When tradition doesn’t fit purpose…..
The troubled village of Stoneyford, Co. Antrim, will be the scene of an eleventh night bonfire parade again this year. We are often told the value placed on ‘traditional routes’ by loyalist orders and marching bands. Yet in Stoneyford, controversy has erupted following the application by the Pride of the Village Flute Band to parade into new housing developments for the second year in a row. Local residents believe the reason for this bizarre application is quite simple: the marching loyalists are annoyed that the new developments contain a sizeable number of catholic families. So what better way to put them in their place then to march through narrow residential streets, complete with loyalist regalia and with a band membership containing prominent loyalists? Nationalists will note how quickly tradition was jettisoned, for a greater cause…
The parade ‘traditionally’ past along the Stoneyford Road to the bonfire site. However, for the past number of years, the flute band has attempted to march into the two housing developments, The Beeches and Stonebridge Meadows. Two years ago, the band marched into the Beeches development, with members wearing t-shirts with ‘Orange Volunteers‘ emblazoned across their chest, in reference to the loyalist paramilitary grouping which has its core membership in the village environs.
Last year, an application to march into the yet-to-be completed Stonebridge Meadows (i.e. past diggers and down streets yet fully paved) was eventually withdrawn after residents and Lisburn Sinn Fein councillor, Paul Butler, brought the matter into the public realm. Two weeks later, catholic families in the newly-built development had their homes and vehicles attacked by loyalists. These attacks continued into the new year, when a catholic family in the development survived an arson attack on their home. The previous year, catholic residents of The Beeches development were forced from their homes in the aftermath of attacks from loyalists only weeks after the parade.
Hey, Fair Deal:
Given that which has gone before, the loyalist attacks on the estates, the firebombing, etc., what good end is achieved by thie re-routing of the parade? To what end is it done, if not as an act of intimidation, given that which has gone before? If, as you seem to imply, that intimidation is not the Loyalists’ motive, what other motivation, given the other facts in evidence, does changing the route of this parade fufill?
They want to take time making sure they pass every Catholic house so they all know they are off to burn this. (the typical outworking of the parade)
The points made by the Loyalists of Stoneyford aren’t subtle. I’m surprised FD can’t spot the problems.
m: “The points made by the Loyalists of Stoneyford aren’t subtle. I’m surprised FD can’t spot the problems. ”
Oh, I suspect he can spot them… admit them to others, perhaps, no, but spot them he can.
I’m just suprised he hasn’t come up with some bland euphemism to obfuscate the issue, like his use of “poorly managed bonfire site” for those sectarian displays what include tires and the like, or riots as issues of “parade management.”
Would that make firebombings “housewarmings?”
Hi Dread- just drove through Dungiven yesterday, and saw the clubhouse of Kevin Lynch’s GAA club, complete with Black Flag and Starry Plough flying over the door- in memory of the eponymous terrorist and hunger striker. Now I’ve looked closely at your posts on this thread, and elsewhere, and you seem the type of chap who is horrified by public displays of support for paramilitarism, even where there is actually a majority community in a village that- however misguidedly- lack the moral fibre you and I have in denouncing such gangsterism.
My esteemed colleague fair-deal has at least on the face of it caught you out in a little bit of double standards vis-a-vis KIlrea and Stoneyford, which I am sure you will want to remedy by criticising the GAA people of Dungiven for so foolishly mixing sport and terrorism>. Don’t let me down, now!
DC
Your premise is that the two are linked yet the pattern of attacks have a life independent of any parade and as I said earlier
“the simple truth is that people who are violently opposed to sharing space with another section of society will do so regardless of a parade or not e.g. there are plenty of racist attacks going on without any “anti-Chinese/Eastern European etc” parades”
“To what end is it done”
A local band parading the village it is from to a traditional bonfire celebration to mark a key date.
“riots as issues of “parade management.”
Please provide the thread/quote where I refer to riots as bad parade management.