There was another attack on symbolic property last night in Moy, the sixth attack in eight days. The First Minister has raised the matter with the Security Minister. On the Eleventh there was an incident at a Coleraine bonfire and on the Twelfth, youths attacked the parade on the Crumlin Road and buses and cars stoned in Armagh. It was also revealed that a victim of an attack last year is still in a coma.
It’s not often we get free things to give away to our readers, but courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan we have a nice paperback copy of Brian M Walker’s excellent history of partition of the island and how identities shifted in both the north east and the south and west: as most of the territory that [...] read our review »
Coming up to the Halloween holiday, some people might be frightened of the idea of Voices from the Grave – but for others, the chance to hear an oral history of the Troubles from the mouths of two (in)famous protagonists, PUP leader and former UVF member David Ervine, and Brendan “The Dark” Hughes, is not [...] read our review »
Dr Gordon Gillespie, a researcher at the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University Belfast, gave a presentation on “Graphic Portrayals: Northern Ireland, Graphic Novels and the Peace Process”, at the Linen Hall Library. Gordon started with a clarification that he was going to talk about graphic novels/comic books, not cartoons, and material that was [...] read our review »
an incident at a Coleraine bonfire
Well that’s one way of describing a bonfire decorated with a placard of a dead Catholic child’s name (again). And to think some elements in the Nationalist community don’t want to shower hugs and kisses on Orangism?
Dec
If FD had not mentioned the Coleraine bonfire incident he have been set upon – he has linked the details.
Tha majority of ‘orangism’ would not shower those scum with hugs and kisses.
the busses were told not to follow the route they were stoned on. But they had to have one last chance to put two fingers up to the nationalist community and have a bust tour down places they arent wanted!
I fail to have to much sympathy for an organisation that intentionaly and maliciously stokes up the tensions in nationalist areas and then when wee boys break under the tension complain about it
There’s also the bizarre situation in Dunloy where the local OO can’t – by low – parade a few hundred metres from their Hall to the church!
Slug
I believe in 2005 they proved they cant be trusted to parade a few hundred metres in Dunloy I think it was something to do with breaking out in a bad case of riot
Tha majority of ‘orangism’ would not shower those scum with hugs and kisses
Unlike the uvf & uff killers who orangemen are happy to remember.
Sean –
This is what the BBC said of that day
“Meanwhile, a day-long standoff between nationalist residents and Orangemen in Dunloy in County Antrim has ended.
Police moving protesters
About 30 protesters in Dunloy were moved off the road by police
The demonstration by residents ended after talks between the police and Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness.
The standoff began when Orangemen were prevented from driving from their hall to a church in the village for a wreath laying ceremony.
One-by-one police removed about 30 nationalist protesters who were staging a sit-down protest in the village.
Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness urged a crowd of about 100 protesters to be “cool, calm and collected” shortly after arriving in the village at about 1530 BST on Tuesday.
Shortly afterwards a trailer which was blocking the road was driven off.
Police then removed a crowd of about 30 sit-down protesters from the road to the sound of slow handclapping from residents.
Sinn Fein Assembly member Phillip McGuigan was one of the protesters moved by police.
The Orangemen then drove in a convoy to the church where, six hours behind schedule, they laid a wreath and sang a hymn.
James
Thats right cos on the 12th I worshipped those murderers like all orangemen do? Orangmen are dragged through the mud for the actions of a handful of people.
Next 12th go to a few church parades in different localities, go to a mini 12th and 12th outside of your normal area and you will see what the OO is about in the majority of Northern Ireland.
Can we have some context for this?
1) How many parades are ‘contentious’?
2) How many bonfires were there that burned names of the dead,tricolours, had KAT signs, incited murder?
3) What was the proportion of the unionist community that supported and attended these bonfires?
4) How many of these unionists would deny supporting loytalist paramilitaries on sites like slugger, but would freely show support by attending these bonfires?
5) How many parades flew flags/sang songs that glorified murderers?
Every single burning/attack was wrong, but the small number of these seems to suggest those pesky nationalists are, overall, very tolerant. An outsiders view, I know, and I await to be enlightened on the counterview.
Ingnited
“you will see what the OO is about”
Commemorating the life of Charlie Chaplin?
Dressing up in silly costumes, while obviously important to a few religious nuts, just makes the rest of us laugh.
Perhaps some ultra-fenians can dress up as leprechauns next year and we can have a ‘march-off’.
Move on lads….act your age and stop holding the rest of us back. Do we really need tensions stoked every summer around here? Its 2007 ffs.
“Perhaps some ultra-fenians can dress up as leprechauns next year”
In their St Patrick’s Day ‘regalia’?
Not much changed in Craigavon this year, in the run up to the twelfth we had both groups fighting in Lurgan town centre as they put their flags up then the other evening Loyalists from the Parkmore estate warned Catholic taxis to be off the roads by 8.30 or face the consequences, a guy I know from Pakistan was stopped had a gun put to his head then they dragged him from his car and set it alight.
