Thursday 16 August 2012

Irish Law & Democracy Committee (2)


I have posted previously about the Irish Law & Democracy Committee, whose members were on the Crumlin Road on 12 July for the Twelfth parade and again last Saturday for the Apprentice Boys parade.

As we were waiting for the Apprentice boys to come down from Ligoniel an ILDC 'human rights observer' came across the road witha video camera and took close-up footage of people from the unionist community including myself.  This is the man who took that footage.

The same person appears in a 13 minute youtube 'documentary' about the Twelfth evening at Ardoyne.  It is fronted by Joe Gilmartin from Nenagh in county Tipperary and it is noticeable that it opens with Gilmartin standing in front of a republican mural featuring Vol Paddy McAdorey, who was named in the Daily Mirror in November 2007 as having been one of the men who murdered the Three Scottish Soldiers at Ligoniel.  The newspaper also named Martin Meehan as one of the killers.  The mural also features Vol Terence 'Cleeky' Clarke, who was jailed in 1988 for the murder of two Army corporals.  That is the background Gilmartin chose for the start of his little 'documentary'.

The 13 minute 'documentary' includes interviews with two ILDC members and this is what the person pictured above says in the first section of interview:
I've lived here all my life, really, I'm nearly fifty and I remember the parades when I was very, very very young.  I used to live about a mile and a half from here and the Orangemen every year, there were thousands of them, used to come down parts of the Crumlin Road, down the Cliftonville and around where I lived.
They used to have the police and the security forces and to have the road sealed off for hours and hours and hours before it.  This is completely different.  It's smaller numbers, its not as inconvenient to the community as it was.  But it's still wrong to have what is basically and a lot of people ... and I agree with it .. this is like a racist, supremacist march through an area where it's not wanted.  It seems to be illegitimate.
The people who march in this parade wouldn't be in this area 364 days of the rest of the year.  Why they're allowed to march down these roads other than as an act of provocation I can't really understand.

Well the view of the ILDC about Orange Order parades is very clear.  They see them as 'racist, supremacist marches'.  They certainly don't seem to understand the concept of an independent human rights observer. 

The views expressed by the interviewee are particularly nasty.  They are partisan and poisonous.  Here is someone who sees his neighbours in Upper Ardoyne and Ballysillan as racists and supremacists.  The problem here is not about parades - it is about relationships and when we hear views such as this, who can argue with that assessment?

The ILDC member also says that the people in the lodges 'wouldn't be in the area for the other 364 days of the year.  That is a blatant lie and pure propaganda.  The fact is that most of the lodge members use the Crumlin Road every day and some of them live in Upper Ardoyne, with most of the rest living in the Ballysillan area.  In fact some of them even lived in Ardoyne until they were forced out by republicans at the start of the Troubles.

If you want to view the video clip yourself you can google it at "Ardoyne documenary 2012" and it would be interesting to know who the 'human rights observer' is and what 'human rights' expertise he has.







6 comments:

  1. lived in Ardoyne until they were forced out
    NOT CORRECT NELSON if you are referring to Cranbrook, Farington and Velsheda as I was there, young but there! The people beside us protestants where told to get out by the loyalists - I WAS THERE I KNOW THEM. The loyalists then set fire to their hosue so that no Catholic could get it. I Know cause I was there!! Where you??? The 69' Brookfield Street? Republicians didnt burn that street down it was loyalists I KNOW NELSON CAUSE I WAS THERE! I was young but I WAS THERE!! Where you??

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    1. In 1969 I was eighteen years old and lived on the Ballysillan Road. Moreover I knew Ardoyne fairly well.

      Back in the 1940s, before I was born, my father owned a butcher's shop on the front of the Crumlin Road, opposite Ardoyne. Many of his customers were from Ardoyne and they were good customers. Every Twelfth he put a Union flag outside the shop but there was a tolerance and respect for others that seems to have gone. He had to retire because of ill health around 1950 but he was able to work one day a week in a butcher's shop on the Old Lodge Road and every Saturday afternoon my mother used to walk me down through Ardoyne to meet him as he was coming out of work. As we walked through Ardoyne she stopped to talk to many of the folk she met because she knew them from the time when they were customers.

      My wife also had connectiosn with Ardoyne and her aunt was the last Protestant to be put out of Hooker Street.

      There was a lot of movement at that time and a family friend, whose daughter had married a Roman Catholic, had to help her and her husband to move out of Palmer Street.

      Perhaps I may know more about Ardoyne that you might imagine.

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  2. Oh and by the way there is no such place as Upper Ardoyne. Its a made up name for the press. Ardoyne runs from Crumlin Road to Bromptom Park. From there is Glenard running to Alliance Ave. Historically collectively called Ardoyne. Then you have Glenbryne - NEVER referred to as Ardoyne, Upper Ardoyne or anything else until the Holy Cross disgrace and parades.

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  3. If you go up the Ardoyne Road you come to Glenbryn and Hesketh and eventually come to Wheatfield. These are all off the Ardoyne Road. I would have thought that if someone lives on the Ardoyne Road or off the Ardoyne Road they are entitled to say they live in Ardoyne, albeit Upper Ardoyne.

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  4. U missed the point Upper Ardoyne didn't exist. You live in Glenbryn that's it. As I size upper Ardoyne was made up to support an argument that's about it.

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  5. You just don't seem to get it. The Ardoyne Road runs from the shops up to Wheatfield. Are you suggesting that someone who lives on the Ardoyne Road doesn't live in Ardoyne?

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