Shameless about centenaries (and a book)

St Patrick's Church and 29 September: an old, old story

Carrick Hill Memorial Garden

Ree-diculous, all this brouhaha about the bands marching past St Patrick’s Church on 29 September. Don’t you think? One side says we’ve a perfectly good right to march and anyway we’ve talked to the priest and parishioners, the other side says you haven’t talked to us and we’re the residents. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, eh? Tit for tat and no resolution.

Except it’s nothing of the sort. This is a very old story going back for years:  not the marching past the church bit, but who the loyal orders, particularly the Orange Order, are prepared to talk to . Remember Drumcree and the Garvaghy Road? The Orangemen wouldn’t talk to residents because they didn’t like Breandan Mac Cionnaith. Change your leader/spokesman, they told the residents, and we’ll think about it.

Eh? Change your spokesman? Can you think of anything more high-handed?  Normally groups choose their own leaders or spokespeople. It’s called representation – a form of democracy. But the loyal orders don’t buy that. Not only will they choose their own leaders, they’ll choose those for the opposing side. In this case they’ve decided that the opposing side’s spokespeople will be the local priest and his parishioners.

 I expect there was a time when that kind of proviso washed with the nationalist/republican community, because they felt powerless to do other. That day, however, is dead. Very dead. And know what?  It ain’t going to  do a Lazarus. So the Orange Order and such other groupings had better get used to the funny notion of nationalists/republicans wanting the same basic – very basic – rights as any other grouping: to decide who speaks for them.

And if that means the OO and its ilk will go all huffy and take their ball and go home, so be it. Speaking personally, I can’t understand why Carrick Hill residents’ spokespersons like Frank Dempsey can say they have no objection in principle to loyal order marches, because I have. Yes, it’d be better if these various orders did their tootling and drumming far away from people who don’t want to hear it. But it would be better still the tootling and drumming and dressing up didn’t occur at all, because, certainly in the case of the Orange Order, it is built on a history and ordinances that are – yes, I know I’ve said it before but the need to say it again and again and again keeps on cropping up – anti-Catholic. What’s more, if I were a unionist, not only would I stay miles away from such organizations, I’d be urging them to pack it in and go home, because with every provocative march and with every refusal to talk to the people involved they’re digging a deeper and deeper hole into which they are plunging, taking unionism with them.  

I'm sorry?

It's that old apology thing again.  I was on the Nolan Show this morning with Gregory Campbell, discussing Peter Robinson's call for an apology from Enda Kenny to the families of those who died in the Kingsmill massacre. This really is a very old and painful chestnut.

If the families of those bereaved get solace from an apology, I'd be all for it. Anything that makes their pain more bearable must be welcome. Logically, however, I've never understood apologies. David Cameron to the Bloody Sunday families, David Cameron to the Liverpool fans, Tony Blair for An Gorta Mor - the Famine - surely 'Sorry' is what you say when you bump against someone on a bus, not when loved ones have been killed. Besides, neither Cameron nor Blair nor Kenny have anything to apologise for - they weren't responsible for Bloody Sunday/Hillsborough, the Famine or Kingsmill. It makes as much sense as your next door neighbour punching you in the teeth and then you get an apology from me.

But as I say, if an apology makes those affected feel better, by all means give it. But make sure the apologies go to all the victims. The day before the Kingsmill massacre, five Catholics were shot dead (a sixth died a month later) by what was known as the Glenanne gang - a group of loyalist extremists, British soldiers and rogue RUC men. The Pat Finucane Centre research claims the Glenanne gang were behind a total of 87 killings, including the Miami Showband killing, the Reavey and O'Dowd killings a day before Kingsmill, and the Dublin/Monaghan bombings. It'd be important, as I'm sure Peter Robinson appreciates, for apologies to go to the loved ones of those victims too. Especially given the involvement of state forces.

The topless Duchess

How do I feel about the Duchess of Cambridge's bosom being exposed to a camera lens and made available to the public? Amused, mainly. And impressed. Not by her bosom (I haven't actually seen it) but by the chutzpah of her and her husband in presenting themselves as victims. You live a life of unimaginable luxury, much of it at public expense, and then you lament the use of a camera lens and expect sympathy.  Have these people lost their minds? Or has the great British public lost its?

