Reports obtained from:
(1) Irish Republican News, (2) Irish News, (3) Daily Ireland
(4) Irelandclick.com
Wednesday, 13 July, 2005
Saturday-Tuesday, 9-12 July, 2005
Friday, 8 July, 2005
Tuesday-Friday, 5-8 July, 2005
Friday-Monday, 1-4 July, 2005
Feature: The Glorious Twelfth
By Susan McKay, for the Irish News
And so dawns the Glorious Twelfth after a weekend which saw the attempted murder by arson of a Catholic couple in north Belfast, and the terrifying eviction from her home in Ahoghill, Co Antrim, of Kathleen McCaughey.
Today, as Kathleen sits in the house she was moved to in nearby Portglenone, she will hear the banging of the Lambeg drums and the booming of Ian Paisley's voice as the Independent Orange Order gathers in the village to celebrate Protestantism, heritage and culture.
She last heard those drums on Thursday night, when a mob beating them marched round her house shouting sectarian abuse.
They threatened to burn the house down, as well as those of her neighbours, if she didn't get out immediately.
The crowd included men, women, and, most depressingly of all, children. The 51-year-old grandmother had to get the police to escort her to safety.
Ahoghill is proudly decked out in Union and Northern Ireland flags and bunting. The mob will no doubt have celebrated their victory around an Eleventh night bonfire last night.
Kathleen McCaughey had been subjected to a series of attacks over the past months – petrol bombs, paint bombs, bullets in the post and threats to her and to her daughter and young grandsons.
But she had lived in Brookhill Gardens for all of her 51 years – her parents were the first family in the estate, and Kathleen was born a week after they moved in.
She was determined to defy the bullies, and publicly stated that she was going nowhere.
However, two weeks ago when the house was paintbombed yet again, she decided not to repaint it. It was costing her hundreds of pounds each time.
Faced with the mob on Thursday night, she decided it was time to go. “My nerves just went,” she told me yesterday. She had to be sedated after the eviction.
She paid tribute to her “good Protestant neighbours”, some of whom wept and hugged her as she left.
They were on her side, she said, but they were afraid to stand up and defend her for fear the thugs would turn on them next.
Kathleen has nothing but scorn for those who have targeted her.
Apart from anything else, they don't realise, she said, because they are blow-ins compared with her family, that her mother was a die-hard Protestant from the Shankill Road.
Mrs McCaughey had married a Catholic, but she liked nothing better than to bring the children to the Eleventh night bonfires where she'd sing Orange songs and party the night away. They went to the parades, too.
Kathleen married a Protestant – they are now separated – and so did several of her siblings. Kathleen's grandchildren go to the local integrated school.
Kathleen said she'll miss her neighbours in Ahoghill, but she has been welcomed into Portglenone.
“Protestant neighbours have already come to me and told me I'm to have no worries here,” she said. “There are no flags in this estate.”
She already knows quite a few Catholic and mixed-religion neighbours: “There's quite a few here got put out of Ahoghill before.”
Her daughter and her children have also moved to Portglenone. It's a mixed village which is, on the whole, tolerant and well-integrated.
On Sunday, a Protestant minister joined a priest in the local Catholic church in a service of remembrance after the sudden and untimely death of a local Protestant man, Alan Breen, who was in a mixed marriage with Marie Smyth.
According to Kathleen, Ahoghill used to be like that. “The way it is now, I'm well out of it,” she said.
It would be wonderful if, as Kathleen's MP, Paisley used his address in Portglenone today to denounce those who bullied her from her home.
It would be wonderful if, when Orangemen from Ahoghill gather today in Cullybackey, they received the same message.
However, it is worth remembering that when he addressed the Independent Orange Order at Ballycastle in 1997, Paisley declared that “the entire pan-nationalist front”, ie Catholics, was united behind the “beast of fascism, the IRA”.
If it's words designed to improve community relations and stop the intimidation of the Catholic minority that we're after, we'd better not hold our breath.
