Emma Groves (1920 – 2 April 2007) was a human rights activist, a leading campaigner for banning the use of

plastic bullets A plastic bullet or plastic baton round (PBR) is a non-lethal projectile fired from a specialised gun. Although designed as a non-lethal weapon, they have caused a number of deaths when used incorrectly. Plastic bullets are generally used for ...

, and a co-founder of the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets in Northern Ireland. She began her campaign after she was blinded from being struck in the face by a rubber bullet in 1971.

Shooting incident

Emma Groves was a

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

mother of 11 children. At 9 a.m. on 4 November 1971, aged 51, she was standing at her living room window during

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...

searches on her neighbours' houses. As a mark of defiance, Emma turned on her record player and placed the ballad " Four Green Fields" on her record player and turned up the volume. As she turned back to the window, a soldier, at a distance of about eight yards, shot a rubber bullet through the window hitting her in the face. As a result, she lost her sight in both eyes. A doctor at the hospital who was removing Emma's eyes approached Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was visiting Belfast at the time, to break the news to Emma that her eyesight was gone. Years later, she was offered £35,000 compensation, which was seen at the time as a ''de facto'' admission by the Army, although the soldier involved was never charged.

Campaign to ban plastic bullets

Groves campaigned for thirty years for the banning of plastic bullets. Groves and Clara Reilly founded the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets after the killing of John Downes in August 1984. The aim of the organisation was to bring together the families bereaved or injured by rubber and plastic bullets. They also compiled information on the statistics relating to usage of plastic bullets in Northern Ireland. In 1976, rubber bullets were replaced by plastic bullets. Up until that time they had caused the death of 12-year-old Francis Rowntree and the wounding of a further seventy. The new bullets were solid PVC cylinders, long and in diameter. Their weight was nearly and they were fired at up to .'The troubles we've seen...'Women's Stories from the North of Ireland, Silvia Calamati, English language edition published 2002, Beyond the Pale, Belfast; These bullets were presented publicly as a more secure and less dangerous means of crowd control, despite that their use was prohibited in Great Britain as they were deemed 'a danger to the civilian population'. Despite this, Groves said they were used "unsparingly in Northern Ireland". In 1981, during the hunger strikes, large numbers of people took to the streets to show their solidarity with the prisoners. The greatest number of plastic bullets fired was between May and August 1981, the same period in which

Bobby Sands Robert Gerard Sands ( ga, Roibeárd Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh; 9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981) was a member (and leader in the Maze prison) of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison M ...

and the other nine prisoners died on hunger strike. It was during those years, that several fatalities and severe injuries occurred from the use of plastic bullets by the British security forces. In October 1976, Brian Stewart, 13 years old,Relatives for Justice
was killed in Belfast by a plastic bullet after being shot by a British soldier during a street riot. Paul Whitters, aged 15, from

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

, died in April 1981 as the result of a bullet to the head fired by an RUC policeman. In Belfast, a 12-year-old, Carol Ann Kelly, was fatally shot on her way home with a plastic bullet after buying milk, in May 1981. It was at this point that Groves decided to do something and to have those "deadly bullets banned". In 1982, she learned that the bullets were manufactured by an American company. So she went to the US along with her daughter and an 18-year-old youth from Derry who had "lost an eye and had his face disfigured". She managed to arrange a meeting in New York with the manager of the company who manufactured them. After their talk she said "the company stopped producing the bullets." In April 1982, an 11-year-old, Stephen McConomy, died from being shot with a plastic bullet by a soldier from the

Royal Anglian Regiment The Royal Anglian Regiment (R ANGLIAN) is an infantry regiment of the British Army. It consists of two Regular battalions and one Reserve battalion. The modern regiment was formed in 1964, making it the oldest of the Line Regiments now operating ...

. Commenting on this, Groves said, "When you start killing the children, you inflict the deepest wound of all on a country." With other members of the United Campaign she spoke of her experience at public meetings throughout Ireland. They then decided to take their campaign abroad. They were invited to the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Italy, Sweden and Germany. Groves went to the US twice. The campaign then discovered that a Scottish factory, the Bronx Fireworks Company, was manufacturing plastic bullets, and for four years a group from the United Campaign went over to Scotland to picket the factory gates. Later the factory stopped making the bullets. There were, according to Groves, at the time still a number of factories producing the bullets but "the British authorities keep their names secret". The Campaign then began focusing its efforts on a London-based company, Astra Holdings, who it hoped would stop manufacturing the bullets. John Downes was shot dead during a street disturbance. Groves, in an interview with Silvia Calamati recorded in Belfast in August 1990, said, Groves concluded her interview by saying, "The victims of plastic bullets are always offered large sums of money as compensation. I have always refused this money as have other family members of the victims. We do not want money. What we do want is justice." After John Downes, two more youths were killed by plastic bullets: Keith White, a 22-year-old from Portadown (1986) and Seamus Duffy,

IMDB IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

aged 15, from Belfast (1989).

Death

Emma Groves died from undisclosed causes on 2 April 2007.

References

External links

CAIN Issues: Violence – List of People killed by rubber or plastic bullets

BBC News, Thursday, 2 August 2001, 12:35 GMT 13:35 UK – The trouble with plastic bullets

BBC News, Friday, 1 June 2001, 21:38 GMT 22:38 UK – NI plastic bullet records 'inadequate'

The Long War: the IRA and Sinn Féin, 1985 to Today By Brendan O'Brien"> The Long War: the IRA and Sinn Féin, 1985 to Today By Brendan O'Brien

* ttp://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/61/020.html http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/61/020.html The Campaign for the Right to Truth {{DEFAULTSORT:Groves, Emma People from Belfast 1920 births 2007 deaths People of The Troubles (Northern Ireland) Human rights activists from Northern Ireland 1971 in Northern Ireland Irish blind people

Shooting incident

Campaign to ban plastic bullets

Death

See also

References

Further reading

External links