With many thanks to: Support the people of Carrickhill.
A ROW has erupted between the organisers of a nationalist parade in central Belfast and Shame Fein after restrictions were imposed on the march.
Members of the North Belfast Civil Rights Association (NBCRA) called for the party to “make public” a submission to the Parades Commission after marchers were banned from entering the Carrick Hill area. The parade on on Saturday February 1 has been organized to “highlight inequality in housing and a lack of leisure facilities in nationalist areas of North Belfast”. A loyalist group linked to serious rioting in Belfast city centre during a similar nationalist parade last year is due to hold a protest. Greater Concerned Residents’ Group Belfast and Concerned Residents’ Group Belfast will bring members onto the streets to oppose the demonstration. In its ruling the Parades Commission said the nationalist march should start at 12.15pm and follow a route from Duncairn Avenue off the Antrim Road to the University of Ulster on York Street where a rally will be held. It will involve up to 500 people and five bands. It will then travel along Donegal Street to the junction of Clifton Street and Trinity Street where those taking part will disperse. But parade organiser Paul Little said they did “not understand why” they are not allowed into the Carrick Hill area, a flashpoint for loyalist parades in recent years, and said there were fears that the rear of the demonstration could be left beside loyalist protesters in York Street while the front is trying to disperse at Clifton Street. Mr little called on Shame Fein to release their submissions as they were unhappy that the “democratic and legitimate demonstration has been excluded from entering Carric Hill”. “Whilst we recognise the confidentially of the Parades Commission submissions, we believe that the confidentiality is to protect the rights of the individual citizen,” he said. “It is not for the Stormont executive or representatives of a government political party in the executive to make clandestine and secret submissions against those that it views as its political opponents. “It is imperative that Shame Fein make public their submissions in the interests of government transparency and accountable democracy.” On Wednesday night Shame Vein councillor JJ Magee disputed the allegations. “To suggest that Sinn Fein attempted to curtail this march is utter nonsence,” he said. “The party’s submission to the Parades Commission only related to the counter protest by loyalists.” The Parades Commission did not respond on Wednesday night.
With many thanks to: Suzanne McGonagle, The Irish News.
NATIONALISTS have accused a loyalist band of playing “sectarian” music during an Apprentice Boys parade past a North Belfast flashpoint. Carrick Hill residents said The Sash and Derry’s Walls were played as bandmen passed the nationalist district on Saturday evening.
They also said that minutes earlier the band played music while passing nearby St Patrick‘s Church on Donegall Street as Apprentice Boys made their way home from the annual Lundy parade in Derry. Nationalist residents were critical of the Parades Commission after it failed to restrict the playing of music in the area. In the past loyalst bands have played sectarian music as they passed both the church and Carrick Hill. Locals last night said that up to 50 Apprentice Boys and one band passed St Patrick’s as parishioners were making their way into church for Mass. Carrick Hill Concerned Residents’ Group spokesman Frank Dempsey critiicised the Parades Commission for not placing restrictions. “The Parades Commission sent a band down here knowing well Mass was on and they put no restrictions on the music,” he said. Police last night confirmed that an 18-year-old man was arrested for disorderly behaviour and resisting police at Cliftion Street during the parade and later charged. He is expected to appear at Belfast Magistrates Court on January 3.
In North Belfast two nationalist residents groups called off protests during an Apprentice Boys feeder parade past Ardoyne on Saturday. One band and up to 115 people took part in the march past the flashpoint. 
