Francie Molloy, former Sinn Féin MP, has done a very daring thing: he has linked the failure to complete the A5 with the Ulster Plantation.
“It hasn’t delivered the A5 because courts have come in the way and people using the courts to obstruct a political process,” he said. “In the A5 you have an obstruction from the landowners, the people who have got this land originally under strange circumstances in some cases, they’re the people who are now blocking any development.”
Journalists prodded him to say more, so Francie did:: “Remember this all goes back to the Plantation of Ulster if you want to go back into the history of it.”
Consternation in the chicken coop. A Sinn Féin representative tooted “Francie Molloy does not represent Sinn Féin.”
Jim Allister squawked “Molloy’s outburst this morning takes some beating. It’s just, of course, another sectarian incarnation of ‘Brits Out’.”
The DUP’s West Tyrone MLA, Thomas Buchanan, told Sinn Féin “to stop blaming 1609 for A5 failure”. He added that “unattainable net zero targets” supported by Sinn Fein had blocked the scheme as well as “serious failures” in the treatment of landowners.
Wow – that’s one upset henhouse.
The first question is (or should be): is Francie Molloy historically accurate about the land on the A5 route? Was that land part of the mass seizure that was called the Plantation of Ulster? No question. It happened a long time ago, but it happened. Francie Molloy tracing that line has nothing to do with sectarianism. Although you’ll notice that Thomas Buchanan is clearly on the side of the landowners – they have been “seriously failed” in their treatment. Thomas doesn’t elaborate on that, but he clearly lines up with the landowners. Probably because they’re all Sinn Féin voters and Thomas is keen to protect their rights to have no damn road running through their farms, even if it does mean they get compensation and of course Thomas is standing shoulder to shoulder with those clever people who don’t want the planet to burn. Right?
Did the Ulster Plantation hand these lands to Protestant planters? I’m not sure but I notice that neither Jim nor Thomas denies that it did. Are the present owners of the land holding up the building of the A5? I don’t know but I’d guess Yes. Will failure to build the A5 mean more people will meet their death on that road? For sure. Since 2006, 59 people have died on that road.
There are people delaying the building of this road and I suggest they should be wearing a t-shirt everywhere they go, with a picture of a victim of the road, with dates of birth and death, and the words ‘Nothing to do with me’ ,underneath. Alternatively, they could have a pic of Francie Molloy on their front and back with the words “Will no one rid us of this turbulent republican?”
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