Copyright © 2005 Irish News
Orangemens’ deadly serious street theatre
By Anne Cadwallader, Daily Ireland
Some of you will be reading this as far away from an Orange parade as you can possibly get. Some of you may be on your way out to protest at an Orange parade. There may even be some who are about to take part in an Orange parade. Whatever. My own response to the Order (while keeping to myself an assessment of its contribution to the history of this island) is keen anticipation – in a professional capacity. I hate the smell of burning rubber on the morning of “The Twalfth" but some of the highest and lowest points of my career have been spent at Orange parades. Street theatre, entertaining and highly informative it may be, but also volatile and potentially dangerous. My favourite Orange banner is the one with Queen Victoria sitting in imperial glory on her throne and handing a Bible down to a black man grovelling at her feet. See what I mean by informative? Thanks to the Orange Order, I have become friends with people I would never otherwise have met in Portadown, Newtownbutler, Dunloy, the Ormeau Road, the Short Strand and Derry. Friendships have also formed between local people and the corps of US observers saintly – or foolish – enough to come over and keep an eye on proceedings. There are decorators in Boston and students in New York thanks to long summer nights spent talking at Drumcree and the Ormeau. As we contemplate the day ahead, here are a few stories, some of them mine, some, not but all of them, true.
Portadown 1985 An Orange Hall in a loyalist part of town. Inside, Orangemen are meeting to decide whether to defy the police and march through “The Tunnel". The meeting drags on for hours and reporters are operating a roster so at least some of us can eat. The single hack on duty outside the hall strikes up a conversation with the Orangeman on security duty. The Orangeman finally invites him inside to show him something that will explain his dislike of “Fenians". The reporter is taken through room after room until finally he reaches the inner sanctum where the lodge banner is proudly on display. It depicts events in 1647 when Catholic rebels piked Portadown Protestants in the River Bann. “That's the kind of people we're expected to live beside", sighs the Orangeman. “It really happened, you know. That painting was taken from a photograph".
Derry, July 12 1996 TV pictures of the police yanking nationalists off the Ormeau Road have incensed people in Derry. The Orangemen are parading through the Diamond and a riot develops on Waterloo Place. Unusually for me, I make a tactical error and find myself caught in crossfire between the police and rioters. Stones are whizzing past my ears and thumping into the metal screens protecting Woolworth's windows. The A&E department at Altagelvin looms, or worse. That is until a friend spots me from the rioters' side of “No Man's Land". He persuades them to call a halt for 20 seconds and frantically gestures at me to run. I surprise myself by crossing Waterloo Place in about three seconds flat before inching from shop front to shop front and, finally, to safety.
Garvaghy Road, July 6th 1997 Three am: in bed after a couple of pints at the Tir na n'Og GAA club, I am nervous, not knowing what the morning will bring. No-one knows yet if Mo Mowlam will allow the Orangemen down the road or not. A warning siren sounds. Out of beds, all along the road, pile sleepy people. False alarm. We all try to get back to sleep until, 30 minutes later, the siren goes off and this time it's for real, alerting people that hundreds of RUC men in jeeps are sealing off the road to force the march down. Clad in a nightdress, boots (no socks) and a mackintosh, I am swept along by the crowd running before the speeding police jeeps until we are surrounded on all sides by heavily armed police. A woman outside the ring of jeeps kindly goes back to the house where I am staying and retrieves my mobile phone. She throws it to me over the top of the landrovers, so at least I can call the newsroom in Dublin. As the trapped residents recite the rosary (which adds somewhat to the feeling of impending doom) and a Welsh socialist choir outside the ring sings hymns to keep our spirits up, the sun rises. The police then move in and, one by one, the residents are dragged, some screaming, others silent and white-faced, off the street leaving only us reporters in the ring. We fold up our notebooks and leave.
Ballycastle, Co Antrim, July 12, 1997 The Independent Orange Order is holding their annual parade in the mainly nationalist town. Myself and an American reporter are eating ice cream and waiting for the speeches to start. Under a scorching sun, Ian Paisley begins speaking. “Fascism", he says, “the child of Romanism, is not dead". He refers to the “pan-nationalist front" as a “reincarnation of the beast of fascism" with a “jackboot and gas chamber murder mentality". The American reporter gulps and turns an interesting shade of green. Another convert for Protestant culture.
