Kincora…Nearer To The Truth?

Posted on July 17, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

Kincora…is a story that hangs over Norn Iron like a cloud.

It is one of those “even the dogs in the street know” stories. The story is well known and the REAL story…is the subject of Speculation.

Kincora was a “boys home” operated by Belfast Council and latterly the Eastern Health and Social Services Board. In the early 1980s three members of staff were imprisoned for sexual abuse of children in their care. A sad an common enough story anywhere in the world but what makes Kincora different is one of the jailed paedophiles was William McGrath. McGrath was the self-styled leader of a little known loyalist paramilitary group called “Tara”. McGrath was an Orangeman and seemingly well connected.

The abuse at Kincora led to some speculation of prominent unionist politicians and British civil servants being visitors to the home. Essentially there are TWO allegations. The first is that a paedophile ring was operating from the home. The second is that William McGrath worked for (or was protected or blackmailed) by British Intelligence…so that they could get information on loyalist activity in the area or blackmail the prominent unionist visitors.

Some years later, a former (British) Intelligence Officer, Colin Wallace claimed that the British had some “Black Ops” activities in Norn Iron. Wallace, however has an axe to grind…he was imprisoned himself for a (domestic).murder after he retired from the Army.

Two Enquiries into events at Kincora have been inconclusive.

The questions arise.

Would the British (or indeed ANY) Intelligence Service recruit paedophiles, blackmail paedophiles or use paedophilia as a means of gaining “Intelligence”? I think the answer is YES OF COURSE.There are dark arts in Intelligence and Ministers…those nominally accountable…are not made aware of (and dont want to know) anything incriminating.

But oddly Kincora…and its cloak of secrecy determined by a vague “not in the public interest” mantra has re-surfaced as a news story.

Britain…has recently set up an Inquiry to look into an “Establishment” cover up into paedophilia in England and Wales. A long deceased Conservative MP was regularly on the News in the 1980s, claiming that paedophilia was rife at the heart of the British Establishment….Westminster itself. A dossier he presented to the Conservative Home Secretary of the time has “gone missing” along with other related files. The suspicion is that these files were seen by British Intelligence who were protecting sources.

And there is some circumstantial evidence to support this.A prominent Liberal Party MP of the day…”Sir” Cyril Smith was a somewhat larger than life (literally he was obese) figure…a roly poly figure exuding bonhomie and good common sense befitting his constituency of Rochdale in Greater Manchester.

Yet before Smith rose to national prominence there was allegations of child abuse when he was merely a member of Rochdale Council. Whistleblowers and Victims and honest policemen were ignored and there is an alegation that the local police were later required to hand over their files to “Intelligence” in London.

And certainly when allegations about Smith were put to the Liberal (later Libberal Democrat) Party, they seemed to take his interest in young boys with much less concern than they would in 2014.

It is a familiar pattern. Over at the BBC, larger than life “Sir” Jimmy Saville was a paedophile but his employers curiously unaware or powerless to act. Whistleblowers, victims (often from care homes and hospitals) and honest policemen were ignored.

Smith and Saville both became National Treasures…that curious phrase that the English have for the undeservedly loved. Both became knights of the English Realm. Indeed Saville was even a knight of the Vatican. Both are now dead and have escaped imprisonment….but for too long tolerated in Society.

Indeed as the truth emerges about Smith and Saville, they are oddly sinister figures who “hid in plain sight”. Just like other National Treasures, Stuart Hall (in his 80s and in jail) and Rolf Harris (also in his 80s and now in jail). How did Hall hide in plain sight operating from the BBC in Manchester or that Harris could be invited to paint a portrait of Mrs Elizabeth Windsor (aka the “Queen”) and even present a TV programme for children…advising them how to beware of predators.

The British Establishment is a strange thing. Didnt the Russian spy “Sir” Anthony Blunt get rewarded for his treason by being appointed as Curator of the “Royal” Art Collection.?

Do we really live in a less deferential age? I doubt it. But odd that the Judge, appointed to look into the Establishment cover ups of paedophilia has herself stood down. She is the sister of the now deceased “Lord” Havers, who was the Conservative Attorney General when much of this was going on. And even more odd that she stands down because she did not (initially) take the feelings of victims into consideration.

There are two reasons why a Government sets up a Judicial Inquiry. To establish the Truth or cover it up.

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Féile…West Belfast Festival

Posted on July 15, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

So Féile starts in two weeks. The West Belfast Festival.

On 9th August 1971, Internment Without Trial was introduced. That night, the Ballymurphy Massacre took place. For some years afterwards, the anniversary was marked by often intense rioting in West Belfast. The Festival has its origins in trying to turn the anniversary into something more positive. It is my recollection that the first year (mid 1970s) featured a Football (Soccer) Tournament. I myself played in that Tournament.

