A Culture of Intimidation – by Michael Lagan

I’ve lived in Loyalist towns almost my entire life.  From Carrickfergus to Larne to Ballymena and I’ve driven the length and breadth of Ireland and the length and breadth of NEI now as part of my job.  I travel through towns and villages every day in this lovely land of ours, some famous for certain events and others which have never heard the shrill note of a flute or the sight of a flag.

My grandfather was a staunch nationalist of Scottish descent, and my grandmother, from Beechmount in West Belfast, was of a similar mindset…but somehow they ended up in Carrickfergus, one of the most staunchly Loyalist and Unionist towns in the North and one run almost exclusively by Loyalist paramilitaries.  I still remember as a child pulling up outside their house in my parent’s car at Minorca Place (now demolished) and walking up to that big front door and being led inside by my grandmother.  More often than not there was an uncle, aunt, or both in there.  It was a home, a family home away from home.  My grandmother resided in the scullery while my grandfather made paper bricks to burn on the fire.  I remember the sound of my grandfather rocking my sister to sleep with the gentle Irish lullaby Tura Lura Lural.

However, one day we arrived at the house to find the door locked, there were groups of people standing around the streets, leaning against houses and laughing and joking with flags everywhere.  As per usual my grandmother ushered us into the house but there was an urgency about her…and she locked the door, something she never did, but not before telling my father to take the car round the back this time.  There was a strange feeling about the house that day and I soon found out why.  Not long after we had settled, there was a faint sound of banging in the air which drew closer and closer in time.  We moved into the parlour and all of a sudden a man jumped onto the window sill outside, then another.

The banging grew louder, mixed with the sound of flutes and accordions and with it, the sound of people whooping and shouting and singing.  There was a discussion and my grandfather left the room.  I heard the sound of the front door unlocking and a few muffled words being spoken.  The response wasn’t so muffled and I remember it to this day – “Get back inside you Fenian bastard or we’ll burn your house.”  It was probably the first time I had heard the term ‘Fenian bastard’ or that level of animosity.  My grandfather had asked the men standing on his window sill to get off it, the response wasn’t surprising, and having lived in the area and house long before I was even thought of, they knew the score.

That day was most likely the first time I had heard The Sash being sung too, and it was sung pretty loud just so the Fenians in the house whose window sill had become a balcony could hear it clearly.

Fast forward to the future, we as a family moved to Carrickfergus and moved into the estate about 500 yards away from where my grandparents lived.  It was a quiet estate, everyone got on apart from the Loyalist paramilitaries and the local wannabe hard nuts who thought they were in the UDA. Walking to the train one morning to get to school I was approached by two bigger lads, about 19 or 20 who out of the blue asked me to sing The Sash or I was done for.  My uniform was known as that of a Catholic school in Larne (also now demolished) so we kind of stood out in Carrickfergus.  Even one of the conductors on the train was a sectarian bigot and used to take passes off kids so they couldn’t get back on the train on the way home.  He was even known to assault kids who dared to speak back to him…and that wasn’t simply hearsay.  He used to whistle Derry’s Walls and The Billy Boys while asking for our passes and would drum on the windows while whistling.  After many complaints from not only parents but the school, the conductor was taken off the Larne line and was replaced by a very nice man called Jim who I remember to this day.  The sectarian conductor still worked on the trains after I had left school as I met him one day on the train…he wasn’t such a big man that day.

My point is, Loyalist culture is intimidatory.  It is specifically designed to suppress and ‘keep down’ any other culture and to an extent it is used by Unionist politicians to exert huge pressure on anyone who dares to oppose their views.  I’ve heard the speeches at ‘the field’ after the 12th parade and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the Orange Order, integral it seems to the Loyalist/Unionist tradition and culture is one of the most sectarian, homophobic organisations in the history of this island and strangely is permitted to openly divulge those views on the youth…but God forbid you try to stop an Orange parade through a Catholic area.  Almost every Loyalist parade passes through a Catholic or nationalist area and the very fact that most organisers refuse to ‘reroute the flute’ denotes the fact these parades are being used to stamp their mark on that town or village.

In the recent past paramilitary flags were erected outside Holy Cross Primary School in North Belfast, the centre of what could be described as a siege by Loyalists against children.  Clearly, those flags were placed there as a message…’Remember’.  One flag read – “Hands up if you’re going to be sectarian today” with the image of Loyalist killer Michael Stone on it, and while that flag was removed, others remained.

When my family moved to Larne, the very first night we moved into the house our windows were smashed.  I was in a Republican Flute Band at the time and the Purple Standard Loyalist magazine was posted through my letter box with my picture in it at the Truth and Reconciliation Parade in Belfast.  As a band, we marched from Clonard and then from the Short Strand into Belfast City Centre where my picture was taken by someone in the crowd.  We had flags put up outside our house every year by the UDA and UVF, we had our car burned out, we had our car bugged by the security forces, we had paint bombs thrown through windows and when the bands passed our house they stood and played The Sash for no reason whatsoever.

Loyalist culture is about telling people to know their place.  If you’re not Loyalist you don’t deserve a culture and if you are Loyalist, as one person said to me, you are descended from the twelve tribes of Israel and she genuinely believed that.  However, in taking such a hard line on culture, Unionism and Loyalism are losing the battle.  Fewer and fewer Unionists have time for an archaic show of triumphalism and sectarianism.  Bonfires are now seen more as a massive source of pollution and really, Loyalists have no answer to that because they have to burn something to have a bonfire.  They’ve been used as political billboards, as personality assassination, and as a source of provocation that can’t be defended any longer.  When sectarian Parades, bonfires, and flags are taken out of the equation what is left?  Loyalist and Unionist culture is one of intimidation and oppression.