The parallels, of course, are being drawn with William's mother and her relationship with the media  - to wit, that they in the end killed her. But they also gave her life while she lived. Their willingness to follow Diana's every movement and listen to her every word was exactly what she wanted, even if that was complicated by the fact that she was at the time having a right royal scrap with the Windsors. It's a nice tabloid notion, of a saintly princess being hounded to her death by crazy photographers, but frankly I don't buy it. Any more than I buy the notion of Kate Cambridge being a sweet little victim of a monstrous media.  The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference, Elie Wiesel reckoned. The royals know that; they live their feather-bedded lives by it.

Who dat?

No post today - just a teaser. Identify all the faces on this book cover.  Results tomorrow.

Liverpool and sorry and justice for all?

One of the most moving sights on TV in recent days has been the families from Liverpool whose loved ones were killed at Hillsborough so long ago.  I don't understand it but it does seem that David Cameron saying he's deeply sorry in the British House of Commons means quite a bit to them. As did his almost word-for-word apology to the Derry families who lost loved ones on Bloody Sunday. The one difference that strikes me is that the apology was followed almost immediately by talk of justice by was it Cameron or Clegg. Frankly, that sounds more like it. Your loved one died a cruel and unnecessary death,  decades later someone says "Oh, sorry" - and that's it?  The families in Liverpool shouldn't have to call for justice - the state should deliver justice without being asked.

You'll have noticed too I expect that Cameron's word-for-word to the Derry families stopped short of the word "justice".  Is that a way of saying that relatives of innocents killed by the stupidity and incompetence of higher-ups in the South Yorkshire police force are more deserving of justice than relatives of innocents killed, not by stupidity and incompetence of higher-ups in the British army (and beyond), but by the deliberate actions and commands?  Not to mention the almost identical cover-up in both cases. I find it hard to believe that the fair-minded British public  (they are fair-minded, aren't they?) wouldn't demand justice for the Liverpool families and the Derry families. But I can't recall hearing any such demands.

Meanwhile, An Taoiseach today met with those families who lost loved ones in the Kingsmill massacre. They too deserve justice. As do the families who lost loved ones in the Dublin/Monaghan bombs.  But it seems that some barbaric acts are more worthy of attention than others. What's it called? Ah yes. A hierarchy of victims. The law is a ass and justice is a joke.

Getting tangled up in Rory and other mishaps

Ha ha haha haaaaaa! Pardon me while I split some sides. I've been listening to BBC Radio Ulster/Raidio Uladh  and I've just had the best two laughs I've had in weeks.

The first was from, I think, sports reporter Stephen Watson, and I think - pardon me Stephen if I'm wrong - but I think he was saying that the southern media didn't report on players this side of the border who were competing in the colours of Team GB. 'Strewth!  He's probably right. But has he thought about the fact that Radio Ulster/Raidio Uladh and BBC Northern Ireland reported on Irish players only if  they're from this side of the border? What's more,  when they do report on athletes north of the border,  they sorta gliiiide past the fact that these athletes are competing in the colours of Ireland.  A passing Martian might be forgiven for thinking there was a Team NI competing in the Paralympic Games and that they were being very successful. Mind you, that doesn't excuse RTÉ if what Watson says is true; but it's still a hilarious case of the pot getting all hot and bothered about the kettle's blackness.

The other laugh I had? Again, step forward Stephen Watson, although you were merely repeating the words of Pádraig Harrington (who I remember years ago on BBC Radio 4  being described as a 'crazy guy with a crazy name').  Stephen was coping this time with what is pretty obviously Rory McIlroy's intention to move from Team Ireland to Team GB for the Rio Olympics four years down the line, because Rory says "he has always felt more British than Irish". Fair enough - it's his choice not to answer Ireland's Call. (Sorry, I had to get that one in. And btw, wasn't it kind of awful  watching Phil Coulter at that celebration for John Hume, urging the audience to join him in singing his absurd replacement for the Irish national anthem?) Where was I? Oh yes. Stephen Watson was quoting approvingly Padraig Harrington's interpretation of Rory's switch of allegiances: it was actually great, apparently, because it meant there was another place for someone from Ireland to compete in the Rio Olympics. So from being a cheers-lads-I'm-with-the-Brits thing,  it became a it's-a-far-far-better-thing-I-do-now thing. Which meant that those Irish people who might feel pissed off with Rory's switch of allegiance were misreading the situation, cos Rory was actually leaving the Irish golf team for the good of Team Ireland.  Oh God, stop, would you, Stephen, I think I'm finding it hard to breathe.  Who said sport and laughing your arse off don't mix? Jimmy Magee?