Dunloy, January 1998. The one certain advantage about covering Orange parades, until now, was that they took place in summer. Here we are in the depths of Co Antrim and the snow is four inches thick. It's higher than the tops of my ankle boots and slush is now freezing my toes. As I interview John Finlay, the local Orange Order head honcho, I sense a movement at my elbow. Turning for an instant, I notice that an elderly Orangeman has switched off my tape-recorder. I glare at him and he moves off. I turn the tape recorder on again and re-start the interview with Mr. Finlay. Again I sense a movement at my elbow. The small, grey-haired Orangemen, eyes glinting with hatred for me, a woman he cannot possibly know, has turned my tape recorder off again. This time, I shift it round to the front of my body and successfully complete the interview.
ARDOYNE, 2004 Last year in Ardoyne, I watched in amazement as Bobby Storey and others (including Sean Kelly) prevented furious nationalists from attacking a group of Paras as loyalists marched triumphantly up the Crumlin Road. Street theatre it might be, but deadly serious too.
Anne Cadwallader is a freelance journalist, broadcaster and author of Holy Cross - The Untold Story published by The Brehon Press.
Copyright © 2005 Daily Ireland
Saturday-Tuesday, 9-12 July, 2005
Ardoyne anger
By Irish Republican News
A number of injuries were reported in north Belfast this evening as an anti-Catholic Orange Order parade was forced through the republican Ardoyne community.
At the same time, a tense day-long stand-off in the County Antrim village of Dunloy ended without violence, and a major parade in Derry was largely peaceful.
Orangemen have been staging hundreds of marches today across the North to mark the 17th century battle victory of Protestant King William of Orange over the Catholic army led by King James at the Battle of the Boyne.
Some marches contentiously routed through nationalist area without agreement of the host communities are a source of conflict every summer. The Orange Order officially refuses to hold talks with the host communities, describing residents' groups as "IRA fronts".
In north Belfast today, peaceful protests by nationalist residents were dragged off a contentious parade route in Ardoyne.
About 60 protesters who this morning had sought to prevent the outgoing parade were removed without serious violence. Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, who physically intervened to deter clashes, told the crowd they should be "calm, dignified and disciplined".
The demonstrators, who wore white T-shirts with the slogan “Equality and Respect for Ardoyne Residents” and chanted 'No Talk, No Walk', were hauled off by PSNI police and troops in riot gear.
With the permission of the police, fifteen protesters stood on a wall overlooking the route holding aloft a banner saying 'make sectarianism history'.
A police chief praised the protestors for showing restraint and preventing injuries.
INEVITABLE RIOT
However, despite extraordinary efforts by Sinn Fein officials to reduce tension, clashes erupted this evening as the return leg was forced through with considerable violence.
Police used a water cannon as nationalist protesters created a barricade from a burning vehicle.
A second car was taken from youths by Sinn Fein officials, although other youths in nearby Brampton Park defied the remonstrations of their elders. Petrol bombs and blast bombs were thrown at police in a full-blown riot. One BBC journalist was among those injured.
The situation eased after the PSNI withdrew, but tension in the area remains high.
Mr Adams hit out at the decision to let the parade pass the Ardoyne and criticised the Drumcree-style military operation in the area.
“The huge military presence is entirely over the top," he said.
“There are huge amounts of British soldiers here and life just stops, nothing happens and you can’t go about your business.”
Mr Adams was soaked by water-cannon as he sought to maintain calm in Ardoyne this evening.
He criticised the PSNI for "setting on" Sinn Fein officials as they attempted to engage in dialogue to deter violence.
Mr Adams also said he defended the right of the Orangemen to march -- “but in these communities where they are not welcome, it is good manners, it is neighbourly, to come and talk about it.”
DUNLOY STAND-OFF
Meanwhile, a day-long standoff between nationalist residents and Orangemen in Dunloy in County Antrim has ended.
A tense situation developed when riot-clad PSNI personnel attempted to force the Orange march through part of the nationalist village, contrary to a determination issued by the Parades Commission.
The Orangemen had sought to gather at the the village's Presbyterian church, although the Parade Commission's determination had limited the Dunloy lodge to marching in the area immediately outside its hall.
The PSNI then tried to force the parade along the route which the Commission had barred them from marching.
