1. The Parades Commission was set up as an independent body by the Public Processions (NI) Act 1998 and its members are appointed by the British Secretary of State. If unionist ‘leaders’ like Peter Robinson and Mike Nesbitt are going to organise resistance to a ruling by the Parades Commission, does this mean that they reject the Good Friday Agreement as well? And all its works and pomps?
2. Unionist politicians say they are opposed to paramilitarism in all its forms. Why then do they not react with alarm when Gerry Kelly or Martin McGuinness speak of the UVF and the UDA being involved in opposition to the Parade Commission’s ruling on the Ardoyne route? Shouldn’t they be calling urgently for the disbandment of these two loyalist paramilitary groupings?
3. When Mike Nesbitt says ‘graduated’ opposition to the Parades Commission’s ruling “is not necessarily the same as ‘escalated’’ “, does that mean it might be the same as ‘escalated’? And will this ‘graduated’ , lawful, peaceful process be lawful and peaceful in the same way as the quick-as-a-flash, lawful, peaceful printing and distribution of 40,000 leaflets blaming the Alliance Party for ‘tearing down our flag’ and calling people onto the streets was peaceful?
4. In signing the same anti-Parades Commission statement as the PUP/UVF and UPRG/UDA, are the DUP and the UUP signalling that though their bodies are in Stormont, their hearts are with the flag rioters, and for God’s sake remember to vote for us next year?
5. The DUP and the UUP are in a Morton’s-fork of a dilemma. If they don’t make it abundantly clear they loathe being in government with Sinn Féin, they may lose the support of the knuckle-dragger constituency. If they make it too abundantly clear that they loathe being in government with Sinn Féin, they may be forced to take the next logical step and withdraw from Stormont. Once out of Stormont (i) how will they keep the cameras and microphones hurrying to record their every word? And (ii) how will they break it to their nearest and dearest that they’ve just killed the cash cow?
Dr C
First of all, good questions.
Too bad they’ll be ignored.
Now, before this thread takes off:
A thought occurred to moi earlier.
I was wondering would this be a good opportunity for Mr Nesbitt to sidestep the rest of planet unionism?
I mean, he’ll never out-fleg the TUV.
He’ll never out Billy-boy the PUP.
And he’ll never out double-cross the DUP.
Whilst he is ‘in’ with that group he is very much the geeky kid at a cool kids’ party (or an accordion player in flute bandsmen’s party if you want a more fitting comparison).
If he took a stand now, and defied the rest of them he may stand a chance of looking good when this farce blows up.
I know, of course, that would leave him open to all the usual calls of ‘Lundy’, ‘traitor’ and the other words we use when a unionist starts to use his brain and no doubt Judge Jim will do his best to blame Mr Nesbitt for the failure, but, with a bit of luck he can cash in his ‘I told you so’ cheque and at least look like a unionist leader with some back bone and strategic depth (as in ‘can count’).
The thing is, the unionist top brass is comprised of very smart men (quiet at the back!). They know what we know and have access to more info and thinkers than we do (well, me anyway).
So, they know this is going to back fire.
So why aren’t they bothered.
Or are they?
Is it possible they’re just leading unionists up the top of the mountain? Again?
Thanks for thoughts AG . It does indeed seem to me it’s possible theiy’re leading them up the mountain again . I agree with you completley – MN should grab the opportunity to do something DIFFERENT, rather than trying to out-DUP the DUPers, etc. Will he take it? I will be in a state of total stupefaction if he does…
Important questions indeed Jude. It’s woeful that our local Journalists don’t seem to know or want to ask these questions of the Unionist leadership. Me thinks I might tweet as many in the media as I can with a link to this page. #orangequestions.
Morning Jude,
I did not think I would be on here again, but it is very addictive.
I think they are in a corner now, which way will that turn.?
But, and there always is a but, from were I stand, and look into this mess it’s is not as clear as you would make out . For instance, one young catholic police man has been blew up, and a prison officer, and two off duty soldiers waiting to go to Iraq, countless bombs, and bomb scares.