For some years, I defended Féile against accusations that it was a “Provo” event. Previous Directors of the Festival have included Caitriona Ruane (current Sinn Féin MLA for South Down) and even more recently, Danny Morrison a former Sinn Féin MLA and their former Senior Press Officer).

I attended part of the Launch last Thursday and there were a lot of Sinn Féin worthies in attendance. No great surprise. The current Westminster MP is a Sinn Féin member, Sinn Féin hold five of thesix Assembly seats in West Belfast (SDLP hold the sixth) and May’s Council Elections confirmed that the Party holds the lions share of the West Belfast seats on Belfast City Council.

West Belfast IS a Sinn Féin fiefdom. They would claim they deserve it. Certainly they have a finger in every pie and want to preserve that status. They appear to be using the Festival to further embed themselves into West Belfast life.

Féile The headline acts next month are the Kaiser Chiefs (music) and Jason Mountford the English stand up comic.

But there is a lot of good stuff….music, drama, comedy, art…most of it a bit “lefty” and some of it a bit pretentious.

For the political anorak, there is a lot of interesting stuff. The showpiece is “West Belfast Talks Back”. This is essentially a Question and Answer session, chaired by BBC journalist, Noel Thompson. The only confirmed panellist so far, is John O’Dowd, Sinn Féin Education Minister. To shw their open-ness and to celebrate Diversity, there will likely be a unionist politician, a Protestant clergyman and/or an English politician.

The “junior” version “Belfast Youth Talks Back” …confirmed panellists Stephen Corr, a SF Councillor and Anna Lo, Alliance MLA for South Belfast.

You might well say that this invalidates the point I made that Sinn Féin has a one-party state in West Belfast but lets be frank…the Alliance Party or any unionist politician is irrelevant in West Belfast. I wonder if Sinn Féin or any Committee member at Féile would be so happy giving a platform to…their only rival in West Belfast…SDLP.

Interestingly SDLP sponsored an event last year. A highly successful one on Victims. Even Danny Morrison and his hat (he has a very big hat) sat thru that ……in sullen silence.

But this year……..no SDLP event. Why not? Well on Thursday, I heard two versions. One version has it that SDLP did not submit an event for the programme. The other version has it that no political party can sponsor an event. I will make further enquiries of course.

Other interesting things…a lecture on the Wild Geese, the Irish regiments who fought in Europe, before and after the Treaty of Limerick in 1692, a Palestine Day, a lecture on Leonard Peltier…and the unveiling of a bust to Bobby Sands in the Felons Club. The man doing the honours will be Gerry Adams TD….an event, which certainly appears “party political”.

As always Amnesty International will be sponsoring an event. As always it will be a love-in between Amnesty and local journalists. In the chair will be Malachi O’Doherty. The subject will be “Human Rights and Investigative Journalism”. Quite properly, there will be reference to the horrible injustice of journalists jailed in Egypt….but wouldn’t it be nice if Malachi mentioned that Andy Coulson and other British journalists are rightly in prison for infringing the rights of others thru phone hacking.

All in all …a good ten days in prospect.

 

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And Now For Some Orange Culture

Posted on July 14, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

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If It’s The Fourteenth…It Must Be The Thirteenth.

Posted on July 14, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

So welcome to Monday 14th July 2014.

Or as we call it here the Thirteenth.

The Twelfth is really a three day event. The Eleventh Night Bonfires, the Twelfth Parades….and the Thirteeth is the big day for the Royal Black Perceptory. Dont ask me what makes them so different from the Orange Order. I think they are not just good Christian gentlemen…they are ELITE good Christian gentlemen. I think membership is by “invitation” but to be honest I know as little about them as I need to know.

And all I know is that around these parts, they have a big day out at Scarva House …about seven miles away and for as long as I can remember BBC and UTV have had news footage of the Sham Fight…the highlight of the day.

Two men on horses dressed as King William of Orange and his general Schomberg confront two other men on horseback, King James and General Sarsfield. About a dozen men in orange shirts and another dozen in green shirts carry carry noisy imitation firearms. There is an Orange standard bearer and a Green standard bearer.

At the end of the Sham Fight, King James yields to King William. And the Green Standard is shot thru in front of a baying mob, including many children.

For this is TRADITIONAL. This is…CULTURE.

Being strict Sabatarians, the Thirteenth is never on a Sunday.

Yet oddly the Thirteenth, I remember most is Monday 14th July 1980. Then I was living in Dungannon and had just been in Dublin to pick up my tickets etc to fly to Moscow for the Olympic Games, a week later. I had spent the weekend in Dublin because ….well it was a good chance to get out of the North for all the Twelfth crap.

