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Internment, herring and DUP tantrums remembered on a Northern Irish beach

Last week, we visited County Down’s coast, taking my toddler daughter on her first-ever trip, just around the bay from where I had mine 33 years ago

By Adam Ramsay
Internment, herring and DUP tantrums remembered on a Northern Irish beach
My toddler daughter Léa learned to say the word ‘bird’ while watching dancing guillemots, gannets and terns in Northern Ireland | Imagebroker / Alamy Stock Photo
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Standing on the seafront in Northern Ireland’s Newcastle, you can see round the curve of the coast of County Down. To your left, in the near distance, rise sand dunes and, behind them is Ballykinler Barracks.

This was the largest internment camp during the 1920s Irish War of Independence. People suspected by Britain of IRA connections were imprisoned there without trial.

Fifty years later, they were again used for this purpose, when Operation Demetrius saw the British Army reimpose internment without trial in Northern Ireland.

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