Saturday, June 16, 2007
From Ikea to Limavady
SDLP Councillor Gerry Mullan is objecting to the display of a Union flag during a World War I commemoration event in Limavady. The solitary Union flag will not be flown on council property, on a temporary flag poll for approximately 30 minutes. However, this is too much for Cllr Mullan who has attacked it as a “flag-waving exercise”.
Fair Deal @ 10:59 AM
Turgon, do you mean like the Garvaghy Road Residents do ?
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 03:30 PMTurgon.
I see your point! A much better way of dealing with things.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 03:34 PMParcifal,
I am not rising to that one. Whilst I do not know the ins and outs as I have said this seems a non orange parade regarding commerating the dead of the First World War. Even on this thread I think there has been some proportion and sense.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 03:54 PMThe SDLP councillor is, of course, correct to point out the contradiction between this being sold as a ‘cross-community event’ and the insistence of some in flying the Union flag.
Those taking issue with his objection would be the very same people who’d object to an Irish National flag being flown alone at a ‘cross-community’ event in Limavady.
MOPEry knows no ends....
Of course, this incident does flag up (pun intended) the contradiction posed by those willing to promote the World War commemorations as some exercise in ‘shared remembrance’ and the distinct and overt use of British symbols on such occasions.
The two are exclusive and will remain so.
A bit like me objecting to unionists annoyed at a “cross-community” commemoration of the United Irishmen at which distinctly republican flags are being flown.
Goose/ gander.....
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 03:56 PMSee the outreach is really impacting on republican thinking.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 05:05 PM“See the outreach is really impacting on republican thinking.”
I don’t see how you can sell the Union Flag as “cross community”, fd. If they had have been invited without mention of those words I would have said they should merely have respected it and said nothing.
But the Union Flag is simply not a cross community flag. I don’t see what type of republican thinking there is where it could be otherwise.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 05:12 PMChris Donnelly: Goose/ gander
Don’t you need to find a Republican event which commemorates Unionists and Nationalists fighting on the same side before you can use the Goose/Gander proverb? So good luck…
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 05:14 PMEmerald Pimpernel wrote:
“Its not so hard to figure out turgon you’re on here whining that the SDLP is trying to Exclude you by complaining about the big house prods, like yourself, excluding them by flying the very the flag that is an anethma to nationalists.”
Turgon wrote:
“Please translate into something which approximates to English, adheres to something resembling a coherent sentence structure and just possibly has some relevance to the debate.”
I would just say in EP’s defence that, although there should have been a period or dash between the words “Turgon” and “you’re”, otherwise his sentence was grammatically fine. It is a coherent, if somewhat convoluted sentence structure. It is good English.
(However the first “Exclude” should not have an upper case E, while “prods” should have an upper case P. The first word (its) is missing an apostrophe. And it’s “anathema”.)
Tooth comb not decommissioned.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 05:15 PMI accept that may have been a bit too sharp to Emerald Pimpernel but I actually took about four goes before I understood it.
I am sorry EP.
I have a funny feeling though that Billy Pilgrim may have a slight agenda for attacking for my manners to EP. Possibly due to previous interactions between him and me?
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 06:03 PMLib2016,
I am not clear on who created the whole idea of this commeration but all that you say might have been possible before this nonsense was started by the SDLP. Now it will become a zero sum game and if a tricolour were present that would offend. Before the SDLP intervention you never know it might have been acceptable now as I said this bridge has probably been pretty comprehensively burnt. I suspect even now an RC priest taking part would not be a major problem but like I say I do not know the exact ins and outs of it.
Posted by Turgon on Jun 16, 2007 @ 04:15 PM
YEAH LIB YOU HAVE SOME NERVE TALKING SENSE AND CROSS COMMUNITY CO-OPERATION!!!!!!!
By the way turgon I dont care how big your house is! Big house prod is a mindset not a property condition and the superiority complex oozes out of you like slime off a slug.
You have the attitude that nationalists have a responsibility to make you happy, guess what? That ended in 1972 and was sealed into law with the GFA and embedded into devolution so suck it up and play along or take the last boat out of Larne. I am sure your type will be greatly missed
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 06:27 PMSean,
How charming.
Superior enough for you?
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 06:31 PMTurgon
“I have a funny feeling though that Billy Pilgrim may have a slight agenda for attacking for my manners to EP. Possibly due to previous interactions between him and me?”
Nah, it’s just that I’m a bit of a grammar Nazi, but I give credit where it’s due.
As for any previous between us, I say let sleeping dogs lie. Why dredge up old grudges when, no doubt, we can create brand spanking new ones every day of the week?
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 06:31 PM“so suck it up and play along or take the last boat out of Larne. I am sure your type will be greatly missed”
That’s like a quote from someone in the BNP.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 07:03 PMIt looks like the S.D.L.P. have gone to the dogs since Mark Durkin took charge. Although I am not a nationalist, I respected John Hume and Seamus Mallon and even gave their party the odd vote
( albeit low down on the P.R. voting list). I’m afraid Durkin has turned the party into a more middle class version of the shinners and by doing this they have lost the repect of moderate unionism.The S.D.L.P. always claimed to be a non sectarian party and when Hume and Mallon led the party I believe that was the case. Yet a few years ago when trouble broke at the Short Strand/ Cluan Place interface, Durkin along with Carmel Hanna, Alex Attwood and other leading lights in the party rushed to the area and stood on the Short Strand side of the fence in support of the catholic residents of S.S. even though the catholic residents shot five protestants on the other side of the fence. Now that’s what I call being non sectarian!
