Early start for sectarianism in Stoneyford
The long running campaign of sectarianism in Stoneyford is something that Slugger has covered in detail.
I’m sure many of the people directly affected had hoped the arrest and detention of Mark Harbinson would bring some respite:
The Pride of the Village Flute Band is led by loyalist Mark Harbinson, who in November 2009 was remanded in custody charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.
Mr Harbinson has also been questioned by police in connection with an alleged sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy
However the band he leads, the Pride of the Village Flute Band, has again applied to march around mixed cul-de-sac estates in the village this time on the evening of St Patrick’s Day.
The Parades Commission determination also covered by the BBC permits the parade with restrictions but notes:
ADDS: Parade route added at end
4. The Commission has a number of concerns in relation to this notification. Firstly, the notification was not left with an officer of the PSNI of the rank of sergeant or above, as required by the legislation. The person leaving it at the police station did so without providing a name, an address or any contact details. Moreover, the notification does not name an organiser while the signature purporting to be that of the organiser is illegible. Considering the named marshals on the notification, the police have been unable to identify any but one. The identified marshal has stated to them that he has not been approached to act as a marshal nor has he any knowledge that this parade is taking place; although he did express a willingness to participate if approached. In addition, there is no stated purpose for this parade. The 17th March is recognised nationally and internationally as St. Patrick’s Day, a day traditionally associated with the celebration of Irish heritage and culture. The Pride of the Village Flute Band has on no occasion in the past demonstrated such affiliations and has no history of parading on this date. The question, therefore, remains unanswered as to whether or not this is a mischievous notification to parade in Stoneyford from an unrelated third party; or, indeed, whether it is a genuine notification from the Pride of the Village band.5. The Commission, in the interests of supporting the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms; and recognising that failure to complete administrative requirements need not interfere with those rights; has decided to determine on this notification. A determination does not indicate or support the legality of this notification in its current form and failure to meet all statutory requirements for advance notice may leave those concerned open to prosecution and conviction. This is a matter for the PSNI and the Public Prosecution Service.
6. Nevertheless, the Commission feels that it has sufficient information to enable it to determine on this notification in its present form and in the light of other information, evidence and advice laid before it.
7. The Commission understands that Stoneyford has seen sectarian tension, and that the organising band has been the focus of concerns about sectarian intimidation in the village. The Commission considers that the notification of this parade can only give rise to renewed tensions in Stoneyford. As it has done previously in considering parades notified by this band, the Commission suggests to the organiser that he reflect carefully on whether his actions are in the best interests of community relations in Stoneyford; and if they are helping to further the interests of parading as a peaceful, cultural tradition.
17. Having considered all the evidence, information and advice available to it, the Commission takes the view that it is necessary to curtail part of the parade’s notified route, and it has therefore placed conditions on the parade. This decision is set against the background of continuing local community tension. It recognises the real possibility of damaging community relations should the parade proceed along the entirety of its notified route. Whilst recognising the fundamental importance of the right to freedom of assembly, the Commission finds it necessary to exercise its powers under section 8 of the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 to place restrictions on the parade.
A feature on Radio Ulster suggested despite the failure to comply with legislation the Parades Commission is powerless to prevent the parade and can only place restrictions on it. The only authority to outright ban it lies with the Secretary of State acting on a recommendation from the Chief Constable.
The TUV have thrown their weight behind Harbison’s mob via their local Councillor Cecil Calvert:
TUV councillor for the area Cecil Calvert last night slammed the decision as “wrong” not allowing the band to march through the two mixed housing estates.
Addition: The oft proposed route that hits every mixed cul-de-sac and misses out others (satellite version is well out of date):
View Parade – Stoneyford in a larger map
Prionsias- the IRA have buried quite a few folk in Donegal bigs I’m for sure, ask the Families of the Disappeared
secondly, my diatribe is against SF IRA, not the bulk of the Eire people. As for 100000 British people who choose to live here, I welcome them but dare they live in main street Carrickmore or Dungiven.
May I ask what you are laughing at too? I’m wondering because the anti Protestant diatribes I grew up with are sadly common amongst republicans in Tyrone. Perhaps you live in a more enlightened area but I certainly didn’t
noone brings taped conversations or published private individuals names here for obvious reasons therefore you may argue with my opinions but please don’t stoop to dispute the facts that I witnessed myself when I mention what my experience of Tyrone republicans utterings and beliefs. If we begin lobbing ” I don’t believe you” as opposed to “I don’t agree with you because…” then this forum may as well close down. There’s a degree if trust you must give fellow debaters
Marcionite
Do not be offended by someone who is not in Ireland and does not speak for Ireland. Prionsa sounds young and inexperienced.
