FO HALLOO - RECALLING BALLALEECE AND THE ATTACK ON THE HOME OF A FORMER UK AMBASSADOR

My Celtic League colleague Patricia Bridson forwards more background to the 1973 Fo Halloo Ballaleece railway bridge daubing which occurred on Tynwald Day (July 5th) of that year.

Fo Halloo (Manx for "Underground") was a (1970s) Manx dissident nationalist movement that produced a newspaper which had an avid Island wide readership, daubed buildings and also attacked the home of a former British Ambassador living on the Island. The driving force for the movement was the sell-off or land grab by developers and those within Tynwald who facilitated them. The growth of the Finance Sector and the sleaze it was permeating also featured. This latter also came to prominence a decade and a half later in the FSFO campaign of daubings and arson attacks.

The Fo Halloo campaign which lasted about five years was very similar to that in Wales by Meibion Glyndwr in that none of those associated with attacks were apprehended. As the cuttings of the court case Pat and a colleague were involved in show they were not convicted of committing the actual damage at the bridge but were simply stopped near it and the car was found to contain some Fo Halloo newspapers and an effigy of ‘Judah Binstock’ a prominent UK business party active on the Island at the time.

The case attracted interest across the UK as is evidenced by the cutting below from the Daily Telegraph. It highlights the attack in the former ambassadors home at Balladoole and gives general background and says an unidentified man the police failed to apprehend painted ‘Stop the Sell Out’ and ‘Get Radcliffe Out’ on the railway bridge at Ballaleece.

Pat also forwarded a much more detailed account from the Manx newspapers that shows in detail the evidence from the police was confused and contradictory. The result of the case was a £10 fine (about £85 in today’s money).

As indicated above the Fo Halloo campaign was ‘reprised’ by the FSFO activity involving arson attacks in the late 1980s. This was aimed at the Finance Sector and the socio-economic burden it caused and is still felt today. A much briefer campaign of graffiti by young nationalist occurred ten years ago in this instance prompted by the failure of Mann unlike other colonies to achieve independence.

In all three episodes of direct action the police deployed extraordinary resources, none more so than in 2010 when road stops were a frequent occurrence across the Island. It's ironic that a police force that can't control unruly behaviour in Victoria Street on a Saturday night (Manx Radio Mannin Line yesterday) can ‘throw the kitchen sink’ at nationalist political dissidence over a period of forty years.

As for the future the issue will always be a live one. You can restore your language, perform Manx music and dance, retell the folklore of the Manx etc. However as long as they do not control their own destiny in an independent country you have nothing at all really and in any case these days even the IOM Department for Education apparently find it useful to postulate about ‘English’ bogeymen when it suits!

(My thanks to Patricia Bridson for the material forwarded)

Image: Daily Telegraph reports the court case and daubing of Ballaleece. A separate article highlights the attack on Balladoole House home of Sir Ralph Stevenson former UK ambassador to Egypt and for a time an MLC.

Bernard Moffatt

Celtic League