"Sooner or Later--All"

In the poisonous atmosphere of Northern Ireland, life is particularly precarious for those in "mixed" Protestant-Catholic marriages. Many such families have been hounded by terrorists bent on enforcing strict segregation. Last week one "mixed" family lost its fifth member in the past 18 months.

John Hamilton, 46, was a Belfast Protestant working among fellow Protestants in the hard, exclusive domain of the shipyards. The father of one child, he lived a politically uneventful life with his wife Lily, who happens to be a Catholic. Two of their relatives were also stained by mixed marriages. That, apparently, was more than enough to make Hamilton and the rest of his family suspect.

The systematic terror began in October 1972, when Hamilton's nephew, James Patrick McCartan, a Catholic, was dragged from a wedding party by members of a still legal Protestant vigilante force, the Ulster Defense Association. A pathologist's report and the confession of his killer indicate that McCartan was taken to a U.D.A. where he was battered in the face with pick handles, stabbed repeatedly, then hoisted by his ankles to a roof beam and dropped head first to the floor below --all in an apparent effort to gain information. McCartan, his killer said, groaned out the names of one or two "I.R.A. [Irish Republican Army] members" before being driven to a remote spot and shot three times in the head.

Head Wounds. Soon afterward, the family began receiving threatening letters. "Remember," said one, "sooner or later--all." Last March Hospital Guard David Glennon, 45, a Catholic cousin of Mrs. Hamilton, was found shot in the head. On New Year's Day, another Catholic cousin, John Whyte, 24, a laundry presser, was shot dead by a sniper. Lily Hamilton was saying good night to her brother, Noel McCartan, 26, a laborer, when a gunman fired two quick bursts and Noel fell dying in front of her.

Mrs. Hamilton was admitted to a hospital for shock, and she was still there one night last week when her husband headed nervously home from a local pub. Minutes later, John Hamilton was found dead a few yards from their doorstep, a single shot through the head.

A British government study released in February concluded that since 1969 such intimidation, mainly directed against Catholics, has caused at least 60,000 of Greater Belfast's 500,000 people to abandon their homes for safer --meaning segregated--neighborhoods. Even Belfast's housing authorities now recommend that "stray" families be moved away from "alien" neighborhoods. The Hamiltons and McCartans have had more than enough. "We're all thinking of leaving," said a male survivor at the funeral of John Hamilton.

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