Tag: Belfast City Council

‘OPEN YOUR EYES’: Are loyalist paramilitaries mainly the UVF to blame for flooding the streets of Belfast with their drugs?.

http://seachranaidhe-irishandproud.blogspot.com/2022/09/open-your-eyes-are-loyalist.html

‘TUV fails in an attempt to block bid of hosting a cross-community event of the international Irish Trade festival ‘.

http://seachranaidhe-irishandproud.blogspot.com/2022/08/tuv-fails-in-attempt-to-block-bid-of.html

Part of the jointly orchestrated Loyalist campaign by the UDA/UVF against the Irish Language Act

‘Council survey shows support for new dual language street sign policy in Belfast ‘.

http://seachranaidhe-irishandproud.blogspot.com/2022/07/council-survey-shows-support-for-new.html

#AchtAnois

Police probe online paramilitary images

POLICE are investigating after an image was posted online showing a masked man apparently firing shots in tribute to a Socialist Republican in west Belfast.

“The final salute to comrade Harry O’Hara” – IRSP.

Photographs posted on Facebook by the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) – the politicial wing of the Irish National Liberation Party (INLA) – show masked men posing on a street with a picture of Harry O’Hara. Mr O’Hara, from Norglen Drive in the Turf Lodge area, died on February 28th and was buried in the City Cemetery earlier this month following Requiem Mass at Holy Trinity Church. Among death notices expressing sympathy at Mr O’Hara’s passing was one from “Connor Hughes, Cogús Republican Prisoners” in Maghaberry Jail.

West Belfast – INLA

The IRSP’s Belfast branch posted photos on Facebook of a “final salute to comrade Harry O’Hara”. It said “Harry was a loyal republican socialist and he will always be remembered with honour and pride by the Republican Socialist Movement” (RSM). The images show masked men dressed in paramilitay-style uniform posing beside candles and a photo of Mr O’Hara (copy of picture above). In one, a member of the group raises a gun above his head in a firing motion.

The images have been condemned by SDLP councillor Tim Attwood, who represents the area on Belfast City Council. “These are scenes which belong in the past. There is no excuse for masked gunmen on the streets of our city, no matter what the context,” he said. “This was a reckless act and should be roundly condemned.” A RUC/PSNI spokeswoman said: “Police are aware of footage on social media showing shots apparently being fired by a masked man in west Belfast. An investigation is under way.”

With many thanks to: John Monaghan, The Irish News, for the origional story.

VOTE TOMMY DOHERTY No1 RNU CANDIDATE FOR THE LOWER FALLS/NEW COURT WARD

I am the RNU candidate for the Lower Falls/New Court Ward in the forthcoming local council elections in May for Belfast City Council.

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The Court Ward consists of Springfield, Clonard, Falls, Divis, Grosvenor, Woodvale and Shankill.

My contact number: 07706736637

Twitter:@BeechmountSceal

Email address: TommyDohertyRNU@hotmail.com

PUP leader to be co-opted onto Belfast City Council

THE PUP’s Billy Hutchinson is to be co-opted on to Belfast City Council to replace alderman Hugh Smyth who is retiring after almost four decades as a councillor.

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Mr Smyth (72) is a former leader of the UVF-linked party and a central figure in loyalism who accepted an invitation to visit the PIRA prisoners in the Maze in the 1980s. The Shankill Road native is the longest serving member of Belfast City Council, having represented the Court electoral area, and is resigning due to I’ll health. The decision to co-op Mr Hutchinson is expected to be taken at next week’s full council meeting. Mr Hutchinson is a former North Belfast assembly member.

With thanks to: The Irish News.

Shame Fein unaware of who damaged City Hall toilets

Toiletgate who done it?

SHAME Fein has said it does not know who was responsible for causing damage to a urinal during a Christmas party at Belfast City Hall.

Toiletgate was it councillor Jim McVeigh or MLA Gerry (the mouth) Kelly? – Answers on a postcard please…..

