a stronghold of the Official IRA.
Read more about this topic: Falls Curfew
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