One of the items I picked up in Dublin was a Green, White and Orange airline bag. And at about 4.30pm on Monday 14th July, I got off the train in Portadown and walked down the station steps to Woodhouse Street at the entrance to the Tunnel …to find I had a reception committee. Crowds of Orange supporters on either side of the narrow street and all seemed to be staring at me…and the airline bag. Worse to my left…a parade was advancing.

To his immense credit, a veteran member of the RUC came over to me and simply asked me if I was a stranger and I said I was going to Dungannon and he personally escorted me to Fair Green, the badly named waste ground that served as a bus “station”. Being a Bank Holiday, there was no Dungannon bus until 6.10 pm and I spend a very uncomfortable ninety minutes sitting on my overnight bag and airline bag, while occasional, drunken Orange followers roamed about looking for Taigs.

The Parade had just got off the coaches from nearby Scarva. And were exercising their traditional right to march thru the Tunnel (officially called Obins Street), the small Catholic ghetto in Portadown. I dont know if there was trouble on that day but certainly on many occasions in the 1080s and 1990s as Catholic Residents became less submissive and more vocal, there was occasional violence…eventually leading to the Parade being banned from the area. This was probably the first Parade that the Orange Order “lost”.

And Garvaghy Road….also in Portadown came later. On Drumcree Sunday…a Church service is held at Drumcree Church of Ireland Church. The Sunday before the Twelfth, local Orange men claimed the right to march along the “Catholic” road on their return from Church.

Progressively in the 1990s, Garvaghy became a scene of stand-off and violence but it no longer became a sustainable argument for Orangemen when roads were closed all over Norn Iron and on occasions, people were murdered. Including a local taxi driver, who I vaguely knew. But the deaths of three young children, the Quinn Brothers, victims of a petrol bomb attack on their home (1998) ended any prospect of the Orangemen getting down Garvaghy Road again.

The Garvaghy Road is probably a turning point in Orange History. They miscalculated that the Government or Gobvernment created body like the Parades Commission, would respond to Orange pressure by simply folding. Indeed Garvaghy and Ormeau Road (parades now similarly banned because of Orange misbehaviour and arrogance) which are behind Orange outrage that their CULTURE is under attack from Nationalists.

They have “lost” The Tunnel. They have “lost’ Garvaghy Road. They have “lost” Ormeau Road in South Belfast. They have in the past, played Ardoyne badly. I suspect that the Norn Iron Office, Parades Commission, PSNI want to throw them a bone. I would expect that there are….ahem…intermediaries (academics, churchmen) who are involved in negotiations.

Watch this space.

 

 

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I Don’t Want To Appear Cynical But…

Posted on July 13, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

So the Twelfth went well. No Violence.

And people including Gerry Kelly MLA (Sinn Fein) and Alban Magennis MLA (SDLP), the Chief Constable of PSNI, and Duncan Morrow take to the airways and Twitter to congratulate everybody concerned. Even Niall O’Donghaille (SF) whose effigy was burned on a bonfire was much more understanding than I would have been.Curiously I think that everything went well because it was SUPPOSED to go well.

If things had not been meant to go well…things would have turned out very differently.

So I suspect that all the main players were fully aware …from early in the week…that it would turn out well. There are enough “academic facilitators” to do the negotiating.

This looks like the weekend that the Orange Order needed “something”. Brownie points to take to the next meeting of the Parades Commission. It looks to me that they will feel that they have earned some credit and that the next difficult decision will go their way. Maybe it is already signalled and that it will be left to the Ardoyne residents to deal with a reversal.

While DUP and Sinn Fein pay lip service to their own communities, portraying the “others” as villains …and getting votes on that basis….they know that they cannot win every round, without damaging the sham of the political process they are involved in.

They may hate each other. But they need each other. Too much power and too many salaries depend on it.

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The Morning After The Night Before

Posted on July 12, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

It seems to me that the Eleventh is the New Twelfth.

Forty years ago, we used to sit in a front bedroom of our house in the Upper Springfield Road in West Belfast. After midnight, we had a view across the City……….and we could see the Orange bonfires ablaze. They were in the Donegall Road area.

It was always the case that Orange Bonfires had Catholic religious icons blazing. And of course effigies of the Pope and of course the National Flag of Ireland. We could hear the Lambeg Drums beating but could never really hear the actual Orange songs…just a general noise.

This was always how it was on the night before those good Christian gentlemen in their good suits and bowler hats paraded with oh so much respectability on the Twelfth. And all covered the next morning by “Colonel” Jimmy Hughes at the BBC. Of course occasionally the mob passed by…..usually the women folk…the “Orange Lils” in their Union Jack dresses and carrying the Union Jack brollies……….and singing along to the “Kick The Pope” bands which were often imported from Scotland for the day.