The Orange Order, led by the DUP's David Tweed, then threatened to blockade the village. The PSNI failed to make the marchers disperse, creating a very tense and volatile situation.
The stand-off ended after talks between the PSNI and Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness, who urged protesters to be "cool, calm and collected".
Following talks, a trailer which residents used to block the road was driven off. Police then formally removed the 30 sit-down protesters from the road to the sound of slow handclapping from residents.
The Orangemen then drove in a convoy to the the village's Presbyterian church.
Sinn Fein Assembly member Phillip McGuigan, who was one of the protesters moved by police, accused the PSNI of attempting to collude with the Orange Order in breaching the determination.
DERRY TROUBLE
In Derry, the outward leg of the parade was peaceful, but there was trouble on the way back in the city-centre Diamond area.
The clases began after groups of nationalists and unionists exchanged taunts. About 10 petrol bombs were thrown at the PSNI.
Unionists have left the area, but there was a standoff between police and nationalists which ended following mediation by local representatives.
Meanwhile, a parade through a contentious route in west Belfast has passed off peacefully.
More than 50 nationalists held a silent roadside protest on the Springfield Road as an Orange march turned into Workman Avenue.
Two bands accompanying lodges were not allowed to play music as part of a Parades Commission ruling.
The commission banned the parade from returning along the same route in the evening.
LURGAN ANGER
In Lurgan, County Armagh, the PSNI provoked anger when it allowed the Orange Order to march through a contentious area of the nationalist town this morning in defiance of a Parades Commission determination.
Around a dozen Orange Order leading officers, including local MP David Simpson and several other unionist politicians, broke away from the parade and proceeded along the entire length of William St, in full Orange regalia.
The PSNI failed to prevent this breach of the determination, and instead gave the illegal parade an escort.
Local Councillor John O Dowd said that, after two successive years of breaches, the PSNI "cannot be trusted to enforce such determinations". He called on the Police Ombudsman's office to monitor marches in the town.
TROUBLE-FREE DRUMCREE
On Sunday, the Orange Order parade from Drumcree in Portadown, County Armagh passed off quiet amid a low-profile security presence.
The security operation to block the road at Drumcree has in previous years been the scene of violent confrontations.
The Protestant loyal order had again been banned from parading from the church at Drumcree along the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown.
Saturday-Tuesday, 9-12 July, 2005
Sectarian attacks mark Twelfth
By Irish Republican News
Arsonists attempted to murder a Catholic family in north Belfast at the weekend.
Early on Sunday, a unionist mob smashed windows at a house on the front of the Crumlin Road opposite the Ardoyne shops before trying to set the premises alight.
A couple sleeping upstairs discovered a blaze in the living room and used a fire extinguisher and wet tea towels to try to dampen the flames.
One person was later treated for the effects of breathing smoke.
Michael Ferguson of Sinn Fein said the attack was "attempted murder".
"This kind of attack is synonymous of the 12th celebrations for Catholics and nationalists in north Belfast," he said.
"The family who lives here is very lucky to be alive."
The family said it was not the first time the house had been attacked, but this incident had caused the most damage.
WOMAN FORCED OUT
Meanwhile, a woman has been forced to leave the house where she was born and has lived for more than 50 years after a series of sectarian attacks on her home.
Kathleen McCaughey said she was devastated after living in the mainly Protestant village of Ahoghill, County Antrim, all her life.
But she said the sectarian picket and threats to burn down the building where she lived, was the final straw.
“I had a lot of good neighbours in Ahoghill and it is only about six families that have been involved in the intimidation," she said.
“None of the unionist politicians in the area did anything to stop these familes intimidating me.”
Mrs McCaughey said a group of around 12 adults and 10 children gathered outside her home on Thursday night and the youngsters entered her garden playing three mini-lambeg drums.
She said they shouted abuse and threw water balloons over the course of hours of intimidation.
After months of increasing harassment, Mrs McCaughey said she could take no more and moved her belongings out on Friday. She said the trauma meant she had to see a doctor.
Paint bombs and fireworks have also been used to force Mrs McCaughey out of the area.