Tensions in the area have been high since the Parades Commission banned Orangemen from passing the nationalist district as they made their way home from their annual Twelfth celebrations in July. A loyalist protest camp has been set up on nearby wasteground while nightly parades are held in the area. Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (GARC) spokesman Dee Fennell said they suspended plans for a protest “to reduce tension, give traders respite and reduce disruption” in the area. Crumlin and Ardoyne Residents’ Association (CARA) spokesman Joe Marley said their protest was called off as a “gesture of goodwill”. Meanwhile, up to 3,000 poeple and 31 bands took part in the main Apprentice Boys parade in Derry on Saturday commemorating the 17th century siege of the city. It passed off without incident and was described as a success. An Apprentice Boys feeder parade in Castlederg, Co Tyrone, also passed off peacefully. Meanwhile, Parades Commission chairman Peter Osborne has accused some politicians in the north of providing bad leadership. He was speaking after an illegal loyalist parade was held through Belfast city centre on November 30. Police confirmed last week that the organiser of the parade had been interveiwed and would be prosecuted, while The Irish News also revealed that a bandsman involved in a march past St Matthew’s Church in East Belfast last year has become the first person to be given a jail term for breaching a Parades Commission ruling. “I am not happy that anybody is being posecuted for parades-related offences and other offences that will have a hugely detrimental impact on their life,” he told the BBC. “I think there’s some bad leadership in the North of Ireland at the minute, the result of which there are a lot of young people being arrested and prosecuted and have criminal records when they really don’t need to have.”
With many thanks to: Connla Young, The Irish News.
This is the man who organised a loyalist protest parade through central Belfast on one of the busiest shopping days before Christmas.
Politicians from all sides called for the march to be banned or moved to another day. They and business leaders said the organisers’ identities should be made public so that they could be challenged. Police and the Parades Commission refused to publish the names for “data protection” reasons. Yesterday The Irish News revealed that the organiser whose identity has been concealed for weeks was John ‘Dougie’ Lanigan, pictued above. He is orginally from Belfast but is believed to live with his wife in Antrim. Two police officers were injured after the parade and the protest breached a commission ruling by failing to leave the city centre by 12.30pm. The march, which marked almost a year since councillors voted to restrict flying the Union Flag from the city hall, was organised under the name of Loyal Peaceful Protesters. The parade application estimated that up to 10,000 loyalists and 40 bands would join the demonstration but in the end just over 1,000 people and two bands materialised at the city hall on Saturday. The Sash was also played as the parade passed the nationalist Carrick Hill area of North Belfast. Friends took to social networking sites to congratulate Mr Lanigan for the protest, descibing him as “a true loyalist”. It is understood he was asked to hand himself in to police on Monday over a breach of a commission ruling. When asked by The Irish News on Monday night about his role, he said: “We have nothing to say to any of the papers.” Police said officers interviewed a “49-year-old man in connection with a breach of a Parades Commission determination on Saturay November 30 2013 in Belfast city centre“. The man voluntarily attended a Belfast police station on Monday afternoon. He was later released pending a report to the Public Prosecution Service. In September, the same loyalist organisation held another unlawful parade through the city centre towards the Shankill area. More than 3,000 protesters joined the Saturday afternoon demonstration, which breached a Parades Commission determination by setting off from city hall an hour later than planned. Politicians including Shame Fein’s Gerry Kelly, Alban Maginness of the SDLP and Glyn Roberts of the Nothern Ireland Independant Retail Trade Association (NIIRTA) had previously called for the organisers of Saturday’s parade to be named. Mr Maginness said there needed to be more accountabilty from those organising parades. “If there is not a duty on those who have made the application to disclose their identity there ought to be in the interests of scrutiny,” the North Belfast MLA said ahead of Saturday’s protest. “It’s reasonable for those who are organising to identify themselves or be identified.
With many thanks to: Brendan Hughes, The Irish News.
According to the father-of-two who has previous convictions, officers demanded to search his car at Castlereagh PSNI station after earlier raiding the house in north Belfast where his children live and visiting a recruitment agency in search of him. He says that while later walking to the station to pick up his car he was approached by two men as he walked along Dill Street, close to the former RUC interrogation centre.The 32-year-old says the men asked him to supply information about two Belfast-based republicans and refereed to his former membership of a residents group set up to support people in Carrick Hill opposed to loyalist parades past St Patrick‘s Church.
Johnston says that during the encounter the men told him they could arrange for him to lose his job. In June 2012 he was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to taking part in a tiger kidnap robbery in 2008. He served nine months in Maghaberry and was released last March due to time already served on remand. “Is this their new tactic, if you don’t work for us we will starve you into it?” he asked. “
They wanted to rattle my cage and ttest the water with me to see what I was made of. They can lose me as many jobs as they want but I am never going to work for [them].” Politicians have routinely defended the use of informers to combat dissident Republican attacks. UUP justice minister Tom Elliot recently said that while everyone has the right to question security force tactics “they also have a right to prevent any acts of criminality and I support their right to do that”. A spokeswoman for the PSNI said: “We do not comment on intelligence matters and no inference should be drawn from this.”