The BBC tried manfully to ignore the worst excesses of Orange bands and followers but the bottom line is that the Orange Order cannot detach itself from its wilder element. In fairness this was Belfast (and with Portadown or Lisburn or Ballymena) this might be the worst kind of Orange-ism and that the nicer Orangemen in County Tyrone and County Fermanagh might be a bit embarrassed by it all.

But when Orangemen talk of Culture…well there is this highly unofficial side of Hatred which is as much part of it all as any Parade, as any Religious Worship at the Field, as any boring speech by the local Orange worthy or any half-baked Loyal Oath to “Her Most Gracious Majesty”.

But I wonder has the Eleventh Night got more hateful. During the week, many nationalist bloggers, including myself went out and about looking at Bonfire sites. These are often on publicly owned space, albeit in “Protestant” areas.

But this year, there has been a growing trend of LetsGetAlongerist bloggers pointing out the bonfires to which they, liberal unionists and the BBC and UTV, all turned a blind eye.

The thing is that its not just Catholics and Republicans and Nationalists who are the targets of sectarian abuse. The Irish Flags are still on the bonfire……..effigies of Gerry Adams hang from gallows, Sinn Fein and SDLP Election posters………and this year posters of Anna Lo, the Alliance Party Euro candidate. And Gay Rainbow Flags. Palestine and Poland. And overt racism on display.

Ms Lo was born in Hong Kong. A poster on a bonfire says “Anna Lo Ate My Dog”. Vicious nasty stuff. Some photographs I will publish later but I want to talk to some people first…need to clarify issues of Taste.

But how is it that the LetsGetAlongerists only get involved now…in 2014? Where was the Alliance Party and their apologists when the victims of abuse were merely Catholic, Irish and Republican.

They abused ME and MINE and you sat on your liberal unionist arses and did nothing.

Then they abused the Gays, Foreigners and your beloved Alliance Party and all of a sudden you wake up to the nastiness of it all. How is that you all failed to realise that the Sectarianism we witnessed for decades was fruit of the same poisonous tree that produces Racism and Homophobia.

Yet curiously the LetsGetAlongerists dismiss Catholic Residents as unreasonable for not agreeing to Orangemen passing thru or close to their homes. Its absurd that Orange followers show such utter hatred for Catholics and then demand the right to parade past their houses a few hours later.

There is a narrative. We are supposed to be in a Post-Conflict situation. We must all celebrate Titanic, Game of Thrones, World Police Games and the Giro d’Italia ….the LIE produced by the Norn Iron Office and the Tourist Board.

Lets get this straight. There can be no facilitating such Hatred.

Unionism is looking for concessions on Parading and it looks to me that they are using the excesses of the Eleventh to get agreement to parade. In other words, turn down the Bonfire Rhetoric and the anti-social behaviour and the Government will respond with concessions.

But really DUP and Sinn Fein are joined at the hip in the Executive. It is a game. They use each other as a bogeyman to get out their core votes…….and stay in the Executive.

Meanwhile normal crimes……are suspended. We talk of Hate Crimes but is anyone going to be arrested for anything bonfire-related last night? A few tokens maybe. Because when an individual puts a brick thru a Nigerian family’s window, it is a hate crime. When thousands whoop with delight at the burning effigies of the Pope or Gerry Adams or an under 14 GAA Club Banner…….or SDLP or Sinn Fein or Anna Lo posters…its not a hate crime…..its CULTURE.

If I burn a single tyre, it breaks environmental law. If I burn hundreds on a bonfire…its CULTURE.

If I walk down Royal Avenue drinking a can of lager, I am breaking the law. If I do it with thousands of others following an Orange Parade…it is CULTURE.

If I urinate in my neighbours garden, it is a crime. If I am answering a call of nature along the Lisburn Road, well that’s….CULTURE.

Yet tonight on BBC and UTV News, there will be reporters in Orange Fields telling us about the carnival atmosphere in Belfast or Markethill and Omagh. Some nice human interest stories as 104 year old Billy McBilly from Broughshane attends yet another parade. And Tommy McTommy from Toronto will have flown from Canada over specially to attend the Belfast parade.

Meanwhile all those Kick The Pope bands all the way from Glasgow will be kept off the TV Screens.

Will there ever come a time when an Orangeman or unionist politician, will be challenged by a BBC or UTV journalist when he mentions the word “CULTURE”.

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Brooks And Done

Posted on July 11, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

The problem with being a Blogger is that we get filled with our own self-importance. I tend to blog about EVERYTHING because I feel that I have some kinda duty to do so. In two thousand years time, historians will probably be scouring ICloud or whatever and find “Keeping An Eye On The Czar Of Russia” and FitzjamesHorse will be hailed as the great authentic voice of early 21st Century Ireland.

