there well don’t tell me anything I can’t deny in court later but you had a civil war going on, correct me if I’m wrong.
Aye, I laughs, thinking it’s not very funny what the fuck are you laughing for, that’s just a front though, I says.
Oh come on, he goes, you’re just saying that because I’m Catholic, tell the truth, Billy, everyone knows it’s a religious war between your boys and ours it’s all over the news.
Oh aye? I says. You tell me what it’s about then.
He was a bit defensive then, like I’d offended him or something.
Well, he goes, all slow and careful, as far as I know the Catholic minority want a united Ireland so the IRA are fighting to get the English to leave but your side wants to stay part of the UK. That’s about the size of it, non?
Nice and simple isn’t it, I goes, and maybe that’s how it was at the start a long fucking time ago but let me burst your bubble here by telling ye a wee story. Every fortnight me, my brother Mark and my boss Big Jim Gallagher would have a meet at a nice wee café down the city centre, cappuccino and a caramel slice sort of thing. You know who would join us? Three lads from the other side of the wall, this dead funny cunt called Liam, I loved him so I did he was great craic, Declan was another one, he was the muscle like me so he never said much, I always wondered if I could take him but never found out, and the third one was their boss man Shay, he was the brains fuck he was smart just like Big Jim sure the two of them got on like nobody’s business. They’d both been to Queen’s University when they were younger sure that’s where they met.
Anyway we would all have an aul yarn about business just to make sure we weren’t steppin’ on each others toes sort of thing, we’d even help each other out sometimes or if there was a new shopping centre opening up someone would bring the plans along and we’d work out what we were going to do about it. If there was a lot of jobs tiedup in the construction contracts then once the place was near finished we’d blow it up, our side or theirs it didn’t matter sure we’d take turns, the important thing was that the place was reduced to rubble so all the lads working on it would have another year or two’s employment. Everyone knew so they’d all make themselves scarce so no cunt got hurt unless we wanted rid of someone in which case we’d stick them in the back of the van loaded up with Semtex, kill two birds with one stone you know. Anyway there’s only so many times you can blow a place up, apart from the Europa Hotel that is, sure we done that more than twenty times.
Didn’t Clinton stay there last year, Olly says.
Aye sure it’s lovely when it’s in one piece. I stayed there myself a couple of times, good food. As I was saying eventually we had to let places like Castle Court get built but once they were it was a goldmine we’d meet Shay and the lads to divvy up the protection money, it was dead funny sometimes I ‘member us arguing over who was going to shake down Toys ‘R’ Us. Shay and Liam had weans so they wanted it.
That was only the tip of the iceberg between us and them sure we ran gambling, drugs, prostitution and everything else you can think of not to mention taking our cut of government contracts for reconstruction and all that shite. There used to be this big mural on the Shankill estate, it said ALL DRUG DEALERS WILL BE SHOT like we were guardians of the community or something, what a joke, course you read between the lines and whatit really says is all drug dealers who don’t work for us will be shot. We’re businessmen, that’s all there is to it, no different from the Mafia or your drug lords. This aul peace process? We don’t want that so we don’t, that’s bad for business.
Olly was nodding, he could see the sense in it, sure he done deals with all sorts of fuckers us included.
Still, he goes, a lot of people have got killed so you and the rest can make money
Aye, I laughs, thinking it’s not very funny what the fuck are you laughing for, that’s just a front though, I says.
Oh come on, he goes, you’re just saying that because I’m Catholic, tell the truth, Billy, everyone knows it’s a religious war between your boys and ours it’s all over the news.
Oh aye? I says. You tell me what it’s about then.
He was a bit defensive then, like I’d offended him or something.
Well, he goes, all slow and careful, as far as I know the Catholic minority want a united Ireland so the IRA are fighting to get the English to leave but your side wants to stay part of the UK. That’s about the size of it, non?
Nice and simple isn’t it, I goes, and maybe that’s how it was at the start a long fucking time ago but let me burst your bubble here by telling ye a wee story. Every fortnight me, my brother Mark and my boss Big Jim Gallagher would have a meet at a nice wee café down the city centre, cappuccino and a caramel slice sort of thing. You know who would join us? Three lads from the other side of the wall, this dead funny cunt called Liam, I loved him so I did he was great craic, Declan was another one, he was the muscle like me so he never said much, I always wondered if I could take him but never found out, and the third one was their boss man Shay, he was the brains fuck he was smart just like Big Jim sure the two of them got on like nobody’s business. They’d both been to Queen’s University when they were younger sure that’s where they met.
Anyway we would all have an aul yarn about business just to make sure we weren’t steppin’ on each others toes sort of thing, we’d even help each other out sometimes or if there was a new shopping centre opening up someone would bring the plans along and we’d work out what we were going to do about it. If there was a lot of jobs tiedup in the construction contracts then once the place was near finished we’d blow it up, our side or theirs it didn’t matter sure we’d take turns, the important thing was that the place was reduced to rubble so all the lads working on it would have another year or two’s employment. Everyone knew so they’d all make themselves scarce so no cunt got hurt unless we wanted rid of someone in which case we’d stick them in the back of the van loaded up with Semtex, kill two birds with one stone you know. Anyway there’s only so many times you can blow a place up, apart from the Europa Hotel that is, sure we done that more than twenty times.
Didn’t Clinton stay there last year, Olly says.
Aye sure it’s lovely when it’s in one piece. I stayed there myself a couple of times, good food. As I was saying eventually we had to let places like Castle Court get built but once they were it was a goldmine we’d meet Shay and the lads to divvy up the protection money, it was dead funny sometimes I ‘member us arguing over who was going to shake down Toys ‘R’ Us. Shay and Liam had weans so they wanted it.
That was only the tip of the iceberg between us and them sure we ran gambling, drugs, prostitution and everything else you can think of not to mention taking our cut of government contracts for reconstruction and all that shite. There used to be this big mural on the Shankill estate, it said ALL DRUG DEALERS WILL BE SHOT like we were guardians of the community or something, what a joke, course you read between the lines and whatit really says is all drug dealers who don’t work for us will be shot. We’re businessmen, that’s all there is to it, no different from the Mafia or your drug lords. This aul peace process? We don’t want that so we don’t, that’s bad for business.
Olly was nodding, he could see the sense in it, sure he done deals with all sorts of fuckers us included.
Still, he goes, a lot of people have got killed so you and the rest can make money
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