Why hasn’t the Garvaghy Road dispute been sorted years ago – all sorts of other parades have been, including the once -toxic Apprentice Boys in Derry? Would a joint unionist-republicans march/walk work? And have all those marches that were resolved – is that because nationalists allowed stripped-down versions of Loyal Orders to march?If so, […]
Bridgeen, the Gap – By Randall Stephen Hall
Bridgeen, the GapBy Randall Steohen HallA Drumcree Weather Forecast . . The tensions were high at DrumcreeBut three women left their friendsAnd headed across the narrow ground.Out beyond the soundOf the stand off protesters.Into the clearingAnd a certain calm.With less pushback from the rainOr any man.Moving forwardFor love takes you there.“I want to shake their […]
Law-breaking at the Garvaghy Road
I’ve just watched the B(ritish)BC’s ‘Sunday Politics.’ Two people were interviewed in depth: Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin president, and Carla Lockhart, the DUP MP. Mark Carruthers asked Mary Lou how she viewed the fact that she was a law-breaker and not a law-maker, by standing with the Garvaghy Road residents. Her answer was […]
The legacy of the Diamond
In September 1795, at a crossroads in County Armagh called the Diamond, a dispute over who had the right to walk down a road ended in bloodshed and the founding of an institution that is still arguing about who has the right to walk down roads. Few origin stories have aged so consistently. The […]
The Orange Order Does Not Speak for Protestants – by Peter Irvine
The dispute over the Garvaghy Road is still too often presented in familiar communal terms. Protestants on one side, Catholics on the other. That framing gives the Orange Order a representative status which the evidence does not justify. In the 2022 “Northern Ireland” Life and Times Survey, people were asked whether parades […]
When Civic Buildings Take Sides – by Peter Irvine
On 28 September, Dublin’s Mansion House was illuminated green for ‘International Safe Abortion Day’. Belfast City Hall was scheduled to follow. The National Women’s Council coordinated the Dublin illumination as part of a Europe-wide campaign promoting abortion as a reproductive right. In Belfast, an attempt to reverse the decision to illuminate City […]
PAT+ JUDE TALK ABOUT – WHAT ELSE? – THE OO AND THE GARVAGHY ROAD. SHOULD THE OO BE OUTLAWED?
SO – Would you be one of the one-and-done brigade who’d be OK with the Orange Order going down the Garvaghy Road and then promising never to do it again? Will Michelle O’Neill and Mary Lou be prosecuted for fomenting civil unrest? Maybe we should just ban the Orange Order – after all, it […]
The dangerous men and women of Garvaghy Road
And what they’re guilty of – by Pádraig Ó Meiscil I shouldn’t feature here. This is a guest blog and, I think, is brilliant. “The Orangeman is a sufficiently funny person; and he is funny mainly because he is so serious.” Pádraig Pearse In January 1998, a United Nations special […]
From walk to Oh Fawk
Is there extradition from the South to the North? Yes? Oh , good to know. Because when they send that jeep round to Michelle O’Neill for breaking the law by standimg in solidarity with the people of Garvaghy Road,they’ll have to send another jeep at least as far as the border into which they can […]
Been here before By Randall Stephen Hall
A poem and song combo for imaginative strategieshttps://youtu.be/c8-fGbG3yFI?is=hKIvtIESav52FgnaSurely to GodWe’ve been here before?Surely we have?Why would you march down a roadTo annoy and to threaten?With all the potential forFurther violence?Why would you do that?Grown men, not wee boys.And what is the motivationThat moves you now?Faith, Hope and Charity?Where is it?I don’t see it . . […]