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Daily Ireland

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By their own admittance, the Bogside artists are not trained art therapists. But the Derry trio know that their work has merit in this field.
The artists behind the North’s only “people’s gallery” have launched a book detailing the ethos behind their internationally acclaimed work.
In the book Art and Healing, the artists seek to place their works in a historical context. With human beings the subjects of the majority of their art, the stories that glare out from gable walls the length of the Bogside seek explanation and interpretation.
In the book, the artists reveal the influences that have spurred them into creating one of Derry’s biggest tourist attractions.
The artists — brothers Tommy and William Kelly and Kevin Hasson — have transformed gable walls in the city’s Bogside area with murals that depict some of the pivotal events of the city’s recent history.
According to William Kelly, the new book’s author, one of the chief influences on the work of the Bogside artists is the Austrian artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis.
“We believe that the artist is, in some degree, in the healing profession,” William Kelly says.
Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh are also held up by the artists as people who created art for the alienated.
To the elite of the art world, the Bogside artists — by depicting ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances in artistic form on humble gable walls — would be coarse pretenders existing on the margins of “true art”.
However, this is true art. The subjects are powerful only in their trueness and faithfulness to reality — the schoolgirl shot dead with a British army bullet, the cheerful participants of a march that would end in carnage on Bloody Sunday, and the youth wearing a gas mask and bearing a petrol bomb as a means of defence against the state.
In the context of the Bogside, it is a personal history, owned by the people but held proudly to the outside world as a poignant and dignified homage to a resilient community.
For the tourists who flock to view the murals each day, the works have a much wider significance when viewed in the context of conflicts across the world. Children have been killed in Iraq — the gun is not choosy where it gains its expression. There have been thousands of protest marches across the world that have ended in innocent deaths. There are numerous examples of children having their innocence stripped from them and then being thrust into conflict worldwide. This is where the people’s gallery really becomes a people’s gallery — when the reference points are elevated out of the Bogside and the North of Ireland.
In Art and Healing, the trio explain their international travels and how they came to interpret artistically events such as Bloody Sunday and the Battle of the Bogside.
The world-renowned playwright Brian Friel has described the artists’ work as “a work of conscious ostentation, of deliberate defiance. Every mural explains — but it also embraces.
“Every mural instructs — but at the same time each has the intimacy and the consolations of a family photograph.
“I suspect the Bogside artists have a lot of excitement squaring up each new virgin gable wall and a lot of fun endowing it with eloquence.”
The artists have been painting murals and conducting workshops in the famous area of Derry for more than a decade. Their work has gained international acclaim.
William Kelly said: “A vitally important part of our commitment is the workshops we do with the disenchanted youth of the city.
“These children have little recollection of the Troubles that began way back in 1969 but their parents, like us, lived through them.”
Kelly has described the book as an attempt to inform students and the young who have “sensible” questions to ask about Irish history and Irish affairs.
The Bogside artists can claim a unique approach to recent history and have produced murals that have become a benchmark for other artists.
“Our own efforts as mural painters have been directed to helping heal people by depicting their experiences on gable walls,” William Kelly added.
“In this manner, we have endeavoured to help them to reflect on a shared history and to ponder the price they had to pay for democratic rights. Not to have commemorated the struggle in this way would have meant that we failed in our vocation as artists for, make no mistake about it, art really is a vocation with a social dimension.”
Art and Healing is dedicated to the people of the Bogside and “the youth and children of the city of Derry from whom we have learned so much”.
At the heart of the book’s message is the employment of art in a curative way. Kelly said: “The making of art, by its very nature, is healing and we, who teach this in our workshops, can attest to this simple fact.”
It is easy for the powers that be to dismiss the Bogside artists as a band of rebellious intellectuals. It is true that they are disgruntled — the very mention of the Turner Prize makes them wince.
In the book, Kelly said: “The winner of the Turner Prize is no ordinary man, we are expected to believe. He is ‘superior’ and, invariably, not only does he believe this himself but spends the rest of his life demanding the homage that he has been led to believe is his due. He is invariably superior in some other obscure way that makes no sense to anybody except the people who have elected him.”
For the Bogside artists, the only recognition they crave is the approval of the community that they serve. The only message they wish to convey on the Bogside gables is a human one.

