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Dateline: 22nd December, 2005 NI Playwright Driven Out of HomeNorthern Ireland playwright Gary Mitchell (As the Beast Sleeps, The Force of Change, Loyal Women) has been driven from his home by paramilitary thugs, according to a report in The Guardian. The estate on which he lives - Rathcoole in north Belfast - is dominated by the the loyalist paramiliary group the UDA (Ulster Defence Association), which linked with the UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters) which warned his entire family to get out of the estate within four hours or be killed. His parents left their home of fifty years but his grandmother was allowed to stay. She died five months later and Mitchell was warned not to go the funeral. They did so with a police escort, although the police insisted that she should not be buried from her home, which is what she had wanted, because it would not be safe. At one point someone shouted "One Mitchell dead!" as the coffin was being carried to the hearse. Last month Mitchell's home ws attacked by men with baseball bats who petrol-bombed his car on the driveway. Mitchell and his family are now in hiding. Belfast novelist Glenn Patterson and thirty other writers have written an open letter of support for Mitchell. According to Tommy Kirkham of the Ulster Political Research Group, advisors to the UDA, claims that it is "rogue elements" and not the official UDA which are behind the trouble. Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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