His second-in-command, Jim Sullivan, was responsible for setting up the Central Citizens’ Defence Committee, on 16 August, to organise defence and welfare for Catholics who were throwing up barricades all over Belfast. Paddy Devlin has described life behind these barricades at this stage: …good cars, which local people had worked strenuously to borrow for or buy, had been commandeered and thrown into the debris of the barricades. Local traders and businessmen who provided employment also found their vans and implements hijacked… young vigilantes had taken over my house. They sat around the
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