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 07:55 PMShame on you SDLP.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 08:31 PMThere’s no need for flags. They just cause division.
Glad to see Cllr Mullan speaking out
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 08:37 PMNo Dozer
“ Although I am not a nationalist, I respected John Hume and Seamus Mallon and even gave their party the odd vote
( albeit low down on the P.R. voting list). I’m afraid Durkin has turned the party into a more middle class version of the shinners and by doing this they have lost the repect of moderate unionism.”Do the SDLP care what moderate unionists think - whay sould they? Are you talking about alliance voters? You said yourself you put them at the bottom of your list, even when you could hold your nose and vote for them......
As for Limavady, it seems like the tide has turned there. I remember they used to have a big Limavady Says No banner across the front of the council offices. These days its a majority SF/SDLP council.
Equality = Both flags or no flags.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 08:56 PMSeems like the Shinner sycophants are out in force on this thread - never ones to miss an opportunity eh? Unfortunately for them they’ve got this issue AAF, as usual. However, the usual shitty Shinner casuistry aside, I think the SDLP representative is right to raise the question of cross-community events being open to all sections of the community. Surely, if this particular event really was a cross-community event, flags from the communities of all the fallen soldiers should be flown.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 09:09 PMDecal
This is no Shinner sycophant but I think the SDLP have lost the plot. Does the SDLP really think that by making this type of statement they will become the top Nationalist party once again, do they think that trying to be more hard line than the Shinners, that the Sinn Fein /IRA vote will decline by making comments like this. Surely they should be looking to win preference Unionist votes to help them from being annihilated at the next election and this is surely not the way to so that.Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 09:28 PMturgon
thanks for proving my pointPosted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 09:48 PMI don’t get why everyone think that every SDLP press release is about trying to out-green the shinners and piss off unionists..
Perhaps the SDLP just see an issue that concerns them and their supporters and they raise it? It seems they can’t comment on anything anymore without being accused of “trying to be more hard line than the Shinners”.
It should be remembered that much SF policy is copied off the SDLP. That the SDLP have been the party of equality since their creation. Quite clearly many people here don’t understand the principles of equality. Cahal sumed it up with “Equality = Both flags or no flags.”
Also, these unionists that seem to think the SDLP should be catering for them, are they missing something? So the SDLP gets some unionist votes, but really, that does not mean in the slightest that those unionists influence their policy. They don’t water it down as so not to offend the unionists who put them number 6 on their voting card.
“Surely they should be looking to win preference Unionist votes to help them from being annihilated at the next election”
Are you serious? The SDLP should be looking to get their current supporters out to vote, who didn’t vote last time, and get new nationalist voters.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 09:58 PMI must admit all this does slightly sadden me. I do not know what the intentions of the commeration were. I would not really have minded that much about the flags but now it has become an issue. As I said earlier there would have been more sensible quiter ways of solving this one but they would not have obtained headlines.
I have the letters a relative of mine wrote to his wife from the front (he was in artillery). They are quite moving in their ordinariness.
We should remember just how many people died in the First World War, British, Irish, German, French whatever. It affected all classes and creeds. I always think if I had been 19 then I would have been bought a commission and would have died there. The German machine gunners were instructed to make a specific effort to get the junior officers in the hope it would disrupt organisation (I suspect there was little organisation so it had little extra effect). And you know Sean if my headstone was in Flanders and had Leutienant or Captain on it and yours Private, Corporal or Seargant it really would not matter to us or our relatives.
Iain if you are still there I told you a mini Pandora’s box had been opened.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 10:10 PMCahal
You are spot on there. The s.d.l.p. were after the Workers party on my voting preference. Lets not beat about the bush here, the s.d.l.p. are a sectarian party, albeit a middle class one. They have no time for uppity prods and the working class people of both religions.They are without a doubt an anti protestant party regardless what Ivan Cooper might say. They call themseveles socialists yet they campained for protestant workers to be sacked from the police in N.I. because there apparently wasn’t enough catholics employed. Yea that’s really non sectarian and socialist. Connolly must be spinning in his grave at the antics of republicans on the island of Ireland, never mind Wolf Tone.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 10:15 PMDecal - nobody fought in WW1 from either community under the tricolour.
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 10:21 PMmchinadog
You say “This is no Shinner sycophant but…” but you go on to say “Does the SDLP really think that by making this type of statement they will become the top Nationalist party once again, do they think that trying to be more hard line than the Shinners, that the Sinn Fein /IRA vote will decline by making comments like this.”
David is right to question “why everyone think that every SDLP press release is about trying to out-green the shinners” The reason is petty sniping by the Shinners.
George Robinson is on record as having “no issue with people wishing to mark the First World War.” It appears that some people (for their own reasons) wish to ignore this fact! It’s the same old Shinner shite.
The question of equality and parity of esteem regarding cross-community projects is an important one. It’s just a shame that supporters of some parties choose not to see this and prefer to enter in to petty party point scoring instead!
Posted by on Jun 16, 2007 @ 10:24 PM
