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 that there are moments in life when you have to take a stand and she along with Michelle O’Neill took their stand with the residents who were opposed to a Garvaghy Road march.
Then Carla Lockhart was interviewed. Carla indicated that the law should be obeyed – in other words, the parade should have been allowed to proceed. She suggested that the good people of the Garvaghy Road were being misled by other interested parties – to wit, Sinn Féin and others. She said she was willing to meet and talk with the real Garvaghy Road residents who are being misled and misrepresented. She didn’t mention Breandán Mac Cionnaith, who is presently the spokesman for the residents and who, back in the 1990s, was rejected by the Orange Order as a spokesperson, because of his conviction as an IRA volunteer in the 1980s. Maybe time has washed away his republican sins.
Finally, Mark Patterson asked Suzanne Breen of the Belfast Telegraph for her take on events. She said that the DUP and Jamie Bryson had handed Michelle O’Neill a totally open political goal, that Sinn Féin’s opinion poll ratings from this would soar, and that this was “a crocodile moment on stilts”.
I’ve never seen and can’t imagine a crocodile on stilts, but I think I get her meaning.
Finally, you have heard, I suppose, that Kneecap plan to visit the Garvaghy Road this evening. I imagine the residents and others will watch TV for a bit and then go to bed early.
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