Philip McGuigan, Sinn Féin MLA for North Antrim, said: “The sectarian abuse against Mrs McCaughey has been allowed to continue for so long without any unionist intervention. People that have responsibility in Ahoghill need to take a long look at the message they are sending out to Catholics in the area,” he said.
CHURCH DEFACED
Unionists have scrawled anti-Catholic graffiti on the front door of Harryville Catholic Church in Ballymena.
The words "f*** the Pope" were written on the front door of the church, the subject of a campaign of sectarian violence and intimidation in recent years. Metal fencing was also painted red white and blue.
A major 'eleventh night' bonfire was held last night just yards away from the chapel at the King George V Park.
The Church of Our Lady was the subject of a 20-month long loyalist picket running from 1996 to 1998. Recently there has been speculation that some unionists want to re-launch the protest.
The church is forced to cancel its Saturday night Mass during July and August at the height of the Protestant marching season.
Local Sinn Fein representative Philip McGuigan said loyalists were demonstrating that "Catholics are unwelcome to attend their own church" in that part of Ballymena.
"This kind of sectarianism and intimidation is designed to ensure the Catholics are expected to live as second class citizens in their own town.
"This sectarianism has been allowed to continue against the backdrop of silence from the DUP controlled Ballymena Council."
BONFIRE VIOLENCE
Two PSNI men were injured and one had his gun and radio stolen when they were attacked by a crowd in east Belfast last night.
The attack happened after a man who was being beaten at the scene of a loyalist 'Eleventh Night' bonfire, on the eve of the July 12 marches.
Elsewhere, 30 homes were evacuated after a bonfire ruptured a gas pipeline in east Belfast.
Order must speak to residents
Editorial
By Irelandclick.com
The disastrous decision by the Parades Commission to allow the Loyal Orders to march past Ardoyne on Tuesday should not be an excuse for an all out riot.
A ruling last year barring supporters on the return leg of the July 12 march was ignored by cops who forced loyalist supporters and paramilitaries past Ardoyne and Mountainview.
During that time, the actions of republicans ensured what could have been another Bloody Sunday, was instead miraculously free from serious injury or death.
This year, it's unlikely that many of those same people will want to steward at the event, after Sean Kelly's recent re-imprisonment.
But the futile rioting witnessed at the Tour of the North three weeks ago must not happen again, and those with nothing but violence on their minds should stay away and allow a peaceful protest on the Twelfth.
Unlike last year there are no restrictions on supporters walking up the Crumlin Road. How can the Parades Commission stand over that decision when there's no change in the Orange Order's refusal to enter into dialogue with the local community?
It's time the Order stopped pussy footing around and spoke to the residents' group to ensure the people of Ardoyne and its surrounding areas don't have to put up with this ludicrous situation year on year.
Tuesday-Friday, 5-8 July, 2005
Appeal to avoid twelfth violence
Kelly jailing discourages parade stewards
By Irish Republican News
North Belfast is "a tinder box" and people could be killed amid tensions over contentious July 12 marches, Gerry Adams has warned.
The anti-Catholic Orange Order has been given the green light to parade throught the republican Ardoyne area on July 12 against the wishes of local residents in the most controversial parade of the marching season thus far.
A major British military occupation is to descend on the area to force the parade through against local opposition.
The Ardoyne shops were the scene of serious violence last July 12th, with some republicans intervening to save the lives of British paratroopers.
There is even greater danger of trouble this year at Ardoyne shops because some former IRA prisoners who helped to police the scene last year have threatened not to assist this Twelfth, in protest at the jailing of local man Sean Kelly.
No reason has been given for the jailing of Mr Kelly, who had been released under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Kelly had worked to maintain calm during previous Orange parades in the area.
British Minister David Blunkett pulled out of a visit to a job centre in west Belfast on Friday in the face of a republican protest against the move.
Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams told a Belfast press conference earlier this week that an extremely volatile situation had been created as a result of rulings on marches through nationalist areas.
Mr Adams also said that following the return to prison of Sean Kelly, he would not be putting pressure on any former prisoners to act as parade marshals.
"Some former prisoners may well still step forward and I appreciate that, but I can understand why no-one released on license would want to risk incarceration," he said.