Daily Ireland

Connla Young

The Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI) has come in for strong criticism after claims that Orangemen were allowed to breach a Parades Commission determination in Co Armagh.
Criticism of the the PSNI operation to marshal an Orange parade in Lurgan came after a group of 12 Orangemen were escorted down the town’s nationalist William Street area by the PSNI. Side streets and roads were blocked by PSNI Land Rovers as they made their way along the street towards the town’s railway station.
The Parades Commission had earlier banned members of the Orange Order from entering the nationalist district.
A group of Orangemen, which included Upper Bann MP David Simpson, met PSNI commanders minutes before heading down William Street in full Orange Order regalia under PSNI escort. The group later returned to the town centre via William Street where they continued with the Orange Order’s district demonstration in nearby Portadown.
Violence flared after an Orange Order parade in the Co Armagh town last year when the PSNI allowed Orange Order marchers to proceed beyond a specific point designated by the Parades Commission on Market Street.
Upper Bann MLA John O’Dowd says his party will ask the Police Ombudsman’s Office to attend future parades in Lurgan to monitor the PSNI’s conduct.
“It would appear that the PSNI, like the old RUC, see one of their primary roles as attempting to reassert Orange Order domination over minority nationalist communities. It is clear following last year’s breaches of Parades Commissions determination in Lurgan and now this breach facilitated by the PSNI, that the PSNI cannot be trusted to enforce such determinations. I am calling on the Police Ombudsman’s Office to intervene and place personnel on the ground in Lurgan to monitor PSNI activity, and Loyal Order parade.”
“The Parades Commission banned the Orangemen from walking down this street. After talking with the police they walked down the street and that is a clear breach of the Parades Commission determination and it was done in agreement with the police. There is a clear pattern emerging here. Last year we had a similar situation when Orangemen were allowed to move beyond a particular point in the road by the PSNI and this has been repeated here this year. We will be asking thePparades Commission how they will be dealing with this clear breach of their determination.”
A spokesperson for the PSNI confirmed that Orangemen passed down the town’s nationalist William Street.
“A delegation of senior Orangemen walked down William Street after the main parade had passed by. They had spoken with senior police officers on the ground prior to walking down the street. This does not constitute a procession/parade. The main parade itself did not enter William Street at any time. No public disorder occurred during the parade.”
A spokesperson for the Parades Commission said that monitors were on the ground in Lurgan and they await a “formal report” of events.

Daily Ireland

Eamonn Houston

The Bogside Residents’ Group in Derry last night blamed PSNI mishandling for minor trouble that broke out as local Orangemen made a return parade through the city centre.
The city’s main parade involved thousands of Orangemen. It had passed of peacefully earlier in the day, gaining the plaudits of political, religious and business leaders.
Just after 6pm, rival crowds of loyalists and nationalists traded insults and missiles as a small number of local Orange lodges made the return journey from their main gathering in the Waterside back through the city centre.
The PSNI swiftly parked a large white van to block the junction of the Diamond and Ferryquay Street as tensions began to rise.
Riot squads then stood between nationalist and loyalist rivals as a standoff developed. One policewoman was struck by a missile and received medical treatment.
PSNI reinforcements wearing full riot gear moved to clear the Diamond and Bishop Steet areas amid claims of heavy handedness from the Bogside Residents’ Group and republican representatives.
Residents’ group spokesman Donncha Mac Niallais said the PSNI had let drunken loyalists accompany parading Orangemen through the Diamond area for the second time in a day.
One loyalist was seen to throw a bottle at nationalist onlookers.
Mr Mac Niallais said: “This trouble was provoked by drunken loyalist thugs who were blatantly and openly allowed to drink. They threw bottles and pint glasses as this parade made its return to the city centre.
“The blame for all of this lies squarely at the feet of the PSNI. We have to question whether there is a need for a return parade such as this.”
Mr Mac Niallais would not speculate on how last night’s trouble would impact on the recent historic deal that let the Orange Order march through the city centre yesterday for the first time in 13 years.
The commanding officer at the scene, Superintendent Johnny McCarroll, defended the actions of his officers. He claimed that two had been injured. Similar actions had been taken against loyalists, he said.
“The officers have acted with the use of shields only,” he said.
“We have to return normal public order. No batons have been used and we have had to make the Diamond free to the public.”
Two petrol bombs were thrown but an intervention by republican activists defused the situation.

