THE PALPABLE shock of one of Mrs Thatcher’s Stormont ministers at the degree of social deprivation and “distasteful” British army in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast (the former home of President Mary McAleese) is recorded in a confidential memo just released by the Public Record Office in Belfast in 1980.
In the document, dated March 12th, 1980, Hugh Rossi, the minister of state in charge of finance, describes a visit to Ardoyne where he spoke to a uniformed RUC man who had been “on the beat” in the area for three years and to the local parish priest.
The minister wrote: “Both told me that the unemployment level is between 50 per cent and a staggering 70 per cent. At varying times only 20-50 per cent of school leavers find jobs.
“The Ardoyne contained some 20,000 Catholics completely surrounding by hard Protestant areas and in the past had suffered from extreme fear. In consequence, even today there is a mental block against going outside the area to look for a job.”