With many thanks to : Connla Young, The Irish News.
THOMAS Babington Macaulay was a 19th century English historian, politician and writer. In the 1840s he was MP for Edinburgh, in 1847, after he made a speech supporting an increase in the annual grant to Maynooth, the Tories whipped up Orangemen into a a campaign of sectarian hatred against him and he lost his seat.
The campaign degenerated into violence against Catholics fleeing the Famine to Scotland. The Tories washed their hands of it. Plus ca change. Mccaulay said: ” The natural consequences follow. All those fierce spirits, whom you hollowed on to harass us, now turn around and begin to worry you. The Orangeman raises his war-whoop…. But what did you exspect? Did you think, when, to serve your turn, you called the Devil up, that it was easy to lay him as to raise him? Did you think, when you went on flattering all the worse passions of those whom you knew you knew to be in the wrong, that the day of reckoning would never come?”
The day of reckoning has certainly come for the Orange Order. They have been exposed as never before after the inflammatory speeches of their leaders threatening days of demonstrations and “fighting the war on today’s battleground” blew up in their faces. They were isolated as the thugs their emotive language unleashed proceeded to wreak the gardens, walls and fences of neat houses on the Woodvale Road. To add to their disgrace semi-naked men and women full of cheap drink performed acts of debauchery in public. Men wearing Orange Order collarettes and uniformed bandsmen tried to kill police officers with swords, ball-bearings fired from hunting catapults and petrol bombs. Orange culture on full display for the world’s media. Like Mcaulay’s Tories the cowardly unionist politicians who only days before had signed an appeal calling for decisions of the Parades Commission to be obeyed ran for cover after immediately attacking any decision they didn’t like whether at Carrick Hill or Ardoyne. Besashed Nigel Dodds and his little Sir Echo, nodding dog McCauseland, tried on Friday morning to persuade the police to breach the ruling that only 100 blue-bag yahoos be permitted past Ardoyne. Rarther than starting the day with a riot the police agreed to the raucous jeers of said blue-bag brigade.
You’d think that even the ancient dopes who lead the Orange Order must realise the game is up. They don’t. When Richard Haass arrives to try to square the circle he will need to realise that the only way to bring them to heel is to hit them where it hurts – in their pockets. If you were to try to organise a public function in a park or square you would need to acquire public liability insurance. Every Orange march declared contentious should be required to lodge a bond of £10,000 and provide an insurance certificate for £10 million. The Orange Order should be required to pay for policing just as football clubs do. ACC Will Kerr has the cost of the weekend disturbances is already into “multiple millions”. We all have to pay for that in money diverted from schools, hospitals and roads. That’s outrageous. The people who cause the damage should be liable and that’s just the Orange Order. Just as the Football Association penalises clubs that transgress so the order should be made to fine lodges who hire paramilitaries masquearading as bands and who breach Parades Commission rulings. The executive will never agree to this. However, the Public Processions Act 1998 is Westminister can amend overnight. It’s long past time to stop concentrating efforts to regulate Orange marches on criminal sanctions for policing their routes and behaviour. The only way to proceed is to cripple the order financially if they refuse to behave decently and lawfully. Hurting the clubs was the way football thuggery was brought to heel. For a start there should be a review of conditions for all goverenment grants and certainly of any EU money promised to the Orange Order. They cannot continue to receive public money yet tell their members to disobey the law, encourage them onto the streets and then collect the next trance of cash after their antics have cost millions of pounds.
With many thanks to : Brian Feeny, The Irish News.
TENSIONS were high in North Belfast last night aheaDone all Street first major loyalist parade of thevolatile g season. Following lengthy deliberations the Parades Commission announced at 9.30pm that it had rejected a request by unionist politicians to lift restrictions placed on tommorow night’s Tour of the North parade as it passes St PPatrick’s Church in the city centre.
