Saturday, May 06, 2006
Interesting companions
While downtown in Belfast City centre this afternoon there was a parade taking place. Among the parade were five bands. One brass, one flute, two accordion and one jazz. The brass, flute and accordion bands participate in Orange Order parades. Nothing surprising there. What was interesting was who were walking with the bands? Trade Union members, socialists and a number of prominent republicans.
Pictures here (hat tip to Garibaldy) Update One was brass not flute (d’oh my unlce and two cousins will not forgive me for that oversight).
Fair Deal @ 01:26 PM
Dear me! Seems a bit multi-cultural, possibly even something to do with international respect for human rights, dignity and appreciation and respect for all. A wee bit outside the Ulster Unionist canon of ideology I suppose. Is that why you need the photos? Identify any “weak sisters” (a la Chandler?)
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 02:54 PMRory
“A wee bit outside the Ulster Unionist canon of ideology I suppose. Is that why you need the photos? Identify any “weak sisters” (a la Chandler?)”
No.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 02:59 PMI’m afraid that I now consider Slugger a lost cause, with the first post in this thread a prime example of why.
Will the last resonable person to leave please turn out the lights and leave the bigots in the dark (where they seem most comfortable).
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 02:59 PMFD
Which bands were they?Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:10 PMOh dear. Don’t know what it is I can have said to frighten the poor fellow off. He didn’t seem like someone of a delicate disposition in some of his earlier responses as I remember. Still, one can’t tell. Sometimes the strain just gets to a fellow.
Anyway, do take care, TAFKABO, sorry I frightened you off. No intention on my part, really.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:15 PMBallycoan Flute, Ballmacarett Defenders, Harbour Acc (Donaghadee) and George Dummigan memorial Acc
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:15 PMDon’t forget the Belfast Gay and Lesbian society.. they were marching too.
Who would have thought water rates would be the one thing that would unite all the people of Northern Ireland.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:27 PMFair play to them… Some very good bands there too. Will have done a few people plenty of good to hear bands like Ballycoan and Ballymacarrett - they wouldnt be most people’s usual perception of Orange bands.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:30 PMI read that one of the marches in support of the Post Office Workers strike a few months ago went up the Falls and the Shankill. That makes it two issues that have brought the two communities together. wow, we’ll soon need one of those wee tickers like in the Lynx advert!
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:32 PMJimmy Porter: “Who would have thought water rates would be the one thing that would unite all the people of Northern Ireland. “
Hey, politics is politics, but money is money. I may disagree with your politics, but if your rates and my rates are going up, there lies common cause.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:40 PMOh good. Water rates. My favourite cause. Why the hell it should be permitted to make profit from the supply of water while all are agreed that a clean, plentiful supply to ALL is required for ALL to live without disease (never mind rancour).
Connolly will yet touch the hearts and minds of all. Capital will always extract a share of blood along with its pound of flesh and this all men will see to be wrong and in that unity of clear sightedness it will be difficult to create division.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:42 PMDC:
tis the one church that unites us all, amen.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:42 PMHas anyone seen a leaflet from Belfast City council, it apparently is describing the Parading season as “Orange Fest- a multi cultural event with fun for all the family”
I was told about it, but havent seen the leaflet in question
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 03:48 PMThis proves that the Orange Order should definitely wise up - because there is nothing it could possibly do that upset republican throwbacks like Rory more.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 04:15 PMIf only the orange order used bands who were not aligned to loyalist paramilitary organisations.
The marching season might be seen as a bit more than a hate fest.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 05:22 PMmissfitz
Don’t know about a leaflet or the City Council but Orangefest is to run a programme of events around the twelfth and at other parts of the year. The events around and on the Twelfth are to make the event more family friendly.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 06:02 PMThere are millions of photos on indymedia
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 06:34 PMRory: Why the hell it should be permitted to make profit from the supply of water while all are agreed that a clean, plentiful supply to ALL is required for ALL to live without disease (never mind rancour).
It doesn’t matter whether there’s a profit made - it’s a matter of how much it costs, and then how it is paid for. The real objections to water rates are that the massive prices represent decades of underinvestment, followed by a big bang upgrade, and presumably huge public sector inefficiencies. I think most people would rather pay £200 per year to FatCat Watercorp, than £201 per year to Gordon Brown.
Posted by on May 06, 2006 @ 07:52 PMFatcat Corp. will be cheaper? Sure! Just like NIE and Phoenix.
I’ve no objection to paying for a public service - to a public organisation or to a private one. But - when private organiations operate without competition their record is worse.
Posted by on May 07, 2006 @ 12:59 AMFair deal
Dont get me wrong, I wasnt being critical, I have a genuine interest in this area. One of my friends who knows of my interest told me about Orange Fest, and as far as I knew it was a recent development.I have long maintained that bringing a more open family element to the 12th was going to be the only way forward. It might mitigate the drink issue which is still overwhelming. I was at the parades in town on Friday night, and it is remarkable in the extreme to see the level of alcohol publicly consumed by youth of questionable legality age wise.
That is one way Belfast differs so significantly from the rural events where that would not be tolerated. I was at a couple of fields last year, and there is an entirely different set of values at work.