Now whether it’s PIRA, RIRA, CIRA, they all share the same aspiration.
What will happen to my people then, if they cannot part take in the activities they do now, I know I know it’s offensive, to some, please remember, I don’t part take have not for fourtyfive years, and I am married to a catholic.
But, what will it be like when we are in the minority, will the situation just be reversed
the Guards will be looking for terrorists, more of the same only in reverse, will I be opening my front door to let them escape out the back door?
For when all is said and done, and I am opening my soul and heart here, they are my people,
At the end of the day Martin McGuiness can condemn all he wants, and meet the Queen, and fair play to him, he is making all the right moves, and noises, he should have done it years ago, and then maybe a few more people would be alive today.
His next move will be into Westminster to take his vote, wait and see.
The Protestants, no matter what they do, are only going to end up in the one direction.
To the man yesterday who corrected me on the English pope, you obviously looked that up, you don’t carry that information in your head. Yes it was Hadrians wall I got confused with, but you knew what I was inferring, I see the word Nantes was there when I checked, my forefathers were persecuted there, but that is a whole other story, about another wicket superstitious pope.
I have many, many catholic friends, and family, I have yet to meet one who wants to change the status quo.
These words are my truthful views and opinions, please respect them, and try to see my point of view, and I shall reciprocate the same. At least this way we get an understanding of one another.
Norma
For years nationalists complained about the behaviour of bands outside RC churches when they marched past them, the behaviour being worse when the opportunity was provided to interrupt a service. For the same number of years Unionist politicians denied the behaviour had occurred. However, the practiced nature of the behaviour caught on film in 2012 would suggest that this was the norm; the fact that senior DUP politicians did not dissociate themselves from this, nor did they see anything wrong with it, would suggest this behaviour had their approval.
Now that all the unionists have abandoned talks (set up to be abandoned by the looks of things) one has to assume that the whole unionist hegemony thinks that outrageous behaviour towards RCs is not only all right but should be the norm.
That the OO and the GAA are often spoken of in the same breath – as in ‘A Plague on both your Houses !’- is something of a myth, both urban and rural.
True, while both groupings certainly do organise Parades it is rather simplistic to compare the two different types of Parades. Why, it is like comparing Oranges and Ulla Uladh (Apples of Ulster, in the lingo of the Leprechaun), like. Two classes of fruit could not be more dissimilar, like…
There was a sharpish reminder of that difference the other Saturday when there was a bit of a schemozzle between the footballers of Armagh and Cavan teams in the Athletic (Gaelic) Grounds of Armagh as they lined up or not for the pre-match March Around.
(Just in case the rugby-loving Rory the Furore McIlroy is reading this, a schemozzle is what the late, lamented Bill McLaren in his delightful Lallans lilt would have termed, ‘a bit of argy-bargy’. No more, no less. One thoughtfully inserts this point of information for there is NO way young Rory would have ANY idea of what went on in the vicinity of the Armagh Gaelic Football team. Sure, how could he?)..
Now, the point is this: GAA Parades are strictly In-House whereas those of the OO variety are indubitably of the Out-House variety, as well the wee dogs of the street know. The GAA, in other words, prefer to keep their family disputes with the four walls of the War Office, as the family home is often jokingly referred to. In further other words, and it gives me, a disinterested observer, no joy at all in stating the obvious:, the GAA, unlike the OO, are In-House trained. No GAA pOO to be seen on the streets outside of their neighbours’ houses, like.
Now, the GAA Pre-match Parade is one of the great spectacles of world sport and it is only a matter of time before other sports around the globe take a leaf. (You think I, a Warbeck, would cod on a matter such as this? Think of the subs bench. At one time the GAA were sneered at as being sissies for having subs benches. Now, both the Bootyful and the Egg-chasing Games have dutifully, if reluctantly, followed suit).