I am…not much different from…Pliny the Elder. Which brings me to Garth Brooks and the headline news for the past week or so. A pathetic story in itself but curiously it says a lot about Ireland. And as Norn Iron prepares yet again for another tussle between Catholic residents and Orange marchers over conflicting rights…then its I suppose good to think that in a normal homogenous society (inner northside Dublin) there is a tussle over conflicting rights between residents around Croke Park and …country music fans.

To recap………at 9am on Friday 11th July …Garth Brooks is scheduled to perform at three sell-out concerts (each in front of 80,000 fans) at the very modern and striking Croke Park Stadium…the foremost GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) stadium. So popular is Brooks that the promoter has sold out on two extra concerts…as he assumed that he would get permission from the Dublin City Council (the licensing body) to stage them. With on ongoing dispute between the GAA and local residents (whose lives are disrupted too often) the Council has refused permission. Brooks citing that he does not want to disappoint his legions of fans has stated that he will cancel the three agreed shows unless permission is granted for the extra concerts. There are calls for the Council to re-consider and even for the Government to “sort it out” but with politicians having a dubious historic record of undermining or overturning planning decisions by the professionals, then Government would be foolish or just plain wrong to intervene.

It is a story that is worth recording, if only to note that in a small democracy such things matter and can have huge impact for a lot of people. Just over six million people live on the island of Ireland and there are 400,000 (nearly all of voting age) ticket holders…and even allowing for the fact that many thousands are flying into Ireland as part of a package deal…then the economic impact will be huge.

I declare an interest. My #1 Daughter-in-Law is a ticket holder for one of the three agreed concerts. And while some of the press and internet coverage has made Ireland a laughing stock…there are a lot of cheap jokes to be made, I don’t want to understate the very real distress that is out there.

The great commentators in our national press …and probably also Fintan O’Toole are agonised about it all. It does actually say something about Ireland. So there will be a rush of sophisticated, self-loathing Wes Britons from Dublin 4 to tell us that we are a pathetic nation ……a gombeen (hick) people who cant even organise a few concerts without screwing it all up.

And the Irish Overclass likes to highlight the “Gombeen Nation” and the Garth Brooks Story has three sets of gombeens that the Irish Overclass finds offensive…the GAA, country music fans and local politicians.

It is really impossible to understand Ireland without understanding the GAELIC ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION. In many ways the GAA (the governing body of Gaelic Football, Hurling and Camogie), founded in 1884 is no different from the governing bodies of Baseball or American Football in USA or the governing bodies of Football, Rugby and Cricket in England. Founded at a time of increased working class and expanding middle class leisure (thank you England) and expanding travel thru railways (God Bless you England), it has a very obvious attachment to Irish culture, language, ethos and culture. It was like the Gaelic League a place where young men in early 20th century Ireland congregated to become more nationalist. There was certainly an overlap between GAA and militant republicanism. It has a grass roots organisation with village commitment to clubs, often named for Padraig Pearse, Wolfe Tone, Charles Parnell, Patrick Sarsfield and a host of other national and local heroes. It had a ban until the 1970s on “foreign games” (members being banned for even attending a “Soccer” game) and its clubrooms could only feature Irish Music and Dance.

So this commitment to the national ethos of Ireland makes the GAA extremely unpopular with sophisticated Anglophiles in Dublin. Croke Park is a national icon. The iconic Hill 16 (a bleacher) was built from rubble from the O’Connell (then Sackville) Street in 1916 Dublin.  And the magnificent stadium at Croke Park is testimony to GAA power and influence and of course such stadia requires a lot of funding for maintenance …and the GAA hires out Croke Park for concerts.

But what about the RESIDENTS OF THE AREA. Or more precisely several disparate groups that represent Residents. It is hard to have too much sympathy for people who buy a house in the shadow of a major inner city stadium with no car or coach parking facilities. On several Sundays in a Dublin Summer, lives of Residents will be disrupted. They literally bought into that. But certainly they did not buy into Concerts. Already steps have been taken to agree to limit the number of annual concerts…a compromise but its the interpretation of the compromise that has caused the problem. And certainly five successive nights of Concerts is really a lot of disruption.

The division among Residents is a problem. There is speculation that SOME Residents would like ” a wee handshake” …some Cash Compensation to go along with promised community projects, financed by the GAA. How exactly is a Resident defined?…is it within a small radius of Croke Park or a larger radius. And there is also the obvious fact that local businesses like restaurants and bars (and their employees) have a financial stake in a successful Croke Park. The fact that so many have lawyered up is perhaps a sign of what this is really about.

But what about the ECONOMY?. Not just the very localised economy of a Pizza Takeaway or Taxi Firm in Drumcondra. What about this benefit to the Irish Economy……….as tourists fly into Dublin anxious to take in a Garth Brooks Concert as well as Newgrange and kissing the Blarney Stone? Are they really bringing 50 million Euros with them? In so far as hotels in Dublin and coach firms in County Cork will take a hit if the concerts do not proceed…then that’s obviously a disaster for them. But in so far as they hiked up prices and threw themselves into the trough…..then seeing scalpers scalped leaves me unmoved.