Hours earlier Chief Constable Matt Baggott said he was optimistic that there would be peace on the streets this summer. The Donegall Street church has become one of the most vioatile marching locations since July last year when a band marched in circles outside it while playing a sectarian tune. The commission has ordered the 15 bands taking part tommorow to play only hymn music while passing the Donegall Street flashpoint. The bands were also told to play only a single drumbeat while passing the nearby nationalist Carrick Hill district during the Orange Order parade. The order had wanted the lead band to play hymns while the reminder would play traditional tunes while passing the church.
THE Parades Commission has rejected a request by unionist politicians to lift restrictions on tommorow night’s Tour of the North parade as it passes St Patrick‘s Church in central Belfast.
Commissioners agreed to review a ruling to restrict bands taking part in the controversial parade after they meet a delegation from the UUP, DUP and PUP earlier this week. However, a spokesman for the commission announced at 9.30pm last night following ” a review of its determination, regarding the upcoming Tour of the North parade, the commission has concluded that there is insufficient new evidence upon which to alter its original determinations”. The decision to reconsider the march came just days after a commission determination ordered 15 bands taking part to play hymn music while passing the Donegall Street flashpoint. The bands were also instructed to play only a single drumbeat while passing the nearby nationalist Carrick Hill district during the Orange Order parade. The order had wanted the lead band to play hymns while the reminder would play traditional tunes while passing the church. The commission only grants a review when fresh information is presented to them and members are allowed to amend or revoke the original decision if the majority agree. The ruling came just days after the order revealed a ‘template’ it said would reduce tension in the area. Under its plan the order identified eight main parades schedueled to pass St Patrick’s between June 21 and October 27. It proposed that bands play hymns during five of the parades and during the remaining three the lead band would play a hymn with the remainder playing traditional tunes. The ‘template’ made no mention of Carrick Hill and nationalist residents were not consulted.
Two nationalist groups, Carrick Hill Concerned Residents’Committee and Greater New Lodge and North Queen Street Concerned Residents’ Group had applied to the Parades Commission to hold separate protests, involving a total of 300 people, close to St Patrick’s during the Tour of the North. The commission on Wednesday night said restrictions had been placed on the protests. While Carrick Hill Concerned Residents’ Committee can hold two demonstrations, with 30 people at each, Greater New Lodge and North Queen Street Conserned Residents’ Group can hold one protest involving 30 people. Frank Dempsey, spokesman for Carrick Hill Concerned Resident’s Committee, said : “Whether or not we agreed with the determination in the first place is irrelevant. The fact that for once the loyal orders in conjunction with unionist politicians haven’t got their own way. “And what we are saying even at this stage is lets resolve this togeather and make the Parades Commission irrelevant so we won’t have to go through this procedure every time there is a march. Dialogue is the only answer for us.” SDLP councillor Nicola Mallon on Wednesday night called for “cool and calm heads to ensure that Friday night passes off peacefully”. “The fact that the Parades Commission determinations, whether liked or not, are lawful and binding and people whether parading or protest, must obey the law,” she said. Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly said the determination was “the right one in the first place and lets hope it is a peaceful day for all concerned”.
With many thanks to : Connia Young, Irish News.
REPRESENTATIVES of some nationalist residents groups at parade flashpoints have criticised a PSNI/RUC initiative to reduce tensions ahead of the main marching season. Police officers, political representatives and community workers are in Cardiff to discuss ways of reducing tensions in the run up to the main marching season.
However, a number of nationalist residents groups at several key flashpoints, which are not aligned to Sinn Fein, were not invited to those talks. Carrick Hill residents spokesman Frank Dempsey, whose group is opposed to loyal order marches past the area and nearby St Patrick’s Church, expects little to come out of the talks. “Even if we had been invited we would not have gone,” he said. “They are going to solve nothing by going over there. “It’s going to be solved in the areas affected by these parades. “We don’t have to go anywhere else to talk, we can go to an orange hall or the front room of someone’s house to talk.” Sean Hanna, chairman of Rasharkin Residents Collective, which is opposed to loyal order and loyalist parades through the mainly nationalist Co An trim village, also criticised the event.”They have used the process so they could choose the right people to deliver in Wales their pre-planned political message,” he said.