For those Irish folk who have NEVER witnessed a GAA match much less a pre-match parade (whether for religious, sporting or indeed, hygiene purposes) perhaps the nearest phenomenon would be the Pre-Big Fight Ceremonials in the Madison Square Garden of yore. Those who are of a certain chronological demographic will recall the build up of excitement as in turn, the likes of the aging Jersey Joe Walcott and the ageless Sugar Ray Robinson in their shiny cheap suits were called upon to duck in between the ropes; a sort of Sock Exchange around the Corner where the pugilists of the past were introduced to the pugilists of the present. Ding-dong stuff.
That the decline of Pro-Boxing coincided more or less exactly with the abolition of the Pre-Fight Introductions is no coincidence. Let the GAA beware. For there are forces afoot who will do anything to do the GAA down. Already there have been calls from the usual predictable sources, like the Unionist Times (whose nom de guerre is the Irish Times) and RTE for the ending of the beginning, ie, the Pre-Match March Around.
I mentioned at the beginning a certain myth. Truth is, the OO and the GAA are not treated the same, not least by the ack-ack hacks of the Free Southern State. That they are fond of opening their myths and pointing their bony accusatory forefingers in the direction of the GAA as the six-fingered segment of the Six Counties (though the latter is a politico-geographical term they eschew like beri-beri) is a Shay, a given.
When the wittiest poster to be seen at ANY public event in Ireland this year, sporting or otherwise, the Paper of Record (see above) chose to sniffily i-g-n-o-r-e it. One refers, dispassionately to the In-house poster at the Armagh v Monaghan game in Clones: ‘Garvaghy Road Orangemen on the March’.
Mind you, young Professor Diarmaid Ferriter, never one to miss an op to address the expectant nation, came up with this utterly fascinating piece of ferretana newly dredged from the dark soil of D’Archives:’The reason why the boys of the Armagh GAA team wear Orange ganseys can be traced to the twenty sixth verse of their anthem which alludes to the…….sashes of Brian Boru’.
Though still on the Portarlington side of Forty the redoubtable Prof delivered his latest nugget with all the sepulchar pomposity normally associated with a Nonagenarian.
Fogra: two minutes extra time. Enough for two more points:
1. Dan Keenan of the Unionist Times yesterday penned a profile of an endemic Orange protestor at the Twaddle Portaloo on the edge of the Ardoyne (one who is in for the long haul) with exemplary empathy. But the, The Unionist Times, is it not, the favoured port of refuge for those Stoops who failed to Conquer?.
2. RTE’s resident rotweiller (our old hero, Cathal Mac Coille) adopted a rather different approach to Mike Nesbitt to the one he had adopted to GA (could be short for the GAA) a few days previously. Let’s just say Nesbitt was not bitten. But then tis difficult to gnash the rabid canines when one has adopted the ‘back to the floor, tickle my playful tummy’ pose in the studio of Moaning Ireland.
,
THIS ISN’T ME – IT’S (A FRUSTRATED) ANTAIN:
One of the former proconsuls posed a question, “Why do Irish people answer a question by posing another question?” The reply was, “Who told you that?” In order to maintain this noble tradition, may I pose four questions? Is the answer to contentious marches to be found in Rossnowlagh? There will be a parade today which will process without the need for an expensive security operation. The event will not create tension. Participants will celebrate their culture in a dignified manner that is respected and expected of neighbours. Compare and contrast Order and Loyalists in Rossnowlagh, Disloyalists and Orange Disorder in Belfast. Compare and contrast the lack of leadership from political unionism and the dignity and respect on display during the visit of Michael D. Higgins to Queen Elizabeth earlier this year. Does anyone remember Jo Moore who worked for the secretary of State for Transport? On the 11 September 2001, Jo suggested, “It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors’ Expenses?” As protests convene once more at the top of a hill, what is really going on in the corridors of power? As Sartre said, “Good theatre should raise questions, not answer them.”