Two points…
1) The fact that the Orange Order is a commemorative body in no way precludes it from being “modern”.
2) Do we really need to focus on such attacks every single year? No doubt if the peelers get the necessary evidence, prosecutions will result. End of. Why do we indulge ourselves such that, in these attacks, we see a portent into a deeper sectarianism? There will always be scumbags doing such things, and the reasons for them doing so are largely irrelevant, reason being foreign to such hoodlems.
Thats not really the case is it IQHQ, otherwise there would 6 attacks every 8 days for the whole year. The context gives an excuse for the idiots you rightly identify. Tne question is, does the fault lie totally with the idiots, or does the context, very widely debated on this site the last few days, play an important part?
Mayoman
Of course I agree with you that treating the cause is preferrable to treating the symptom, the long-term solution obviously being more capable of preventing further attacks. The pertinent questions are:
1) Is it eradicable? If it isn’t because they are Orange/Green wouldn’t it be for some other reason?
2) Should such criminal behaviour be excused away?
I am a nationalist, and I simply refuse to accept that these attacks are justified. Understandable, yes… cause and effect dictates that, when thugs burn Irish emblems and Catholic effigies, the resulting tension will manifest itself in such attacks. Yet taking the law into one’s own hands is inexcusable. End of.
Besides, it is a futil indulgence to start debating whether or not such people at fully to blame. No act is ever benign. Our psychological disposition dictates that every act is influenced by a number of factors, not always in our control. One could, and many have, reason away every crime. A psychoanalyst could speak, ad nauseum, about the lack of a loving childhood environment, the unresolved Oedipal conflict, etc. that caused MrX to become a rapist, or a paedophile. Such analyses may well have more than a grain of truth behind them. This does not stop the resulting act being deemed criminal, and does not stop us punishing the commission of such offences.
“In their St Patrick’s Day ‘regalia’?”
Dunno. Doubt it though.
Hopefully someday the 12th can become more like St Patricks day.
Slightly missed the point, although I agree with what you say. You talk about paedophiles and rapists. The parallel here would be putting a paedophile into a room of unsupervised children. While you can never excuse the crime, you wouldn’t deliberately create the context. And to me, alot of what has been done in the name of “the 12th” (mostly the bonfires, and a few marches)have done their utmost to create a context that does not even have a legal basis to exist, if you belive in the laws of incitement etc.
Mayoman
With respect, I don’t think I did miss the point. That is why, as my first-listed “pertinent” question, I asked the question, “Is it eradicable?” The fact is that it is not. Orange folk, however misguided, have a right to express their cultural identity. The “putting paedophiles in a creche” analogy may have some validity if the contentious Orange marches had been given carte blanche, as they have been in years gone by. The fact that they longer are collapses the analogy, and supports my point.
Correction: “The fact that they no longer are . . . “
How I long for an editing function! (though that may do much to offend the simple and elegant aesthetic Slugger is loved for!)
Besides, how is one to legislate against the Bonfire culture of the 11th night? Who is to say who put the offending effigies up in the first place? Possible eye-witnesses are hardly likely to testify against the guilty party. Furthermore, is one to arrest solely on the basis of attendance? Surely this is going too far conisidering a number of children were, this year, treated to nearby Bouncy castles!
IQHQ: “Besides, how is one to legislate against the Bonfire culture of the 11th night?”
It could be easily and readily regulated out of existence, if the powers-that-be were worth the cod in their banana hammocks.
Health regulations, recycling regulations, emissions regulations, fire safety regulations, permitting, posting surety bonds… create a veritable onion to be unpeeled before these noxious little displays can be legally performed and hold the line.
Do not imagine you need laws for that which can simply be mummified in red tape.
IQHQ: “Who is to say who put the offending effigies up in the first place?”
Not material — simply control the process and make it too expensive to screw-up. Bureaucracy is a wonderful game, so long are you hold the tape dispenser…
excelent Dread
Its like contentious parades or future contentious parades if the organizers were made to pay the cost either financial or by having future events canceled for a preselected amount of time the organizers would be more self policing and then less likely to allow the paramilitary banners or the riots
P O’Neil: my money is on a few Jaffas torching their own halls to garner sympathy, support etc for their dying ‘cause’.
Well, there were a few arrests after one of the attacks, so let’s see what comes out of the trial. Also, it would be a bit difficult to fake the attack on the buses and the parade. What do you reckon?
Baptist church in Downpatrick
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6899554.stm
P O’Neil: As I stated earlier, if there isn’t a threat, create one.
Do you not think a bit of local knowledge might clear that up? For instance, the hoods might be known in the area, or they would be denied by local nationalists. Which hasn’t happened, unless you claim to be local to one of the incidents?
I’m surprised nobody has noticed that P O’Neill’s case is blown away by what happened in Rasharkin, fair play to the local ‘shinners’