Sinn Fein is now seeking a formal review of the Parade cCmmission's decision to allow a parade through Ardoyne and is investigating the possibility of a legal challenge.
Mr Adams said the Orange Order was insisting on marching through nationalist areas where it was unwelcome.
"I understand, support and appreciate the right of the Orange Order to march. However, they need to engage in real and meaningful dialogue with local residents."
Mr Adams said there was a need to think ahead in dealing with parades.
"People could be killed in the middle of all of this and indeed sectarian tensions are already inflamed," he said.
Gerry Kelly, Sinn Fein representative for north Belfast met with Dublin's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern this week in an effort to resolve the problem. He was accompanied to the meeting by local residents who are members of the Ardoyne Dialogue Group.
Mr Kelly revealed that the Ardoyne residents had put forward a compromise position which would, in the short term, help ease tensions around the Twelfth parades.
The Minister was said to have agreed to raise nationalist concerns with the British government and the Parades Commission.
Meanwhile, Orange Order 'Grand Master' Robert Saulters has said the organisation's policy is still to refuse to talk to groups "fronted by IRA/Sinn Fein" -- but it could change when the order's leadership meets after the marching season in September.
He also denied he had set out last week to criticise Orange Order members who had been involved in local discussions with residents and others in west Belfast and in Derry.
Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness challenged the remarks, and said Protestant opinion now accepted that dialogue between marchers and residents was necessary.
"There is a tide of opinion within the Protestant community advising the Orange Order to get sense and to recognise that they should be talking to people," he said.
Tuesday-Friday, 5-8 July, 2005
Analysis: Orange Order public relations disaster
By Danny Morrison for Daily Ireland
It is almost the Twelfth, when Orangemen across the North march in their thousands to celebrate the victory of William of Orange over James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. It was 300 years ago, but doesn't it seem as if it were only yesterday?
If this celebration and those of the Apprentice Boys and the secretive Royal Black Preceptory were solely a bit of pageantry about historical events, they would be fairly harmless and we could all join in, watch as spectators or simply pass by.
However, the Twelfth of July was never just about history but was a unifying force within unionism, an expression of sectarian triumphalism and exclusiveness. It was (Orange arches in the workplace are thankfully now prohibited) and still is aimed at alienating nationalists -- thus the importance of parading through or close to nationalist areas and singing anti-Catholic songs to remind the besieged residents of their place in an Orange state.
Although the struggle for full and equal rights remains uncompleted and continues, the irony is that Orange and Apprentice parades have played a central role in the chain of events that have led to the undermining of unionism and the Union and to the galvanising of the nationalist community.
A further irony is that any intelligent Orange representative who appreciates this fact and attempts a compromise with nationalists is ridiculed and scorned for being "in breach of Grand Lodge policy" when actually trying to improve the order's image. Earlier this year, the order severed its formal links with the Ulster Unionist Party while moving closer to the Democratic Unionist Party.
In 1969, the Twelfth marches resulted in rioting in Belfast and Derry, almost as a prelude to the riot directly sparked by the march of the Apprentice Boys in Derry on August 12. That riot turned into the Battle of the Bogside. It was a major challenge to the authority of the unionist government at Stormont because nationalists were determined that the writ of the RUC would run no longer in the "Bog".
A few months earlier, the RUC had gone on the rampage in the same area, assaulting people, including Sammy Devenney -- who died of his injuries that July.
The RUC in Derry was so exhausted after days of fighting that the government mobilised the B Specials and planned to send in RUC reinforcements from other areas. Nationalist protests across the North were meant to tie down the RUC but, in Belfast, the B Specials, loyalist mobs and the RUC reacted by attacking and setting fire to hundreds of Catholic homes, mostly in the Falls and in Ardoyne. Eight people were killed across the city. The ill-preparedness of the republican movement for those attacks contributed to the split in the IRA and the emergence of the Provisional Army Council.
An IRA armed struggle was not inevitable, even if it was the strategic objective of some republican leaders. Only eight years earlier, the IRA had been forced to abandon its Border campaign because of lack of support. Immediately after August 1969, support for the IRA was based overwhelmingly on it being a defensive body. Conditions were simply not there for an armed struggle, nor were republican volunteers prepared or trained adequately for a campaign.
