'They knew I was a Catholic: I was an appropriate target'

national | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Tuesday July 25, 2006 14:03

by James Reilly - Irish News July 24 2006

Lasting brain damage - I am a bit worried about that," says Damian O'Loan as he nurses a cup of coffee.

'They knew I was a Catholic: I was an appropriate target' - Almost six weeks after a son of Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan was viciously attacked at a north Belfast interface, the young victim speaks to Irish News chief reporter Sharon O'Neill

[Note: This story and the others - including a letter from me in the Irish News on July 24 - illustrate the way in which sectarianism, orangeism and unionism are interlinked. The brutal sectarian killing of Michael McIlveen, the vicious attack on Damien O'Loan, the Orange bonfire 'celebration' of the killing of McIlveen and the Orange Order banner remembering a UDA sectarian killer - all of these are part of the carnival of reaction which the state of Northern Ireland was created to promote and to sustain.

Susan McKay’s piece shows the relationship between Ian Paisley’s bloody rhetoric and the bloody misdeeds of his followers (followers he, with consummate hypocrisy, will later distance himself from).

The state of Northern Ireland is a failed state. It is Britain’s failed state. Tony Blair and George Bush justify massive violence, death, injury, torture and cruelty on peoples in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Northern Irish unionists, the biggest supporters of British violence overseas, inflict it at home also on ‘the enemy within’, who they identify on the basis of their Roman Catholic religion. JR]

To be a Catholic is to be a target and a potential victim

"Lasting brain damage - I am a bit worried about that," says Damian O'Loan as he nurses a cup of coffee.

The 23-year-old is back at his flat in Ardoyne, north Belfast, still sore from a physio session hours earlier.

Not many would return to an area where sectarian thugs stalk interface street corners before splitting up to trap their victims.

But Damian has and despite constant protestations from his mother, Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan and his father, SDLP politician Declan O'Loan, he is staying for now.

An apartment with a superb view swayed the move to Ardoyne two and a half months ago.

His mother made inquiries from people in the area about how safe it was and Damian decided to move in.

Although his family live in Ballymena, Co Antrim, Damian was well-used to city life after four years at Edinburgh University where he studied French and philosophy.

Still undecided about a firm career, he works at a Belfast city centre restaurant to keep him ticking over.

He gets on well with his colleagues and on Sunday June 11 they all went out for a night on the town - Saturday being out of the equation due to work.

Despite it being the end of the weekend they managed to find places open and stayed out until 3am.

"I couldn't get a taxi home, so I walked," Damian said.

His flat is easier to get to from the Crumlin Road but gates closed off his normal route.

Not wanting to risk walking the longer way home, he opted to go up Oldpark Road.

Either route was dangerous - the annual air of tension at the flashpoint area in the run-up to the Twelfth was apparent.

At around 3am Damian was in loyalist Hillview Court, just minutes away from the Catholic Ardoyne area.

But he had been spotted by a four-strong gang wielding metal bars.

Two walked straight at him, the others came from behind.

"I knew exactly what they were going to do. I didn't think how serious it could get," he recalled.

"I had no idea who they were. They just looked like hoods. They didn't speak."

Damian tried to plead with his attackers, and as he did so gave a clear indication of his religion.

"I said to them 'I just live here, I am just going home now. I live in the Ardoyne,'" he said.

"Presumably that was all they needed to hear.

"One of them behind me hit me first, on the head, knocked me out. I was unconscious for the rest of it.

"I don't think it went on longer than two or three minutes."

A taxi driver came to the unconscious victim's aid.

"He potentially saved my life. He didn't even know what had happened," he said.

"He was under no obligation to pick me up at all. It was the height of generosity. I couldn't be more grateful.

"We tried to get in contact with him. I really want to thank him."

The cabbie rushed Damian to hospital.

"There was one point when they were a wee bit worried, so they got everybody on stand-by for resuscitation.

"I came round 24 hours after it happened. My mum was waiting for me.

"I asked where I was. She didn't say what had happened to me, just told me where I was, that I was OK.

"I couldn't move my leg, couldn't move my arm. I can't remember much.

"I know about the (blows) that left the injuries - about seven or eight. They broke my arm, moved the kneecap out of its base, they tore all the muscles and ligaments in my leg. It was pretty brutal."

After three days in hospital, Damian says he was confined to bed at home, where he was "ill for pretty much two weeks".

"I have a lot of bruising on the brain.

"I was getting splitting headaches and stuff. It has died down a wee bit," he said.

"I will probably have permanent scarring. I have tissue that won't heal.

"My broken arm seems to be slotting back into place, all my ligaments and muscles will heal."

But it is the head injuries he suffered that worry him most.

"I suppose in a way it is the same as physio, where you have got to go through some sort of treatment to try and heal it a bit before you can work out what the lasting damage is," he said.

"I still get loads of dizzy spells, then forgetful. Everything does feel a bit different. I have got a CT scan at the end of the month."

Asked if the attack has in any way taught him a lesson, he says: "I knew I should be more careful anyway.

"It did not teach me anything about north Belfast I didn't know before.

"To be fair other people are more careful than I was.

"Most (taxi drivers) are too scared to drive up here - it leaves people stuck in the city centre with a problem."

However, Damian was reluctant to describe the assault as sectarian.

"I wouldn't credit them with that much intelligence or any kind of political motivation," he said.

"They knew I was Catholic. Given they knew that - and what they did - I was an appropriate target.

"I am pretty fortunate. I don't feel intimidated by the people who did it."

However, he added: "I am more pessimistic generally about people since and more edgy. I check whether the door is locked in here - I never used to think about that."

Not surprisingly, he has nightmares.

"I've got a massive memory block," he said.

"I remember a tiny bit - it is not a graphic representation of what happened at all but associated things (in flashbacks) like running away, trying to hide.

"After something like that your body shuts down and you suppress stuff."

Asked if his mother had told him he was foolish to walk home at that time, he said: "No but I am sure she thought it. She would often ask me if I would leave this flat and get one somewhere else. She tries to convince me.

"But I have no plans to. Honestly, I think this could happen to you in south Belfast, east Belfast or west Belfast.

"I am not prepared to go out and try to change my whole lifestyle and try to avoid (being attacked).

"So many people here just want to get on with their lives, not have to deal with all these issues day in and day out.

"I understand a lot of people would be immune to hearing (about such attacks).

"You don't pay much attention to the Iraq war and stuff because you hear it on the news again and again and I am sure that is what is going on here."

And Damian said he was not confident that the police would be able to bring the perpetrators to justice.

"I don't think there is anything wrong in their methodology in going out catching them but I don't think they will be caught," he said.