Daily Ireland

Connla Young

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The PSNI was criticised yesterday for helping loyalist bands exploit a Parades Commission loophole.
An all-day standoff took place yesterday in the nationalist village of Dunloy, Co Antrim. Nationalist protesters blocked a road, barring Orangemen travelling through the town to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at a local church cemetery.
The protest arose after a local loyalist band struck up a series of Orange tunes from a standing position in the town’s main street. A Parades Commission determination had earlier prohibited the band from playing music in the area.
Currently the Parades Commission’s remit includes only moving processions. Therefore, determinations do not extend to any band or group of people remaining in a stationary position.
Philip McGuigan, Sinn Féin assembly member for North Antrim, said locals had been alerted to the loophole after an incident in the nationalist town last year.
“There is no problem with the Orangemen going to the church to lay the wreath. They have been doing that for the last eight years.
“But there is a loophole in the law and they played music in an area that the Parades Commission said they should not. That has angered locals, and the fact is Orangemen have acted outside the spirit of the Parades Commission determination.
“The only people who came out of this with any dignity were the people of Dunloy. The PSNI facilitated the Orangemen to exploit the loophole. They were told that it was a public order matter and they did not intervene but they were happy to facilitate Orangemen rubbing nationalist noses in it. People in the town are very angry”.
The protest was eventually abandoned after day-long negotiations between local representatives and senior PSNI officers. At one point, heavily armed riot police moved in to remove nationalists who had blocked a road in the town.
In a choreographed compromise, the PSNI removed 30 nationalist protesters from the road under the watchful eye of senior Sinn Féin negotiator Martin McGuinness, the Mid-Ulster MP.
SDLP North Antrim assembly member Seán Farren called for talks to end future disputes in Dunloy.
“This situation, like all others, has got to be resolved by dialogue. Confrontation can be no way forward. What is needed is for all sides to sit down and hear concerns and proposals from villagers in the area as well as hearing the case of the parade organiser. We need everyone working together to seek an accommodation which reflects the concerns on all sides. Sit-downs, standoffs and confrontation are no way forward. They only end up in police action against one side or the other, which inevitably makes resolution all the more difficult,” Mr Farren said.

Daily Ireland

Andrea McKernon and Áine McEntee

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Blast bombs were thrown and plastic bullets fired in north Belfast last night. Rioting broke out after a disputed Orange Order parade went past the nationalist Ardoyne district. Two Catholic teenagers were struck by plastic bullets believed to have been fired by the PSNI. Several people were injured, including two journalists, after at three blast bombs were thrown at police lines. Dozens of petrol bombs were thrown at the PSNI and British army.

Trouble erupted after the PSNI tried to force nationalists off the Crumlin Road as Orangemen approached the Ardoyne shops. Fr Gary Donegan, from Holy Cross church in Ardoyne, tried to restore calm to the area and was targeted by a PSNI water cannon.

“Myself and Fr Aidan Troy were in the area to try and defuse the situation among the young people. We tried to get close to the young people when the water cannons were turned on and we both got soaked,” he said.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, who was in Ardoyne, said he and north Belfast assembly member Gerry Kelly had contacted the British and Irish governments after the rioting erupted.

“The amount of hard work that was done to keep things calm in the face of this provocative loyalist parade was wasted by the actions of the PSNI.

“I think the people of Ardoyne have shown tremendous patience and discipline,” he said.

Earlier yesterday, nationalist residents from the Ardoyne area staged a peaceful sit-down protest on the Crumlin Road to highlight their frustration at the Orange Order’s refusal to engage in dialogue. The PSNI described the morning protest as illegal. It was organised by local residents after the Orange Order decided to push ahead with its controversial route. Around 40 protesters sat down in the road and linked arms in solidarity in the face of hundreds of PSNI and British army officers dressed mostly in riot gear, with water canons and hundreds of metres of steel.