THE TRAITOR WITHIN
“A nation can survive its fools and and even the ambitious but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable… The traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself… He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.” (Cicero)
Good lord Jude , i thought the Lords of the Black Arts had crashed your site today. I’m only now able to spread my heavenly, literary ordure at this late hour in the afternoon…. What happened to the bloody internet? Anyway …back to your questions…..
Those are the kind of questions that will always be avoided Jude. What is happening right now is just so wrong on so many levels.We’ve seen it happen too many times. It is the complete negation of politics to abandon talks. Politics , if they are about anything , are about sorting out problems by….talking them out. The unionists have run away…
Say it again and say it LOUD. The unionists have run away from politics.It’s what they always do .It’s what they have always done. They simply cannot do politics I see no intelligence or brains in it. They are gone!! A bloody laughing stock for the world.
As for Norma’s fears. All this talk of…. my people …our people …your people. Stop right there. They are everybody’s people. they are just people. We are all here together and we don’t all think like wee tribes of pygmies. The We’s and the Ussuns , indeed. !
Some of them[Our People} have a bee up their collective arse about gatecrashing a party they were not invited to but that’s it. This isn’t a Big Deal . They are not being crucified, boiled in oil or persecuted. Nobody’s messing with their dubious “Culture” whatever they think “Culture2 is or whatever some dumb cluck has told them it is. .Nobody is twisting their wee arms and chasing them onto the streets to be pilloried or insulted Dragging them out on the streets to dress up and be laughed at .Nobody’s doing any of that…. I wouldn’t see a parade from one year to the next unless I wanted to or unless I got snagged up in one by mistake. As Monty Python would have it ….they are just” naughty little boys” with big ideas about themselves. The majority of people have a bit of sense and know this .We expect politicians to know this too and sort it out with reasonable efficiency. They don’t!! That’s what we pay them to do .They failed .In any other job they’d be booted out on their arse.In some countries they’d never be seen again.!…Salted in a saltmine….
Are these Orangemen’s lives so shallow , so lacking in any depth that they have fixated on this annual repetition? Have they nothing to do or think about beyond this walking down a road? Can some of them not knock a few heads together and discuss this thing rationally and then go off on their holidays like normal people? Are shrinks required now? It’s bloody pathetic to see adults behaving like this…bloody pathetic….
The facts are that the Orange Order are simply not wanted in a particular area and if they weren’t so obviously demented they’d simply march somewhere where they were actually wanted …just the same way you wouldn’t knowingly walk into a minefield or a dodgy bar in some Mexican town, full of drug -addled cocaine barons or white slavers , where you know you mightn’t return from .. As far as most people are concerned they are mostly just like some quaint Morris Men who need to have some social rules applied to them .. No more offering virgins to the Green Man over there!!!..That’s what politicians are supposed to sort out if they are any bloody good . no more piddling on churches you bloody plank!!
Obviously they are not. I’ve no doubt that in a New Ireland there’d be no bother marching the length and breadth of Ireland as long as they didn’t mess up the traffic, march over any old ladies or allow their hangers on to piss on their pet poodles.Other than that nobody would give one flying fuc….
They need to learn to behave .I am fortunate that I don’t have to put up with this kind of hassle but if some kid started kicking a football incessantly against our gable wall , it would drive my wife crazy and I’d have to go out and chase the bugger away.
What part of annoying people do they not get?
PaddyK
” the Orange Order are simply not wanted in a particular area and if they weren’t so obviously demented they’d simply march somewhere where they were actually wanted”
Paddy – as I previously pointed out to an unappreciative Paula – marching where they are not wanted is the whole Raison d’être of the Orange Order.
Maybe their strategy is working for them. 1 the north/south council meeting cancelled.
2 people in the south see their behavior and think; these northerners are mad and its better to have nothing to do with them (we have a bad habit of lumping all northerners as the same).
3 by kicking up such a fuss over every change they slow progress to a vertical standstill. By taking such a strong line a compromise is going to lean more in their favour.
4 elections. 2014 was a very good result for Unionists. Whats a pity is that their behavior gives them electoral success. The leaders seem to reflect their voters.
