North of Ireland Politics

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 razzmatazaz wrote:

Could you park Irish reg cars unattended in Belfast as recently as the mid-nineties or were the army still doing controlled explosions of them in case they were car bombs? I have the vaguest memory of my mother parking her car somewhere and it becoming an issue for some reason. 
During the troubles, any car left parked in some random spot was often treated as a security alert.

Eg - One day, our car broke down on our way home from a family holiday and it wouldn't start again. We had to leave it (on the hard shoulder on the road from Newry to Warrenpoint) and get a taxi home. Once we got home, Dad phoned the police to let them know about the car and that it was nothing for them or the army (who regularly carried out patrols) to be concerned about and that he would get it towed to a garage the next morning.