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Buses Under Fire: Northern Ireland's Buses in the Troubles
Category: Transport
"It’s difficult to find the words to praise these men and women. We should be eternally grateful to them, yet, sadly, their magnificent contribution, in maintaining a service for the public, has largely been ignored."
Eugene O’Callaghan, TGWU Senior Officer
The Troubles took a heavy toll on Northern Ireland's buses and their crews, with many hundreds of buses destroyed, thousands more damaged, depots and garages burned or bombed, regular disruption to services through security alerts and civil disorder, a dozen employees murdered and many hundreds injured, something which no other bus company in the United Kingdom, perhaps even the world, has ever had to deal with.
So within the pages of Buses Under Fire, Michael Collins, using his own interviews, along with some of those recorded for the TGWU-sponsored Routes project, reflects the many and varied experiences of the men and women who kept Northern Ireland's public transport system running during this turbulent time. Interviews with senior managers and trades union officials are included giving their perspective. Many incidents, both serious and amusing, are also recorded.
It is hoped that the publication of this volume will go some way towards addressing Eugene’s concern.
Michael Collins was born in 1949 and comes from a transport background. His grandfather joined Belfast Corporation as a tram conductor before World War I and retired as an inspector in 1947. In the same year his father joined the NIRTB as a driver, became a conductor and later an inspector under the UTA and Ulsterbus.
In 1967, whilst a student, Michael’s father arranged for him to join the newly formed Ulsterbus as a conductor attached to Smithfield depot in Belfast. Michael returned to this holiday job each summer until 1972. He graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in that year with a BA in Geography and Political Science and a post-graduate Diploma in Business Administration, later upgraded to an MBA.
On graduation he was offered the post of Personal Assistant to Werner Heubeck, Ulsterbus’s charismatic Managing Director. After two years in this job, he moved to a management post in the Health Service before eventually taking up a lecturing position in business and management at the College of Business Studies in Belfast.
Since his Ulsterbus days, he has retained his interest in transport and currently is both a committee member of the Irish Transport Trust, an organisation involved in bus preservation, and chairman of the Downpatrick and County Down Railway, a railway preservation project.
Michael has recently retired from his post as a Principal Lecturer at the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education. He is married with four children and lives in Strangford, Co Down.
This is his second book.
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