page_title: Falls Curfew
section_title: Gun battles and rioting
hierarchical_section_title: Falls Curfew / Operation / Gun battles and rioting
caption_attribution_description: English: Falls Road west Belfast 1981
context_page_description: The Falls Curfew, also called the Battle of the Falls, was a British Army operation during 3–5 July 1970 in the Falls district of Belfast, Northern Ireland. The operation began as a search for weapons in the staunchly Irish nationalist district. As the search ended, local youths attacked the British soldiers with stones and petrol bombs and the soldiers responded with CS gas. This quickly developed into gun battles between British soldiers and the Irish Republican Army. After four hours of continuous clashes, the British commander sealed off the area, which comprised 3,000 homes, and imposed a curfew which would last for 36 hours. Thousands of British troops moved into the curfew zone and carried out house-to-house searches for weapons, while coming under intermittent attack from the IRA and rioters. The searches caused much destruction, and a large amount of CS gas was fired into the area. Many residents complained of suffering abuse at the hands of the soldiers. On 5 July, the curfew was brought to an end when thousands of women and children from Andersonstown marched into the curfew zone with food and other supplies for the locals.
context_section_description: The stone-throwing escalated into a riot. The soldiers became surrounded and called for reinforcements.  Over the following hours, the Royal Scots would be reinforced by troops from the Black Watch, the Life Guards, the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, the Gloucestershire Regiment and the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment.
  As troops began to arrive at the edge of the district, locals hastily barricaded a number of streets to keep the soldiers out. Buses were hijacked and made into burning barricades.
  Jim Sullivan, the local Official IRA commander, feared that the troops would launch a bigger raid and instructed his men to move weapons out of the area. At about 6pm, Provisional IRA volunteers attacked the troops with improvised hand grenades. A number of soldiers suffered leg injuries. As more troops arrived, "the Officials realized that they would have to fight" and Sullivan ordered his men to confront the troops. An Official IRA source later said, "The way we looked at it, we were not going to put up our hands and let them take the weaponry. We didn't want the confrontation, but we couldn't surrender". One source said that 60–70 Official IRA volunteers were involved, while another said 80–90. Each was armed with a rifle and at least one revolver. They exchanged fire with the troops and attacked them with grenades. Hundreds of local youths also pelted the troops with stones and petrol bombs. Journalist Simon Winchester later wrote:
  To anyone who experienced the battle, it was perfectly obvious that hundreds and hundreds of bullets were being fired by both sides – and yet the Army had the gall, when asked by reporters later in the weekend, to say that its soldiers fired only 15 shots in sum. The official figures were to be published later: soldiers in the Falls that weekend fired no less than 1,457 rounds.
  
  The British Army also continued firing CS gas, firing 1,600 canisters in total. Local politicians and priests who were on the streets "complained that every time they got a bad situation cooled down more gas had been plunged in". Slingshots were used to launch heavy CS gas canisters into the area and some went through the roofs of houses. According to the Central Citizens' Defence Committee, even streets where there had been no disorder "received salvo after salvo". The soldiers fired 1,600 canisters and cartridges of CS gas during the operation, which was considered to be excessive in such a small area. Some householders set buckets filled with a mixture of water and vinegar outside their front doors "so that those involved in clashes could wet rags to protect them against the stinging gas". Journalist Peter Taylor described the effect of the CS gas on the densely populated area:
  The clouds of choking and suffocating gas drifted up the narrow alleyways and back streets of the warren that is the Lower Falls. The gas got everywhere, in through windows, under doors and into the residents' eyes, noses, throats and lungs.
   A soldier later interviewed by Taylor recalled: "The place was still saturated with CS gas. Children were coughing, I remember. I'm talking now about the toddlers, kids of three, four, five. It affected everyone but children especially". There were allegations that some soldiers fired CS gas canisters through the windows of houses while residents were still inside. Hundreds of women and children, along with the sick and elderly, began to leave the area.
caption: The Falls Road in 1981
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