were wounded by gunfire from an unknown source. 23 May: Day nine of the strike A number of barricades erected by loyalists were removed by the security forces but were quickly re-erected. The strike also hit schools with some GCE exams being affected (although for the most part schools remained open for the duration of the strike). Politically, Gerry Fitt called for the British Army to be deployed to the power stations and the oil refineries whilst Northern Ireland Question Time again focused on the strike. Wilson, on the advice of defence secretary Roy Mason, refused to deploy the Army. 24 May: Day ten of the strike Harold Wilson, Brian Faulkner (the Chief Executive), Gerry Fitt (the Deputy Chief Executive) and Oliver Napier (the Legal Minister and Head of the Office of Law Reform) met at Chequers to discuss the strike. Following the meeting a statement was issued affirming the earlier British government position that any group operating outside constitutional politics could not be negotiated with. Loyalists shot dead two Catholic civilians, Sean Byrne and his brother Brendan Byrne, at their pub The Wayside Halt near Ballymena, County Antrim. The UDA and UVF members, travelling in minibuses, had wrecked three other pubs around Ballymena and attacked the owners for staying open during the strike. Twenty people were arrested over the killings. Meanwhile, a petrol station in Belfast was bombed for staying open during the strike; there were no injuries. Elsewhere a teenage boy and girl were killed when their car crashed into a loyalist roadblock near Dungannon. The roadblock had been made from a tree felled across the road. 25 May: Day eleven of the strike Harold Wilson made a broadcast on television. Wilson controversially referred to the strikers and the strike's leaders as "spongers". The speech was interpreted by many Northern Irish Protestants as an attack on them as a whole rather than the UWC and galvanised support for the strike, with a small sponge worn on the lapel appearing as a sign of support for the UWC the following morning. A Catholic civilian, Alfred Stilges (52), was found beaten to death in an empty house on Forthriver Road in the Glencairn area Belfast. The attack was blamed on loyalists. 26 May: Day twelve of the strike The British Army launched a series of raids on loyalists areas around Belfast, taking more than thirty suspected activists into custody. The