Again, it was Orange marches -- and British army support for those marches -- that were to trigger a series of events that were to create the necessary conditions for armed struggle.
On June 27, 1970 in Belfast, the Orange Order planned to march past Hooker Street on the Crumlin Road, where Catholics homes had been burned down, and up Cupar Street past Bombay Street in the west, which had been similarly razed to the ground.
We know from documents and records that both the British and unionist governments were told by their own advisers that these marches were provocative and would lead to widespread trouble. But we also know that Sir Ian Freeland, the General Officer Commanding of the British army in the North, made the following remark to the joint security committee:
"It is easier to push them [Orange marchers] through the Ardoyne than to control the Shankill."
It spoke volumes for a mindset that still persists among many in the PSNI and the British administration. It explains why loyalists have been allowed to march past Ardoyne and feel no compulsion to negotiate. But it is an issue, like Garvaghy Road and the Lower Ormeau, that ultimately damages the cause of those the marching is meant to placate. Such pandering postpones the day of a settlement based on the rights of residents and marchers alike.
As predicted, widespread rioting broke out on June 27 and ended up in gun battles and loss of life in various parts of Belfast. In Ballymacarrett, a loyalist attack on St Matthew's church was repelled by members of the "Provisional IRA" after the British army had refused to intervene. Paddy Kennedy MP approached a British patrol for help and was told: "You can stew in your own fat." Several men died, including the Catholic defender Henry McIlhone, while the senior IRA figure Billy McKee was wounded.
The Stormont government took no responsibility for what had happened and blamed republicans. At the next meeting of the joint security committee, on July 1, it was decided that the authorities had to "restore the military image" and put down trouble "with maximum force".
This explains the Falls curfew one week later and the raid and seizure of arms that had never been used against the British army but were there solely for the protection of people who had experienced terrifying government pogroms just ten months earlier.
The curfew, by alienating and politicising a huge swath of nationalist opinion, was to dramatically change the political context. When the British army first came onto the streets in 1969, it was welcomed by the majority of nationalists as their protectors. Over subsequent months, this benign image rapidly changed as the Brits became a mere tool of unionist repression, then later the enforcers of British direct rule.
Stormont had also been dragging its heels on introducing reforms. Many nationalists -- particularly among the working class -- were coming round to the republican view that they could not get their civil rights until they had got their national rights and that this would involve an armed struggle against the government and the system.
It was this mood that the republican movement tapped into and it was after the curfew that the IRA slowly began its campaign, beginning with sabotage operations against key installations and using incendiary devices timed to go off at night in large downtown stores. All of its first military strikes were initially described as "reprisals" for specific British army or RUC attacks on nationalists. There was no military blueprint. The campaign in its early days was largely a matter of improvisation. By the time the campaign was full-blown, republican military structures were still only being put in place in many areas.
Orange marches (and, indeed, other protests such as those at Harryville and at Holy Cross) were to play their part again and again in influencing national and international opinion about the sectarian nature of unionism. But it was the Drumcree protest and the demand to get marching down the Catholic Garvaghy Road that probably did most to hurt the Orange Order, as well as demoralise its members over their failure. Supporters of their cause burnt three children to death and shot dead a Catholic taxi driver out of spite.
Yes, the Orange Order -- whose purpose was to galvanise Protestantism and unionism -- has certainly undermined the cause it espouses, though few of its members appear to appreciate this.
The Orange Order is truly a public relations disaster.
Copyright © 2005 Daily Ireland
Ardyone braces for Twelfth stand-off
By Irish Republican News
There are fears that serious violence will erupt after the Parades Commission allowed the anti-Catholic Orange Order to march twice through nationalist Ardyone on July 12th.
Heavy clashes erupted when a similar parade was allowed to pass Ardoyne on July 12 last year, in scenes repeated again two weeks ago.
It was hoped that a breakthrough might come after a historic deal last week saw agreemen with nationalsit residents for an Orange Order march in Derry for the same day. That deal could yet be undone by the dispute in north Belfast.
Fr Aidan Troy of Holy Cross, the Ardyone school which has seen intense sectarian violence in recent years, urged last-minute dialogue to avert trouble.