As my boss always says “give solutions not problems” so here goes
1 nats Catholics need to start voting – the turnout was poor. This is in your hands!
2 British gov needs to do something they rarely do – grow a pair – start strong statements eg rule of law linkage with the uvf using religion as a political tool.
3 south. Start championing a green agenda – president to visit more – money for festivals etc.
4 dissidents to move fully into politics. They let unionists off the hook. This would also remove alot of the whataboutary and deflection they use
.
Rossnowlagh Orange parade, now there’s a culture and indeed a religion (for that is what Orangemen are) I can deal with and definitely respect. No UDA flags, NO jeering and taunting the protesters with their ‘we got one over on you again’ mentality and it seems no banner, though to be honest I quite like the banners, they bring a bit of colour and festival atmosphere to the whole anti-pope, anti-Catholic/Nationalist/Republican time of year.
As for the Parades Commission. Even though the Unionist parties walked out of the talks due to the Ardoyne Orangemen not having the option to walk back past the Ardoyne Shops I feel they were in some way looking for a reason to walk out and show solidarity with the fleggers and Loyalism in general. The whole walk out was obviously pre-arranged and I could see from a mile off there was going to be difficulties as soon as the Unionist contingent sought to talk solely about parades which was obviously going to be swung around to the Ardoyne feeder parade and indeed the return leg. In the eyes of Unionism these talks were to be about bashing Sinn Fein and their supposed allies into forcing the parades commission into forcing the return leg of the Ballysillan 12th parade back up past the Ardoyne shops.
The Unionists walking out of the talks has now caused a vacuum at Stormont but seems to have consolidated the Loyalists into some kind of protesting feeding frenzy. They now think they are permitted (and mark my words they will) to block roads once again and an important question will be this, will the PSNI allow this to happen as they did with the ‘fleg protests’ or will they be more heavy handed and deny the protesters this move?
PK
I have just read your blog, you made me think of a time long ago, standing in a queue at the ATM machine in Longmarket St Pietermaritzburg Natal South Africa, when this voice shouted, ” is that a Northern Ireland accent I hear”, it turned out to be a lady called Roisin Moore.
She was one of my people, from back home in a strange land, but as always is the case, we are all a big happy family outside of NI.
You spoke like a strong man there, and I feel like a fool now?
Funny my husband lets me off with murder, but when he uses a certain tone, I know to get into heel.
Like you PK, I am not involved, I don’t know the answer, I wish I did.
We will probably have our Braai’s, and a few bottles of red wine.
I do feel sorry for anybody who is near any trouble. Hopefully it will not happen.
Norma
Now ..now Norma! I’m a feminist and I don’t want any women coming to heel.T o me it’s the sign of a weak man to want any of that crap.I have four sisters and I’ve three daughters and every one of them are as smart and as tough and worthy as any man.That ‘s the way it should be.In fact when I think of some of these poor excuses of masculinity that we have to suffer, they are not even in the same league.
Unionist politicians refuse to accept the rulings of the parades commission and this should point anyone in the direction of what their intentions are. They cannot control the parades commission so they do not want to be subject to its decisions. They want the PSNI to make decisions about whether any particular parade should progress, what does that indicate about the relationship between the the leaders of unionism and those in control of the PSNI?
The parades commission is a flawed entity but the best that could be agreed in the circumstances. What political unionists rejection of it symbolises, is an outright rejection of equality and fairplay and an indication that their own sense of fairness and equality is totally askew with that of the rest of the world!
What this probably means for Catholics and Nationalists is a long,slow, hard slog where each step towards equality will have to be fought for through councils, tribunals, the courts and popular protest. All in all it will make Loyalists feel embittered as they see privileges removed from them through court rulings rather than being given over freely as a measure of goodwill and it will leave Nationalists feeling that these people have no goodwill towards them as at that stage they will have proved that never once when given the opportunity, have political unionists ever chosen to behave fairly towards their fellow countrymen and women!