But what about all those IRELANDS REPUTATION IN THE WORLD? Well…a sense of proportion would be a good starting point. If Ireland ever sends a drone into Pakistan and kills villagers …men, women and children…….then I will really worry.

To some extent, the LAWYERS an the COURTS will outflank the POLITICIANS. As I have said (not too far from Croke Park) cash in brown envelopes traditionally influenced planning decisions. This is NOT to say that local councillors are venal and crooked. All political parties will want to clean up their acts and this is a new generation untainted by sleaze. But they do deserve some credit. The Citizenry and the loudmouths in the Media, cannot have it both ways.

Councillors should have no influence to overturn legitimate planning decisions. It seems high-handed of the Promoter to actually sell tickets for an unlicensed concert, on the basis that the Council will respond to Political or Public pressure.

But what about GARTH BROOKS? Again I declare an interest. We briefly had access to Country Music TV in 1994-1996 and Brooks was one of those “New Country” Acts but I prefer the under-stated charm of Ms Patty Loveless, Ms Mary Chapin Carpenter, Ms Emmylou Harris. I have little time for the Showmanship of Garth Brooks.

As I type this…a ship containing the Staging etc for his Dublin Tour is heading towards Europe. That seems a lot of effort and expense for a Guitar, a Hat and a pair of Boots. Yet the gravity of the situation is overstated. Whatever happened to “Country Music is three chords and the Truth” (Harlan Howard). 

This is not the Cuban Missile Crisis and we must not send the Irish Naval Service to intercept and quarantine the ship.

Garth Brooks has said …….it is all or nothing. If he does not get his five concerts, he will not be party to disappointing 160,000 fans…….he will cancel the shows for the other 240,000. Which seems a tad unfair. He calls on “the powers that be” to intervene…….the Council did THEIR job and now somebody in authority (“Friends in High Paces” Garth?) should do THEIR job.

Oddly Garth Brooks adds that “in America….we care about people”. Well another cheap shot coming up Garth…….clearly not about all those people on minimum wage or working for tips or even the people without Health Insurance. Don’t lecture us Garth……you will lose. You will need more than a ten gallon Texan Stetson to accommodate your inflated Oklahoma head.

As Garth Brooks issues ultimatums….well he is no Lloyd George and Enda Kenny is no Michael Collins.

Garth Brooks doesn’t do compromise. The option of five concerts over three days…..the two currently unlicensed concerts being fitted into the licensed days……..is worth consideration by Brooks but to be frank, it stretches Health and Safety considerations as 80,000 people exit the Stadium and the area as another 80,000 enter the Stadium and the area…twice.

And what about the PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT TICKETS? Well they will be refunded. Except of course if they bought them thru a Third Party (a Scalper). If you bought a £60 ticket from a legitimate source, you are fine. If you bought a £60 ticket for £200 from a Scalper, then you have lost that money….and little consolation to know that your friendly Scalper will be refunded.

As to the over-priced Hotel? Or your hired Coach? Don’t ask me.

A mess. But there does seem to be a common thread….Greed.

Hmmm….its 10.30am. It took me nearly ninety minutes to SLOWLY type this. I hope historians reading this in two thousand years time note the Passion.

What can I say?

At heart I am a good ole boy. And Garth Brooks has irritated me by not accepting Irish Rights here.

“When youre running down my country………youre walking on the Fighting Side of Me”. (Merle Haggard).

 

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Let Them Eat Cake

Posted on July 8, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

Perhaps the oddest News Story ever.

For an Anti-Homophobia Reception, a man goes into a Belfast Bakery and orders a cake. Featuring Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street. Today I learn that these are Gay Icons. And they would also like the logo of the Gay Rights organisation “Queer Sense” embedded in the cake. All seems harmless enough. Except the Bakery is Christian-owned and they refuse the order as they….are not overly keen on Gay Rights.

Happily the Cake is baked in Bangor. But a complaint has been made to the Equality Commission and they are looking into it. It might even end up in Court.

Some observations.

1… While FUNDAMENTALIST Christians seem to have a problem with Gay Rights, the majority of mainstream Christians do not.

2… The word “Queer” is I consider “offensive” and even though strident Gay Rights activists have reclaimed it, I am not entirely happy with that. Has a Bakery or (say) a Printer got the right to refuse to bake or print it?