He appealed for Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to personally intervene in the dispute.
"I am very concerned that once again this community will be plunged back into violence next Tuesday," he said.
"Even at this late stage I would appeal for dialogue between the two sides.
"We are now facing a very dangerous situation, with the potential for serious violence.
"I pray that no residents, marchers or policemen are hurt, but I am not optimistic that this community will be able to get through another parade."
Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly said the commission decision would mean that nationalists living in Ardoyne, Mountainview and the upper Crumlin Road would be "imprisoned" in their own homes for the entire day.
"The Orange Order was willing to talk to nationalists in Derry and in west Belfast but refused to speak to residents in Ardoyne who had offered to compromise on the parades' issue," he said.
"Sinn Fein will be there on July 12 trying to keep the peace but the Parades Commission should be in no doubt how much the people of Ardoyne feel betrayed by this decision."
Meanwhile, in keeping with decisions in previous years, the march on Sunday from Drumcree will be re-routed away the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown, County Armagh.
Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition spokesman Breandan Mac Cionnaith said the potential for more trouble, following a number of incidents in Portadown over the last few days, remained.
"You have the Drumcree march on Sunday, the loyalist bonfires lit on Monday July 11, then you have the county demonstration on July 12, the potential is there," he said.
"The town had been relatively peaceful for a long period, a lot of people were surprised by the severity of some of the (recent) loyalist attacks.
"There has been no movement by Portadown LoL. Early this year, the commission had invited the Orange Order and ourselves to discuss mediation. The Orange Order never turned up... Nothing has been happening down here at all."
In west Belfast, an Orange march heading to the main Orange parade in the city on the Twelfth will be permitted to march along Workman Avenue in the Whiterock area.
However, Orangemen are not being allowed to use the same route for their return march home in the evening.
A similar march was postponed on June 24th last following a rerouting order from the commission. Orangemen were told they could not parade along Workman Avenue and were ordered to march through the former Mackies engineering plant instead.
The marchers postponed their parade in protest and held a demonstration the following day instead.
Sectarian attack as tensions mount
By Irish Republican News
A man has been left with a deep facial wound after being attacked while walking along the Oldpark Road in north Belfast.
One man got out and asked for directions but as he did so he struck the pedestrian with what is believed to be a glass, inflicting a deep wound to the victim's face.
The attacker was then driven off in the car.
Sinn Fein representative for the Oldpark area Margaret McLenaghan said that nationalists needed to be "very careful".
"There have been a few of these sectarian attacks in the past weeks in this part of the city. If it is a sectarian attack - and the talk is that it is - then it shows that nationalists in north Belfast need to be very careful because there are opportunists about here and they are going to jump out of a car and attack you if they think you are a Catholic.
"People need to be careful at all times but they need to be especially careful coming up to this time of year. There was one attack recently in the Whitewell and one near the Waterworks last week," she said.
FLAGGED UP
There have been clashes over the erection of sectarian flags in many other areas across the North for the Protestant marching season.
A Catholic priest was told by police he could be prosecuted for 'theft' after he removed Union Jacks from outside his parochial house.
Fr Eugene Boland described the police advice as "laughable" after loyalists in Omagh abused him for taking down the flags in a mixed area.
"I should have said that I'll see him in court then, but I just gave them back," he said yesterday.
Sinn Fein councillor Sean Begley said: "We see the flags issue as an extension of parading through nationalist areas and it has the potential to boil over to create a serious situation."
Meanwhile, business leaders in Portadown have been urged to remove flags erected in recent weeks, which nationalists say are an attempt to intimidate them away from the town.
The Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition (GRRC) called on the business community in Portadown to "show proper civic leadership and demand the removal of all these flags...in order to create a neutral atmosphere".
In a statement the group said that over the last three days, the town has been bedecked with "union flags, ulster flags, and orange flags".
"It is clear that a very deliberate, public atmosphere is being engendered by elements in this town which is designed to enforce the perception that members of the Catholic/nationalist community should feel both uncomfortable and unwelcome in Portadown," the GRRC said.
Upper Bann MP David Simpson, who is an Orangeman, said: "I don't know who put the flags up, but I assume that they will have respect for the flag and take them down again after the celebrations are over."