We may not agree on which flag we salute but we should be able to have the debate without being abusive, there has been too much of that already.
pippakin: If it is a local band, why can it not be inclusive. It needs new leadership, especially with the leader locked up for child molesting. I think social services need to be keeping a close eye on this little band.
I am almost wholly in agreement with you on those points. Though I wouldn’t want to pre-judge the outcome of a court case. And I think there can also be a place for communal, cultural (or sporting) organisations that define themselves as unionist (or nationalist)
Mr Harbinson has also been questioned by police in connection with an alleged sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy
As Bro Harbinson has shown himself so commendably even-handed with regard to the sexes, molesting male and female weans without discrimination, should it not be possible to form an inclusive band which represents neither Nationalist not Unionist sectarianism?
PaddyReilly
I agree with what I think is the spirit of your comment.
As for Harbinson would you call him even handed? subject of course to conviction, I think he is just a hate filled, power crazy, nut on his own little dung hill.
For better or for worse the right to march and assemble needs to be a right.
On the plus side how else would we figure out who the morons and bigots are?
To those of you defending this on the ‘right to march’ basis though, I would ask your position on a march by republicans the following day along exactly the same route?
the anti Protestant diatribes I grew up with are sadly common amongst republicans in Tyrone
I think/hope that those republicans were a small minority. I grew up in Strabane and never heard a word spoken against our Protestant neighbours or any protestants. We kids played together. Perhaps I was speaking with the “wrong” people.
Is there not a girls’ guide hall or a little Anglican scout hall they could march around?
A little off topic but Afghans have marching songs comparing little boys’ bums to ripe melons. Will Mark’s bands do any such numbers?
Any Catholic parent who allows his or her kids to be a paert of this should be reported.
Also, have police checks been done on all the marchers? What percentage of them are pedos?
…which rather begs the question, Paddy, as to what you would prefer to compare little boy’s bums.
have police checks been done on all the marchers?
Paddy, I’ve told you once already. You gotta restart the medication.
Paddy: ‘Any Catholic parent who allows his or her kids to be a paert of this should be reported.
Also, have police checks been done on all the marchers? What percentage of them are pedos?’
Paddy given the ‘pedo’ shenanigans of the RC church, your comment above is beyond hubris.
the ‘pedo’ shenanigans of the RC church
Pure sectarian bigotry. Paedophiles obviously worm their way into any position that gives them authority over children: Baseball coach in the US, Scoutmaster, orphanage worker (for the Kincora boys home), and allegedly in Harbinson’s case, Bandmaster. Church workers are also a popular choice in whatever denomination, take for example this delightful gentleman:-
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/sex-abuser-lsquotoo-fat-for-jailrsquo-finally-put-behind-bars-14710028.html
In the Catholic Church this has often been priest. Hopefully this tendency will be defeated by the phasing out of priests’ responsibilities for Youth Organisations. The new Mass which does not require an acolyte is also a step in the right direction. When priests no longer have responsibility for the leisure activities of children the paedophile priest will disappear. But, obviously, the paedophiles will remain and will head for whatever profession takes over this role.
PaddyReilly — this ground has been well covered on other threads.
Suffice to say that I absolutely agree that paedophiles are attracted to positions with authority over children. The telling issue is how they are dealt with by the organisation they join. The appalling litany of abuses emenating from the RC church suggests that not only were paedophiles attracted to the organisation, their perversions were actually facilitated by the actions of the church hierarchy, who preferred sharing the problems round dioceses and blatant denial & cover-up to bringing these sick individuals to justice.
Your charge of ‘sectarian bigotry’ is a joke, an attempt to deflect from the (at best) appalling failure of the church to protect children.
My comment was in response to Paddy’s ‘Any Catholic parent who allows his or her kids to be a paert of this should be reported.’
Given the stark fact that RC children have historically been at much graver risk within their own church than any other organisation, Paddy’s remark was particularly crass, regardless of his motives, whether sectarian or not.
I personally would prefer to see a country where neither Catholic nor Protestant churches existed and the OO was merely a rather odd footnote in history. Since that won’t be happening any time soon, I’m merely pointing out the organisation with the worst track record as regards paedophilia.
I sincerely hope you are right with regards to paedophiles being given less opportunity to have contact with Roman Catholic children. This disgusting episode has done irreprable damage not only to thousands of children but to the church itself, and every measure they can use to prevent even more child being abused has to be welcomed.
For some years now the UK has required all people working with children and vulnerable people to have a Criminal Record Bureau report which has to be updated every few years.
Here there is the Gardai report which requires much the same thing.