3…Clearly it would be wrong for a Business Owner to disrespect a Customer, based on (say) Sexual Orientation but is it wrong for a Customer to disrespect the ethos of a business. For example, it would obviously be wrong for a Baker to refuse an order for a cake for a Christening, a Barmitzvah, a First Communion or to mark the end of Ramadan. But would it be permissible to refuse to bake the risqué symbolism in a “Hen Party-Bachelorette” cake?

4…The Queer Sense logo makes it a cake which promotes or at least mentions a CAMPAIGN. And I suggest that is beyond the Bakers remit. To refuse to bake a “DUP Cake” or “SDLP Cake” seems reasonable. Or what about a “Pro Choice Cake”. Some feminists might be outraged if a “Christian” Bakery did not take the order. They might be outraged if the Bakery baked a “Pro Life Cake”.

I think the best parallel is printing a political leaflet. Nearly two years ago, leaflets circulated in East Belfast, which were hostile , indeed vitriolic about the Alliance Party. Alliance members might well have been grateful if a Printer refused the order for 40,000 leaflets.

Which makes it rather odd that the most public face of the Gay Rights campaigners who are protesting is Councillor Andrew Muir of the er……….Alliance Party. Muir is gay, possibly the most publicly gay politician in Norn Iron and has just recently completed a term as Mayor of Bangor in North Down. The anti-Homophobia Reception was hosted by Muir…in Bangor. So why not simply go to a Bangor bakery in the first place.

Andy Muir is a popular politician, much loved by South Belfasts LetsgetAlongerist , MetroTextual tweeters but just a little too inclined to play “the only gay in the village” card.

I am surprised that the Equality Commission has taken on this case. I will be even more surprised if it is settled in favour of the Gay Rights activists. Let’s not forget that in Norn Iron, the Gay and Lesbian and Transgendered Communities suffer terribly from misunderstanding, hatred and even violence. They need the support of decent men and women, including mainstream Christians.

This kinda nonsense does them…or us…few favours.

 

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Mike Nesbitt

Posted on July 4, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

Mike Nesbitt MLA, Leader of the UUP is probably the politician I understand least.
Some thirty years ago, he seemed a harmless enough young man who presented the Sports Results on a Saturday evening on BBC Norn Iron.
The most memorable thing he ever said in those days was “Glentoran Reserves 2 …Linfield Swifts 1”. An undemanding kinda job but he was quite good at it.
He seemed pretty apolitical.
Except in the sense that to succeed in local TV, it helps to be apolitical in a vaguely letsgetalongerist way.
He moved to Ulster Television and as I recall did the same job before getting the job of anchoring the main News Show in the 6pm slot.
He always seemed to me to be a bit of a lightweight. Hard to take seriously when interviewing our 1990s politicians because I could never really get past the whole Sports Presenter image. He did give the impression of being impatient with political dinosaurs…certainly all BBC and UTV and the Media generally was on board with the whole Peace Process.
Nesbitt was to my mind at times over-compensating. A little too aggressive.
But he always seemed at his best bantering with “Logie” on the Sports Desk and “Frank” at the Weather Map.
Leaving UTV, he had a job on a Quango.
One of four (count them!) Victims Commissioners advocating the rights of Victims.
It was generally assumed that each of the four commissioners was “close to the thinking” of one of the four main parties…DUP, Sinn Fein, SDLP…and that Nesbitt was close to the thinking of the UUP…a mainstream unionist.

By 2010, he was fully signed up to the disasterous link up between the British Conservatives and UUP and it even seemed possible that he would win the Strangford seat at Westminster as the DUP was seen in freefall after the Iris Robinson Scandal.
Nesbitt, educated at Norn Irons only real “exclusive” school (Campbell College) was perhaps more identifiably Conservative in the British tradition than any of his colleagues.
In the event, he polled poorly.
And the Tory-UUP coalition fell apart. People such as Harry Hamilton, Paula Bradshaw and Ian Parsley (again) took their portfolio of skills to the Alliance Party.
And Nesbitt threw his lot in with the UUP.
Blessed with a certain star dust and charisma he became a MLA for Strangford in 2011. And by 2012, was actually Leader of the Party.
There was some early talk that TV Mike was reaching out to Catholics but that actually all fell apart with the Flegs Controversy.
Mike Nesbitt was competing with the DUP to be more “hardline”.

In fairness, his Party did well in the recent European and Council Elections, confounding the general thpught that UUP was in terminal meltdown.
But yesterday…all shades of Unionism…DUP, UUP, TUV, PUP …all walked out of All-Party talks about Flegs, Parades and the Past.
The cause …the Parades Commission decision on the Ardoyne Parade next week.
Unionists are talking about a graduated response to the Decision…beginning with several protests tonight…road blocking seemsinevitable.
No doubt the ground is being tested.
If the protests get little support, they will be scaled back.
If they get support, there will be more…all stretching PSNI (police) resources and no doubt there will be some violence. The object of the violence might be to put pressure on the Parades Commission…or more likely to put pressure on the PSNI and the British Government to put pressure on the Parades Commission.