I use the term political unionism because I don’t believe they are representative of the unionist population as a whole. Someone posted earlier that well over half of the DUP elected representatives are in the Orange Order and this is not reflected in the unionist population as a whole.
So …Pointis, I think we are al agreeing that because only about half the population has anything they feel vaguely enthused to even bother to vote for , that what we get in government is not at all what we actually want at all.
It still amounts to the fact that we cannot produce politicians worth one tuppeny damn. Problem solving men and women with sharp minds that can actually make a difference and get society up and running.. This is very apparent in the unionist ranks whose very conservatism and inability to think bigger has led them to walk away from talks. In fact those same talks needed to be hammered out last summer or on countless preceding summers.
Because they really cannot accept the logic of an argument by the Parades Commission , they have cherry-picked little bits of it and shuffled their fears of failure right up to the very 11th hour when they knew that “the unionist blood would be up”…the annual Pavlov response.
What we have ended up with is political unionism hitching its wagons to a conglomerate of quasi -terrorist/loyalist/criminal groupings to further frighten the public. That is not a debate …that ‘s a threat in plain sight. .That’s what the UWC Strike was all about back in the early 1970’s .When the debate doesn’t start or ends in defeat , unionism always turns to the brute side . They’ll try and gussie it up in a different suit but it’s their same failure to win their point in logical debate that is peeking out of their fly buttons….
It’s not just that unionism is not properly represented either. the majority of us are being misrepresented too. There’s half the population locked out of it all. Because the two extremes do not represent this other view, they are left to watch this topsy- turvy affair unfold. They have no real part in it but they’ll all have to suffer its bloody-minded consequences ..We are left to vote , if we vote at all, for the most intelligent , possible option .. Well that’s a very rare bird to find in Northern Ireland. The same argument rumbles on about an all Ireland soccer team…the only way there’ll ever be enough “special” players in the “genepool” to make up a half-decent team..is to stretch the search parameters out a bit…
..
It’s a solid fact that Martin McGuinness, whether you like him or loathe him {and there are many of us who know only a little newspaper gossip about him} , for your own historical reasons , has the intuitive skills of leadership and statesmanship on display every time he appears on screen.
If we step back and take an unjaundiced look at his level of political skill and engagement it is easy to see how he can communicate easily with anyone from a queen to a dustman. This is obviously an innate talent that he possesses.. It has actually very little to do with his politics. It is a human skill like being a musician or a painter. It is something that a good conversationalist possesses.
By the look of things it is something that his Partner in Politics , Peter will never be able to master or have in his back pocket .He is too often found with a miasma of convoluted mixed messages , struggling manfully to pull his foot out of his mouth. This is not a contest. It’s just a sorry fact of life..
.. You might try and compare chalk with cheese.
Yes Paddykool it is all quite depressing that so many of our wonderful countrymen and women go un represented as the silent and seemingly timid majority.
I think many Nationalists and moderate unionists despaired when they saw NI21 dissolve away in a melee of political infighting that washed the hopes of many out to sea.
It is such a pity that such a bitter, unrepresentative organisation as the Orange Order has such a stranglehold over unionist politics here. If nothing substantial changes they may end up poisoning the political climate here for generations to come.
Some bad language here, and maybe best enjoyed after a drink or two but here’s American stand-up comedian Doug Stanhope
RJC ;
Still laughing ..That should join the list of clips and films including “the Art of Killing “. that should be compulsory viewing for every teenage school child..
these screenings should follow a thorough explanation as to how irony works of course ….Then the whole topic should be opened up for discussion .sure , the language is ripe at times , but it should also be explained that these are purely sounds and vocalisations that every sentient human animal should be capable of producing on an everyday basis….and possibly in many different languages
.It should be explained too that a thing such as a “bad” word does not actually exist . It is just a series of sounds that most adult humans can make if they put their mind to it…
The word “fuck” will never kill anyone, the way hatred might….
Class over for today…..