Irish Author and Journalist - Danny Morrison

The Glorious Twelfth

In 1987 at the behest of a British Secretary of State Westminster passed the Public Order Act requiring marchers to give police seven days notice of the composition of a parade, the route, etc. I was among those first prosecuted under this legislation.

Downpatrick Sinn Fein had agreed to re-route the Easter Commemoration so as it would cause no offence to unionist businessmen. Still, we marched through a nationalist part of the town to the cemetery where I gave the oration. I was late leaving Downpatrick, and arrived in Castlewellan, where I was also to speak, after the march had left the town square. I rushed to catch up with the march, and did so, a few yards before it passed into the cemetery.

For taking part in the Downpatrick march, for which no notice was given, I was fined £100 by the RUC. And for taking part in the Castlewellan march, one hour later, which went through a wholly nationalist part of the town, I was fined £400.

Last week the Parades Commission banned the Orange Order from marching down the Garvaghy Road. Among those protesting against the announcement of this ban were the proscribed Ulster Freedom Fighters. We saw them on television. A bit overweight. A few bottles of Scrumpie short of an Independent Ulster.

I watched with interest this illegal march to the British Army/RUC's barricade at Drumcree. Here were the boys in full view, not having given the statutory seven-days' notice. That night there was rioting in Portadown. Petrol bombs were thrown. And a blast bomb. A large number of policemen were injured - unless they were acting.

The rioters were hosed with a water cannon but the RUC didn't know how to use its new plastic bullets. Until, that is, the Fenians came out in Ardoyne on Thursday, 12th July. The stewards were doing a really good job, calming the passions of people, some of whose kids couldn't go to school a week earlier, because loyalists and the RUC had blocked the road. Yip, the British empire couldn't ensure their education but it's able to get as many Orangemen as you like down and up the Crumlin Road.

The following morning, after the riots in Ardoyne, RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan said that he was studying footage of the night before, to see if he could identify anybody acting illegally.

What an interesting and insightful remark. The UFF can march to Drumcree, the UFF and the UVF can display and fire their weapons on the Eleventh Night, but our Chief Constable is wholly interested in how well the citizens of Ardoyne are photographed.

And this, simply, is what is wrong with our society. A one-sidedness.

Yet try telling that to Seamus Mallon or the SDLP who, in the current talks, have decided to lump the blame on Sinn Fein. I don't know what is going to be the outcome of the talks in Staffordshire but what I do know is this. IRA weapons - silent - make all the difference. If they didn't exist - if there was no IRA - the nationalist community would be walked over and the SDLP would be happy with a box of chocolates.

I know the issue of arms has to be resolved (ultimately, to the security of the unionist people who were traumatised by the armed struggle) but the hypocrisy and double-standards of the British and the unionists, and the connivance of Dublin and the SDLP, has also to be resolved and confronted. I was interviewed on RTE's Prime Time last Thursday night by Miriam O'Callaghan who said that surely Sinn Fein had to get the IRA to decommission if it was to do well in the next election in the South and perhaps help form a coalition government.

What an assumption. Sinn Fein's vote in the South is a mix of old and new, traditional and revolutionary, working-class and no class. If I had a say I would advocate a manifesto of not taking part in coalition government. I would make the establishment get down on its bended knees and beg Sinn Fein to enter into coalition for the sake of stability, the economy, finance, peace, and - even - the nation.

The war is over, and the nationalist community has more to gain through the political process and the contradictions it throws up for unionists and London and Dublin. And that is why loyalist paramilitaries are killing Catholics. They cannot stand peace. They cannot stand progress.

There is speculation that if the Staffordshire talks produce no breakthrough then the British government, rather than suspend the institutions, will call fresh Assembly elections for October. In between-times the Brits, the SDLP, the Dublin government and, of course, the media, will vilify Sinn Fein and hope that republicans will be held guilty by the electorate for the talks failure and that this will result in the SDLP re-assuming political ascendancy over its rivals.

Yeh. Sure. Absolutely. Go for it.

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