Gerry (the mouthpeice) Kelly shows off his new gift from the lads at Belfast City Hall party

The party was responding after it was urged to provide a “full and frank public explanation” for the damage which was caused during a festive (knees up) function on December 20. DUP group leader Lee Reynolds said a urinal was pulled off a wall along with metal water pipes after a “confrontation” “spilled out” from Shame Fein’s “party room into the nearby men’s toilets“. The DUP man called for a “full investigation by council officials and the PSNI/RUC to ascertain what occurred and who was responsible”. Shame Fein councillor Jim McVeigh said “the celebration was enjoyed by all who attended”. “We do not know who was responsible for any damage or whether it was malicious or accidental,” he said. “Contrary to mischievous reports the toilets were not ‘smashed.’ “We will be only to happy to cooperate with any council investigation into the damage caused.” A spokesman for Belfast City Council said all enquires were being referred to Shame Fein. A spokesman for the PSNI/RUC said: “The incident has not been reported to police.”

https://www.facebook.com/Seachranaidhe/posts/572572382822540

With many thanks toto: Connla Young, The Irish News.

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THE WRITING’S ON THE WALL

Tensions rise as:

  • UVF gunman replaces Best in loyalist heartland mural

  • Nationalist residents say: No more parades past St Patrick‘s

  • £100,000 an hour bill for policing Twelfth is revealed.

A NATIONALIST group has called for loyalist parades to be rerouted away from St Patrick’s Church in central Belfast. Carrick Hill Concerned Residents ‘ Group ‘ which had previously said it did not require rerouting, made the call after repeated breaches of Parades Commission determinations.

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Last weekend Mass was interrupted when several bands taking part in a Royal Black Institution parade arrived back late and played The Sash outside. Parishioners said the priest could not be heard. The Donegal Steet route is used by numerous loyal order parades each year including the main Twelfth of July Belfast demonstration. In The Irish News today Frank Dempsey, a spokesman for the residents ‘ group, writes: “You cannot parade through nationalist areas and treat us residents and our church with contempt. “Therefore we are now calling on the Parades Commission to seriously consider rerouting these contentious parades away from our area and our church.” Tensions are also increasing within loyalism in east Belfast where a mural of football legend George Best, painted less than three years ago as part of a ‘reimaging’ programe, is being replaced with a painting of a masked UVF gunman. The painting at Inverwood Court was funded with European money as part of a regeneration project managed by Belfast City Council. Meanwhile, The Irish News has learned that policing the Twelfth of July this year cost £2.3 million – almost £100,000 per hour. The figure was an increase of £600,000 on last year. Half of the cost to taxpayers was made up of PSNI overtime, which was £1.1m for the single day.

‘The greatest cost of all is the social, political and economic caused by contentious parades – Alex Maskey.

Violence broke out in Belfast on the evening of the Twelfth demonstrations and contiued for several nights afterwards after the Parades Commission banned Orange Order members from walking past nationalist homes in Ardoyne. For the first time, PSNI officers were supported by hundreads of mutual aid officers from constabularies in England, Wales and Scotland. Officers came under fire from blast bombs, petrol bombs and other missiles. A total of 99 people were arrested, with 72 charged and 10 reportded to the Public Prosecution Service. However, while serious disorder continued for a number of days, the £2.3m figure is only for a one day policing operatin, on Friday, July 12. The figure is noticeably higher than the cost of the policing operation last year. The total cost of policing parades and associated public disorder on Thursday July 12 2012 into the early hours of Friday, July 13 was £1.7m. While half of this year’s £2.3m figure was made up of police overtime, it all includes the cost of mutual policing which was £534,000.

Just more than £545,000 was allocated to “other departments”, including finance and support services. Procurement and logistics cost £50,000, transport services cost £26,000 and part time district police officers cost £27,000. In addition, £51,000 was spent on duty police officers and £3,000 spent on other departments. DUP Policing Board member Jonathan Craig, who branded the Parades Commission, “a failed entity”, said the figure clearly showed that a “political solution must be found to the parading issue”. “I don’t think any of us will be at all surprised the cost has risen from last year, given the level and scale of violence that we have witnessed on the streets of Northern Ireland,” he said. Mr Craig described the decision to bring in mutual aid officers as a “strategic move” and said he intended to raise the issue at the next Policing Board meeting. “Is this the way to move forward with regard to reinforcing PSNI numbers or do they need to increase recruitment?” Sinn Fein assembly member Alex Mackey said his party believed that the true cost of policing July 12 this year was “more than the amount identified”. “There is an ongoing public expence araising from the policing operation of those who will not comply with the determination lof the Parades Commission I relation to the 12th July at Ardoyne,” he said. “However the greatest cost of all is the social, political and economic caused by contentious parades. “This cost is one which local communities affected, and our society as a whole can no longer be expected to pay.”