As far as I know all churches in the UK have to comply with the same law, there is no wriggle room and nor should there be.
We do not know for sure that more children were abused by RC than by Protestants. We should investigate every parish in the whole of Ireland.
The one thing we should not do is allow this matter to be turned by some bigot into a sectarian subject. I am really disgusted at a couple of the comments here, from both sides, apparently.
His rabid anti Protestantism is de rigeur in Tyrone republicanism.
Can’t say I’ve come across this myself, being from Tyrone and all. I also attended school in Omagh and Dungannon, (like Marcionite claims to) and didn’t encounter anything he describes. Of course, I wouldn’t be as pompus as to think that my experience was representative of ‘the whole’.
“noone brings taped conversations or published private individuals names here for obvious reasons therefore you may argue with my opinions but please don’t stoop to dispute the facts that I witnessed myself when I mention what my experience of Tyrone republicans utterings and beliefs.”
So we should just accept your version of events. Unless you can prove what you say, they are hardly facts.
How can an Orange band be inclusive? They coat tail to rub the Croppies’ nose in it. A much simpler solution would be to ban them altogether. Also, why does the self styled Church of Ireland not take disciplinary action against its ministers who service this vile cult in Drumcree and elsewhere?
Gerry Lvs castro
You never miss a chance to show yourself up.
Pipp
I love having my very own stalker, I wish you were a wee bit more, y’know……..exciting though!
One semi(pushing it I know)-interesting point you make repeatedly is for the need for two sides of a debate to be heard. Should you have read the exchange between myself and Alan56, you would have noticed that I did not live up to your puerile charges. On this topic there is the sane and the bigotted nutters, it is my duty to rip the piss out of unreconstructed nutters!
You can reason with them all day long, your choice.
Prionsa Eoghann
Stalking? I am a long way past any ‘stalking’ days laddie. It belongs in the wilds of Scotland…
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, lousy as it is. You should not be insulting people because they disagree with you. It is no way to win friends or influence debate, there have been too many years of hate filled invective in this country already.
pipp
Yep no worries……………whatever you say!
Now could you get away from ma back windae!
The Catholic Church is an all-Ireland organisation, having its headquarters in Northern Ireland. Since it is the same organisation, it will implement the same policies in the two jurisdictions that comprise its single jurisdiction.
Why then does the British government not investigate the activities of the Catholic Church in its jurisdiction via enquiries dedicated to the purpose as the Irish government has done?
Same Church. Same policies. Same victims. The unavoidable conclusion is that British state is colluding with the Church in covering-up its activities.
Isn’t it ironic British Rule turned out to be Rome Rule, and that the Catholic Church is state-protected in that jurisdiction but not in this one?
This was, until a spotty kid changed the subject, about a contentious march in a small village.
The right to assemble and march peacefully has got to be allowed, but it does not have to pass homes occupied by people who feel intimidated by it.
No one should want cause discomfort to people, let alone insist on the right to do it.
The other, even more important, subject raised here is that of child abuse and the way paedophiles insinuate their way into occupations that allow them access to vulnerable youngsters.
No one should be allowed to work or volunteer to be part of an organisation which brings him or her into contact with children.
Alias
The catholic church undoubtedly had as much influence on their congregation in the north as they did in the south. Investigations here have covered four/five areas, nothing like all or even enough. The fact they found rampant child abuse and cover up in every one of the areas checked shows how much further investigation is needed.
The protection of our children is more important than sectarianism. Your argument smacks of republicanism looking for a scapegoat.
“No one should be allowed to work or volunteer to be part of an organisation which brings him or her into contact with children.”
Where did you come up with that one, Pippakin?
Looks like you took a leaf out of Delaney and Feehan’s Comic History of Ireland where they asserted that Poyning’s Law forbade any Catholic from “coming within five miles of any person, place or thing”.
Alias you raise an interesting point, and it is one of those rare occasions when I support Alan Shatter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8397206.stm
Rory Carr
I might have known you would spot it and crow! I hit the wrong button and lost the chance to ‘preview’.
It should have said: No one charged with or found guilty of child abuse should be allowed to work in or volunteer for positions that allow contact with children.
Sorry…
http://debcenrevisited.yuku.com/topic/15627
For anyone interested, there’s a rather unique view of the proposed parade being offered by an American woman over on DCR.
Her analysis is that Harbinson’s band is clearly ‘protestants getting in tune with their Irishness’ and that there could well be 1798 Rebellion music amongst their repertoire. Her rather unique view offers the notion that because it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and not the 12th of July, it represents something of a sea-change in protestant thinking.
And to think NI’s ‘leaders’ jet off to Washington every year in order to be lectured to by people educated in the same schools system.