Tony Hassan: Derry's longest serving Sinn Féin councillor launches memoir

Derry people of a 1970s vintage will remember Tony Hassan collecting for the Prisoners’ Dependents’ Fund (PDF) outside St Patrick’s Church, Pennyburn, after Sunday Masses.

Or maybe staffing the iconic Shantallow Sinn Féin centre - a static caravan situated at the front of the Shantallow Shops on Drumleck Drive - making phone calls to statutory bodies on behalf of local people, from the payphone in Owens’.

Over lockdown, the former Derry City and Strabane District councillor penned his beautifully written memoir of Derry, Bridge Street and Shantallow ‘From Old Streets to New Houses’.

Author and former Derry City and Strabane District councillor, Tony Hassan.

Packed with great photographs ‘From Old Streets To New Homes’ is published by Derry’s Cholmcille Press and will be officially launched in Shantallow Community Centre, on Thursday, December 7, at 7.00pm.

Tony dedicated the book to his sister, Ann (Fox) who died on December 4, 2017. He wrote: “She was everything to us and will never be forgotten”. All of the proceeds from the book are being donated to the Foyle Hospice.

With moving insight, he also dedicated ‘From Old Streets to New Homes’ to his family and “my many friends and comrades over the years, all of whom made me the person I am today”. 

In a wide-ranging interview with Derry Now, Tony said various colleagues had been encouraging him to write the book over the past 10 years.

“Neil McLaughlin and I discussed it way back and about five years ago I started. I wrote a wee bit and then left it for six months but during covid I began in earnest,” he said.

“I started to think about growing up in Bridge Street, my mother, Margaret (née McGuire) and my father, Gerry and my aunts and uncles. My mother was a Scotch woman and my father was a docker. His people were from Feeny in County Derry and he had worked in America for a few years. They met at the Scotch Fair in Buncrana.

Tony, and fellow Sinn Fein councillors, at a special function at the Guildhall for Mitchel McLaughlin. Also included is Mary Lou McLaughlin.

“Bridge Street was our playground. I pointed out in the book, Bridge Street, Sugar House Lane, Mattie’s Lane, Orchard Street, a good part of Foyle Street, right over to where the Sailor’s Rest was, and back into Bridge Street again, was all taken over by Foyleside and most of Bridge Street was demolished.

“The houses in Bridge Street were really desperate. There might have been three or four families in one house. The conditions were terrible. You would have papered the walls with the Belfast Telegraph before you put the paper up, to keep the plaster on.

“Having said that, we had great craic growing up in Bridge Street, where there were four shops in Bridge Street and six bars.”

Tony and Chrissie with their granddaughter Tara.

Young Tony attended Bridge Street Boys’ School, with his brother, Dessie, and, when it closed down, Waterside Boys’ School.

It is perhaps not beyond the bounds to suggest living in Bridge Street was the genesis of his drive for housing justice Tony displayed as a councillor.

The seeds of his Republican political awakening were sown the day he was playing with his friends and someone told them there was a riot going on in the Diamond.

Tony and Chrissie with their granddaughter Tara. 

“Naturally, we went up to nosey,” said Tony. “As a matter of fact, it was St Patrick’s Day and the Nationalist Party had come out of the Derry Journal offices on Shipquay Street with a Tricolour and marched towards the Diamond. There were hundreds of cops there, with the long coats on, and their old fashioned tenders, and they laid into the crowd to capture the Tricolour.

“That was the first time I realised there was a problem. Then there was a famous band in Derry called Johnny McBride’s Pipe Band. They always played rebel songs. I remember one time they came down Bridge Street, which was a strong Nationalist area. And, at the bottom of the street, the cops parked the big tenders. 

“They put the whole band into the tenders, arrested them all. I didn’t understand what this was all about until I got older and realised what the problem was.”

Tony recalled loving the 60s with the socialising and the dances. He also ventured into the world of work.

Tony and Marion Hutcheon are introduced to Senator Ted Kennedy by John Hume.

“My first job was message boy for Harry Doherty’s in Creggan,” said Tony. “He did a lot of good work. He was a boxing promoter but he helped a lot of people when they came into bad times.

“After six months, I got in the BSR – Monarch Electric. Ironically, every factory I worked in, closed down. They were all bluffs by Brian Faulkner, the Minister for Commerce! Fast forward to 1979, when I started working full time for Sinn Féin.”

Tony was first elected to Derry City Council in 1997. He successfully fought every election after that, until his retirement in 2018.

An early picture of Tony and Chrissie, who met in Butlins in 1966.

As a councillor, Tony became synonymous with the building of social housing in the Greater Shantallow area. It was an issue he cared passionately about and in which he immersed himself, along with his party colleagues.

“I am proud that I played a part in bringing new developments including Skeoge, Northside, Lenamore, Glenabbey and Bradley’s Pass to fruition,” said Tony, who was also glad the Woodlands Avenue issue in Culmore had been recently resolved.

The foreword to ‘From Old Streets To New Homes’ as written by Tony’s friend and colleague, Mitchel McLaughlin - retired Sinn Féin National Chairperson and former Speaker of the Assembly.

Mitchel said: “This book provides an invaluable insight into almost 50 years of political struggle for Irish self-determination.

“There are many activists with an established public profile and many, many more who deserve to be recognised. Tony Hassan’s book ia an acknowledgement of them all.”

Asked about how he saw the future, Tony purposefully opened ‘From Old Streets to New Homes’ and with obvious emotion in his voice, read its final three paragraphs: “As this account of my time ends, I see my life and the city differently. 

“Sinn Féin have achieved what many thought impossible, and things are changing at last. The party in Derry has been through trying times, but beyond all that we must remember what we stand for.

“We must remember ALL our friends and comrades who gave their lives for the struggle in one way or another. We must now move forward, as friends and comrades, to embrace the future and make things better for future generations. It’s incredible to stop and realise how far we have come, and that we’re edging ever closer to our dream of a united Ireland in our time. It’s not going to happen next week, but it will happen I am sure. 

“We are in a generational change which cannot be stopped and for Sinn Féin as a party going forward united cannot be stopped.”

 ‘From Old Streets to New Houses: A Memoir of Derry, Bridge Street and Shantallow' is available in Little Acorns Bookshop and Waterstones.