With many thanks to : Connla Young, Allison Morris and Marie Louise McCrory, The Irish News.

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CATHOLIC GRAVES DESECRATED IN SUSPECTED SECTARIAN LOYALIST ATTACK AT BELFAST CITY CEMETERY

‘I just can’t fathom how anyone could do this in the first instance and then get up the next day and not be wreaked by guilt and rremorse – Stevie Corr

GRIEVING ffamilies have been left “inconsolable” after vandals desecrated graves at a mixed West Belfast cemetery. Headstones and secured statues were smashed during the attack at City Cemetery on the Falls Road where up to 30 graves – including some belonging to children and some with the Celtic football crest – were targeted.

UVF protester desecrating the graves of the late Bobby Sands and Joe McDonnell.

The PSNI on Thursday night said officers would be stepping up patrols in the area around the cemetery. The damage, across a number of sections in the council-operated cemetery, was discovered on  Thursday morning by park staff. While some sites had headstones smashed and sacred statues broken, other mementos around the graves had also been vandalised. At one a birthday card left for a deceased loved one had been heartlessly ripped up. Falls Sinn Fein councillor Stevie Corr, who sits on Belfast City Council‘s Parks & Leisure committee, said he was “disgusted” by what had happened. Mr Corr said that while visiting the cemetery on Thursday he challeneged  a group of drinkers in the graveyard telling them they “needed to leave”. “I am totally disgusted by what’s happened and I just can’t fathom how anyone could do this in the first instance and then be wreaked by guilt and remorse by what they’ve done,” he said.

Mr Corr said damage to the graves of children had been the “most distressing”. He said he came across a mother and daughter on Thursday clearing up a family plot which had been targeted. Mr Corr said the pair were “inconsolable by what happened”. “We need to reinforce that this is a cemetery. This is a sacred place that aanti social elements should not be in,” he said. Mr Corr said he would be speaking to the council about additional security.

The latest vandalism comes on the back of a number of other incidents of antisocial behaviour at the cemetery site including a number of assaults. In November a 13-year-old boy was beaten unconscious by a gang armed with an iron bar as he walked through the cemetery because he had no mobile phone for them to steal. In the same month, a 15-year-old boy was treated for a head injury after being attacked near the entrance to the cemetery by five men armed with iron bars. The latest vandalism at the site is believed to have taken place between Tuesday and Wednesday last week. Police said last Thursday that they had been “liaising with Belfast City Council in relation to aantisocial behaviour issues in the area around the cemetery, in an effort to prevent anyone gaining access after hours”. They also appealed for members of the community “with a view of the cemetery from their homes” to contact the PSNI “if they notice anything untoward, so police can respond quickly”. Police on Thursday night appealed for anyone who had found a loved one’s grave damaged to contact them.

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ARDOYNE RESIDENTS WILL BE UNDER HOUSE ARREST !

This letter appeared in the Irish News on Monday June 17 2013

 THE Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (Garc) condemns in the estrongest terms the impending prosecution of Ardoyne residents set for July 9 2013 for merely being on the streets of Ardoyne on December 1 2012 at the time an Apprentice Boys Parade passed by.

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This draconian action must be condemned by all right-thinking people.These residents did not have any banners, placards or signs nor was there any shouting, chanting, heckling or any noise or sound of any kind. The residents did not cause any disturbance nor did they try to impede or disrupt the parade in any way. This development now means that Ardoyne residents cannot leave the confines of their of their home at the time of loyal order parades without fear of being prosecuted by the PSNI/RUC, and effectively places all Ardoyne residents under house arrest when loyal order pardes are scheduled.

This is a clear breach of the civil and human rights of Ardoyne residents and a blatant case of political policing. There has been a total failure by local nationalist politicians to defend the rights of Ardoyne residents and Garc calls on politicians in North Belfast and further afield to make public statements supporting the residents. The hollow words of PSNI/RUC chief constable Matt Baggot : “He is obliged by European human rights law to let people peacefully protest” or the words of First Minister Peter Robinson : “Only a tyrant would stop people from protest” shows yet again that the “city of equals in an island of equals” is no more than a meaningless slogan spouted by politicians to defend them for inaction in bringing a fair, just or impartial society and shows that there is no equality for Ardoyne residents as they are again treated as second-class citizens.

With thanks to : Aiden Ferguson, Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (Garc) Belfast BT14.

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