Either way, it is exactly the kinda thing that UTV Anchor, Mike Nesbitt would have got aggressive about when interviewing some unionist dinosaur.
Nesbitt is now a fully signed up resident of Jurassic Park.

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Ardoyne Shops…The Story So Far

Posted on July 3, 2014 by fitzjameshorse

So Twelfth of July. Thing is…I dont like it.
I dont like Orangemen.
I dont like the Orange Order.
I dont like their apologists.
And I dont feel in any way bad about it.
Opposing Racism (or in this case Orange Supremacism) is NOT Racist. Orange “Culture” is not “Culture” at all. And the so called Culture is not under threat as part of a genocidal campaign.
But the old days when Orangemen could walk the “Queens Highway” without any reciprocal arrangement for nationalists are long gone. They blew it themselves.
Their behaviour at Garvaghy Road ensured that “orange feet” will not walk that part of Portadown. Their behaviour on the nationalist part of the Ormeau Road in South Belfast means they cant walk there with impunity.
And likewise the Ardoyne Shops.
Orangemen have a tendency to shoot themselves in their Orange feet. I cant say that I am unduly bothered. The problem with the Orange Order (apart from its existence) is that it cant accept responsibility for the thuggish element which follows its Parades. That element which sings anti-Catholic songs, urinates against Catholic Churches and burns the Irish National Flag on its bonfires. It is…Culture. It is Traditional.
The irony is that the Orange Order have a pretty good case. A right to Free Assembly of course has of course to be balanced with the rights of residents to live a peaceful life. But in the context of one major Orange march in Belfast …it does not seem unreasonable that there are “feeder” parades from various parts of Belfast to the starting point at Clifton Orange Hall. And parades back to various parts of the city from “The Field”.
All very civilised. If only the Orangemen and their supporters had a bit of manners. It really is that simple.
So take Ardoyne. A Catholic area alongside Crumlin Road in North Belfast. A small area around the Ardoyne Shops is Catholic on both sides of the Crumlin Road. And this is the area of contention. Crumlin Road is a main arterial road in North Belfast. Orangemen from the North of the city want to walk along Crumlin Road to Clifton Street Orange Hall. Probably no more than three miles. But the problem is as much their fleg (sic) waving, chanting, boorish supporters.
The Twelfth is of course a day that commemorates Orange triumph…the Battle of the Boyne in 1690…so its to be expected that the parade of Good Christian men becomes problematic as it passes close by to Catholic areas. And with thirty years of a pretty nasty Civil War, only recently ended …it is too much to expect that the Twelfth in places like Crumlin Road, Ormeau Road and Garvaghy Road are the good natured carnivals sold to us on BBC and UTV.
In remote parts of Tyrone, it might be nice to know that Billy McBilly is attending his eightieth consecutive Orange parade in Bally-Go-Backwards. Or that Sammy McSammy, a visitor from Canada is seeing his first “Ulster” (sic) Twelfth.
But heres the thing about Ardoyne.
The Parades Commission have the judgement of Solomon.
They are allowed to parade down the Crumlin Road TO Clifton Street on the morning of 12th July. Quietly. Dont wake the residents.
And the Parade home at about 6pm is banned. Find another way home.

Thats the ruling from 2013 and earlier today the Parades Commission made a similar ruling about 2014. Last year, this led to prolonged rioting and the usual charges that Orange Culture is under attack.
A civil rights camp (Im not joking) was set up by loyalists.
On a nightly basis, loyalists leave their homes in the Upper Crumlin Road to drive to Twaddel Camp to protest about er not being allowed to go “home”.
And after the protest…they go….home.
And they have been doing this for eleven months.
A reasonable person might see that the Parades Commission would not change their minds.

Its Zero Sum Politics.
A bad day for Unionism is a good day for Nationalism.
The DUP and UUP have today withdrawn from All Party Talks at Stormont.
What happens next?
DUP, UUP and the Orange Order are on a hook.
So the Norn Iron Office, PSNI and the Parades Commission as well as a few “behind the scenes” fixers at Queens University, Belfast, will be trying to find a deal…probably based on limited numbers and bands.
Alternatively the Orange Order might opt for “feet on the Crumlin Road”, that is a show of solidarity with their Good Christian Brethren in North Belfast.
Just because the Parades Commission has ruled in favour of the Catholic residents today does not mean they wont change their minds.
Any change of mind will play badly with residents.

And basically thats the Zero Sum Game. As things stand, police and their water cannon will be deployed against unionists.
And if there is a change of decision, police and their water cannon are deployed against nationalists.
And Id look for a so called balanced solution, where (say) Ardoyne is traded off with Portadown.

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