It would be great work to bring this sense of respectability back to Befast parades, and demonstrate that if these parades are a mark of tradition and culture, thy should be managed in a dignified way
Posted by on May 07, 2006 @ 08:48 AMmissfitz
“I wasnt being critical,”
I didn’t think you were and sorry if my reply gave that impression.
The OO is trying to tackle the drink issue on the Twelfth by emphasising the family nature and complimentary events. A key difficulty it has been facing on the drink issue is non-co-operation of the police. The closure of pubs and off licences along the route has been raised to restrict access to alcohol as has enforcing the existing band on the sections of the route the byelaw exists but the PSNI won’t budge.
On teenagers and parades, drinking is what a lot of these teenagers do on a Friday or Saturday night. Parades often just move the geography of the problem of teenage alcohol abuse.
There is a general point about how “problems with the Twelfth” are more “problems with the Belfast Twelfth” that an equal problem across NI.
Posted by on May 07, 2006 @ 09:51 AMWell, FD, in my experience the problem stems from the 11th night, not so much the availability on the 12th day.
By 7.30 in the morning when I turn up for parades, most of the youths are stocious drunk and hobbling about with their blue wkd or buckfast.
I engaged with some residents of a contentious Belfast interface a couple of years back and tried to bring the conversation around to common issues for us as mothers and females in general. I was doing really well for a long time, exploring issues and laying common ground when one of them turns and looks at me coldly. She took a long drag of her cigarette and said “Aye, thats alright but yer still a fenian”.
It doesnt do any of us any good to have disorder and alcohol at parades, but I suppose the answer there is parenting and leadership more than anything else.
I share your frustration with the policing attitude on parade routes, but their take on it is that they would create public disorder by taking away alcohol. The emphasis then rests much more so on the stewards and marshals for overt drunkeness, but I dont really know where we go from here.
Totally agree on the Belfast v. country scenario, it really is two different worlds! And as for Derry, its great fun and a real spectacle up there.
Posted by on May 07, 2006 @ 10:28 AM“The events around and on the Twelfth are to make the event more family friendly.”
MORE family friendly? Like it’s in any way family fucking friendly as is? Have you lost your fucking mind?
My wife’s from the South - she (funnily enough) has a southern accent. Are you telling us that if MY family (i.e. me, my wife and two kids) were to toddle along to one of your ‘family friendly’ ‘parades’ that all would be ‘friendly’ and enjoyable? You must be fucking joking. I had the misfortune to encounter a ‘parade’ on the Ormeau Road a few weeks ago. Quite astonishing - rafts of drunken spides, people pissing on the street, at least three ‘fuck the pope’ t-shirts and quite the most menacing atmosphere imaginable. Family friendly my arse. Until the ‘Order’ hoses away the foul untermensch element from it’s ‘parades’, the only family that will continue to attend with relish is the Addams’.
Posted by on May 07, 2006 @ 10:39 AMBemused
I challenge your assertions.I was at all of the parades thus far on the Ormeau, and I can state categorically that there was no evidence of the t-shirts in question. As to public urination, this is not a big problem in this area.
I suggest that if you are unfamiliar with such gatherings there is the potential to be intimidated, rather like getting caught up in Portlaoise or any other Irish town late on a Friday night.
There is a serious point here about enlarging the context of these parades and finding a solution to our problems through finding some commonality in our identity.
Yeah Yeah, its easy to say ban them, that gets us nowhere. Parades were banned in 1837 and it was impossible to enforce the rules. It created a worse situation than had previously existed and they were re-instated some years later. Thousands used to turn up to “funerals” or other legal processions.
There is no point in talking about how bad it all is, we need to work together to change it. I brought my family (kicking and screaming) to the field in Rathfriland, and once they had gotten over their shock and fright, they settled and we had a good time. Now, I’m not saying they would go every year, but it de-mystified the process for them and they have a little better understanding. One small step I guess you could call it!
Posted by on May 07, 2006 @ 10:51 AM“I was at all of the parades thus far on the Ormeau, and I can state categorically that there was no evidence of the t-shirts in question.”
Well I can state categorically that there WAS evidence of the t-shirts in question. How? Because I saw them with my own two fucking eyes!
“As to public urination, this is not a big problem in this area.”
Not a BIG problem in this area? What the fuck does that mean? People ARE pissing on the street but there aren’t very many of them or the residents don’t mind or there isn’t a lot of piss…..
“I suggest that if you are unfamiliar with such gatherings there is the potential to be intimidated, rather like getting caught up in Portlaoise or any other Irish town late on a Friday night.”
Huh?
Are you serious?
I’m frankly not sure what you even mean by getting ‘caught up’ in an Irish town late on a Friday night. No doubt it’s some sort of window into your own twisted bigotry that simply being in an Irish town means that you are somehow ‘caught up’ in something. Christ.
“Yeah Yeah, its easy to say ban them, that gets us nowhere”. If you’d actaully READ my post you would find that I hadn’t at any point said that parades should be banned. All I’m asking for is that parades be properly policed and that drunks, bigots, paramilitaries and the disorderly are made utterly unwelcome.Posted by on May 07, 2006 @ 12:12 PM
