Nationalist boycott uproots Protestant family

THERE are three Protestant businesses in the mainly Catholic town of Pomeroy, the Boyds, the Ramseys and the Raineys. Now at Raineys the boxes and bags are being packed. They're moving out, victims of the nationalist boycott.

In recent years, the Raineys have withstood republican in aspired threats and intimidation. But when there's no business there's no point staying in a town which hitherto has been home to four generations of the family. So says Robert Rainey (34), a butcher who over five months has seen his business drain away.

"You can overcome fear and intimidation but you can't overcome a boycott when it cuts off your livelihood," he adds.

"Boycott is the road to no town. It's not going to do anybody any good, only wrecking the people on both sides who are trying to earn a pound," says Robert.

He is speaking in the living room of his fine house on Pomeroy's main street, a dozen or so doors away from the family butchery of S.H. Rainey, where his retired parents, Sydney and Lily, live.

His parents will be the first to leave. He will follow with his wife, Margaret, and children Kirsty, who is almost four, and Coadie, aged 1 1/2.

There's a Christmas tree sparkling in the corner of Robert's house, but no cards displayed. "A few days before Christmas, we said we must get our act together for the children's sake, so we put up the tree. But it's not been a great Christmas," says Margaret.

"The children sense the tension," she adds. "It doesn't affect Coadie so much, but Kirsty has been bed wetting and having nightmares. Tender loving care is the only way of trying to deal with her."

His uncle Billy and his wife, Betty, are with them. "There was a boycott here during the IRA campaign of the 1950s, but nothing as bad as this," Billy recalls.

Robert's father Sydney, living up the road, doesn't want to talk to the press. It could only trigger further trouble, he fears. Robert, his business gone, believes he has nothing to lose. "People need to know what it's like."

Robert and Margaret are married eight years. They met at a dance in nearby Bearagh. "Our family have been here for over a century. I thought I would be handing this business on to my family. Not now though."

Local Sinn Fein representatives have defended the boycott, but denied they are orchestrating it. It is a legitimate, "spontaneous" and minor form of protest, compared to what happened at Drumcree, they say.

As justification they have cited Drumcree itself, the subsequent blockades around the North, and the Orangemen marching "provocatively" through Pomeroy annually on the Twelfth of July.

"It's just ridiculous," says Robert. "I wasn't at Drumcree. I wasn't involved in any roadblocks; in fact there were no roadblocks at Pomeroy. Orangemen don't march provocatively here, and in any case I am not an Orangemen. I don't march."

First and foremost, he wants to be a businessman. In a predominantly nationalist town, he felt it would not be politic to be in the Orange Order. "My idea was to get on with my business and keep my nose clean."

Most of the threats and intimidation came following the Drumcrees of 1995 and this year, but there was trouble before. In May over five years ago, his mother was delivering milk in the town when two masked IRA men tackled her.

They discharged two rifle shots near her head and riddled her Avenger Estate with about 20 bullets. She was terrified. As justification that time, the IRA said she was supplying milk to the local RUC station. "That was also untrue," says Robert.

On the 11th night after the first Drumcree, a petrol bomb was thrown at the butcher's shop, he adds. The following year on the Twelfth, a petrol bomb was thrown into his van. On another occasion men were disturbed as they approached the house with a 7 ft plank. There have been numerous threatening phone calls. "On one occasion excrement was thrown at the house."

Up until then though, the business was still functioning. But after the second Drumcree the boycott began. Robert had taken over the profitable milk run from his parents, serving people in the town and outlying areas. Tough work, up at 5 a.m., delivering milk until 9 a.m., then running the butchery until 9 p.m.

After the incident with his mother, he had misgivings about the milk run "but I was not going to lie down." The boycott, however, forced him to abandon the profitable run. He lost virtually all his Catholic customers and the Protestants who kept faith were insufficient in numbers to make the operation viable.

Some of the customers said they supported the boycott. Others said they had been warned not to do business with him. "One Catholic woman came to her door crying. She was very apologetic. `I am every sorry, but leave no milk to day, Robert,' she said. I told her that I felt nothing against her, that I didn't want her to go through the fear my own parents were going through."

The milk run folded quickly. It took slightly longer for the butcher's shop to go under. It was open yesterday but will close shortly.

His emotions about leaving swing from sadness to anger. He was a leading member in the mixed religion local fire force and was a member of the cross community Pomeroy festival committee. He still has Catholic friends in the town, he played with many Catholics in, primary school.

"But when the Troubles started things divided." He felt the Catholic clergy should have done more. A sermon from the pulpit that the boycott was further poisoning a poisoned atmosphere might have helped, he feels.

"And why should I be blamed for something that happened over 30 miles away in Drumcree?"

The Raineys' faith in humanity was somewhat restored by messages of support from Catholics in the South, some of whom came up to do business in his store as a gesture of solidarity.

He regrets but has some understanding of why local Catholics did not rally round in force. "It's hard for ordinary decent people to resist the men of violence."

Meanwhile, local oil supplier Victor Ramsey, one of whose lorries was destroyed in an arson attack during the summer, and the Boyds's corner shop are just managing to continue in business, despite the boycott.

Other Protestant businesses in certain parts of the North are also suffering. Over 40 businesses are affected, according to a committee of the Northern Forum which is examining the issue.

The quiet but possibly vain hope is that somehow over the coming months, the sectarian tensions will begin to ease and that something approaching normal community relations may resume.

In the meantime, the packing of the belongings of Robert's parents will continue.

All the household lumber of a century is being packed into boxes and cases, including an old photograph of three generations of the Raineys, David the grandfather, Sydney the father and Robert the son outside the butcher's store of S.H. Rainey, Pomeroy.