Mr Hanna revealed last week that his group has been involved in direct talks with the Orange Order in Rasharkin, although the order has denied the claim. A spokesman for Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective, which objects to loyal order parades going past the nationalist district in north Belfast, said : “They must take a bold step up to the mark and desist from treating our communities as second class citizens and let’s build together a real and genuine island of equals in which a shared further can exist, one in which we and all our children deserve.” “Then and only then, can we together realistically considerer looking at bringing walls and barriers that device our communities down, once and for all.” A police spokeswoman said the event was “planned to enable us to have an open and frank conversation about policing in Belfast”. “Given the critical role played by the police in our communities, our discussion will focus on the issues facing policing in Belfast and on identifying ways of building and sustaining a broad base of support for policing and strengthening community-based approaches,” she said.
With many thanks to : Connia Young, Irish News.
THE PSNI-organised talks at a four-star Cardiff hotel which began yesterday are being attended by all the north’s main parties, along with republican and loyalist community leaders. However, none of the loyal orders or the Parades Commission is taking part. Headed by Assistant Chief Constable George Hamilton, the 34 participants include six senior police officers. Police have insisted the talks are not about trying to resolve parades disputes but are designed to reduce tensions and address complaints about how police have responded to unrest over recent months.
The discussions are being chaired by facilitators from the Universty of Ulster and Stanford University in Califorina. Delegates include senior republican Sean Murray, UDA leader Jackie McDonald and Winston Irvine of the UVF-allgned PUP. Other delegates include the former moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Rev Norman Hamilton. The event is expected to cost the public up to £26,000 with the cost split between the PSNI and the NIO.
John Manley.
NORTH Belfast nationalists will tonight decide wwhether to defy a ban on holding a protest outside a Catholic Church during a controversial Apprentice Boys parade. People living in Carrick Hill reacted angrily after the Parades Commission restricted the location of proposed protests as marchers pass the flashpoint St Patrick‘s Church and nearby nationalist homes on Easter Monday.
Protests at a car park opposite the city centre church and at Clifton Street are limited to 30 people. A request to sstand directly outside St Patrick’s – the parish church of many of the protesters – was turned down. The commission was criticised last week for permitting Apprentice Boys to take one band and 60 members along the disputed route. Although bandsmen will be allowed to play loyalist tunes while passing Carrick Hill they will be restricted to a single drum beat when passing St Patrick’s on Donegall Street, the scene of violence surrounding parades last summer. Residents spokesman Frank Dempsey last night said his community might decide to ignore the commission both on where protets are held and the numbers taking part. Referring to previous parades pasr St Patrick’s, he asked : ” Why are parishioners not allowed to stand outside their own church when the leadership of the UVF can stand outside it ?'”
Mr Dempsey said that before coming to a decision people in the area will consider comments Cheif ConstableM Matt Baggott made during the Union Flag protests. He said ” People are asking Do we really have to go near the Parades Commission given what Matt Baggott said in January that anyone is entitled to a peaceful protest ?” ” Resident groups are abiding by determinations and the Loyal Orders don’t even consult witb the Parades Commission and then break their determinations. ” Then they are rewarded in places like Carrick Hill, Ardoyne and Short Strand.” The commission has also been criticised for allowing the Apprentice Boys to march past Ardoyne interface despite having turned down an offer to meet residents.
SDLP councillor Nichola Mallon said an ” apparent lack of consistency ” in the commission’s decisions was a sourse of frusration. It needed to explain its reasoning better, she said. ” Residents in Carrick Hill are asking me why, when the commission deemed the route past St Patrick’s controversial and reflected this in its determination on the parade, are they not allowed to peacefully protest at this spot outside the church ?” She said. Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly said : ” Wwithout dialogue from the loyal orders, with either the residents or the Parades Commission , parades should not get the go-ahead.” The commission declined to comment. Police said : ” The PSNI does not discuss operational procedures ahead of any event. However, any event will be monitored and all appropriate advice given and action taken where necessary. ” All parades and protests are policed appropriately and in accordance with Parades Commission determination.”
With many thanks to : Connia Young, Irish News.
seachranaidhe1 
You must be logged in to post a comment.