The Parades Commission announced it would not be reviewing its approval of the Orange Order’s outward or return route despite Sunday morning’s arson attack by loyalists against a Catholic family on the Crumlin Road.
The Orange Order has repeatedly refused to talk to Ardoyne residents. Speaking to Daily Ireland yesterday, a spokesman for the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland said the organisation did not believe it was constructive to talk to residents from Ardoyne.

“It is not Grand Orange Lodge policy to discuss with Sinn Féin/IRA-fronted residents. We do talk to genuine residents’ groups who are genuinely affected by the parade,” he said. Supporters of the protesters yesterday held aloft banners that said “Parades Commission should promote dialogue, not reward rejectionists”. Gerry Adams and north Belfast assembly members Gerry Kelly and Kathy Stanton attended the protest to show their support for the protest as well as help calm tensions.

The Parades Commission refused to comment on the actual parade. However, it said: “Every parade is considered individual and in its own context. The commission facilitates and promotes dialogue wherever it can.”

Last year’s July 12 parade along the same route in north Belfast resulted in violence, as did the Tour of the North loyalist march on June 17 this year.

At around 8.30am yesterday, PSNI officers in riot gear and shields charged in and removed protesters from the Crumlin Road and put them behind a barricade of Land Rovers in front of the Ardoyne shops. Sheets of high-density metal were driven in on lorries and attached to make a wall roughly one mile (1.6 kilometres) long.
The barricade hemmed in Catholic residents, who were separated from the Orangemen and their supporters making their way to the main July 12 demonstrations in Belfast.

Mr Adams said it was imperative that the Orange Order engage in dialogue. “The key focus here is that there’s no reason why everyone should not be able to look forward to the Twelfth and particularly the Orangemen who want to celebrate, if they would only talk to residents. That all the hassle and stress and the potential for injury and death could all be taken out of it would be a huge step.”

A PSNI spokesperson said it was too early to estimate the cost of the huge military operation, which began with personnel moving into Ardoyne on Monday and removing concrete bollards. The PSNI said there were no arrests following yesterday morning’s protest.

Irish American Information Service

07/13/05 06:40 EST

Police officers in Northern Ireland fired a number of baton rounds during last night’s rioting in Belfast that left some 80 police officers and seven civilians injured in the nationalist Ardoyne area of the city.

A police spokesperson confirmed that a number of ‘attenuated energy projectiles’ (AEPs) were fired during fighting last night. It is the first time baton rounds have been fired in a riot situation in over three years.

Clashes broke out last night after police used water cannon to disperse the crowds who had gathered to vent their anger against a contentious Orange march passed through the nationalist area earlier in the evening.

Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams said he thought the police had been too quick to react against protesters and it was difficult to calm the situation down.

He insisted that in spite of the attacks and blast bombs the situation could have been much worse.

Mr Adams said: “The fact is that the vast majority of people have demonstrated peacefully and in a calm manner.”

The West Belfast MP also blamed the strategy adopted by police for what followed.

“When the police moved in what I think was quite a reckless manner, they took management completely away from the stewards,” he said.

“They brought the water cannon in too quickly, we should have been allowed to keep order. In a situation where people on the front line like myself, Gerry Kelly, different MLAs and Father (Aidan) Troy were completely soaked on six or seven different occasions.”

But Superintendant Gary White, who was in charge of policing the Ardoyne area, said the response had been appropriate.

“I do not think anyone could throw the allegation at us tonight that we were heavy handed.”

Some 60 Ardoyne residents had held a sit-down protest following a decision by the Parades Commission ruled to allow the march through the area.

They linked arms and chanted “we shall not be moved” as police in riot gear moved in to take them away them one by one.

Armoured police and British army vans lined the streets and shields were erected to allow the outward parade through.

SDLP West Belfast MLA Alex Attwood praised the police and condemned those responsible for the rioting.

He said: “The scenes are an utter disgrace. It is in complete contrast of the conduct of so many during the day including the police, the protesters and so many others. The rioters represent no one but a minority. Those responsible have a great deal to account for.”

Tensions are running high this year after an attack on a Catholic home in Belfast at the weekend and as feuding grows between rival Protestant factions.

Police this morning warned motorists to avoid the Ardoyne area until debris is cleared from the area.

Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey said the parades’ issue needed to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

“I am calling on the Secretary of State to take a grip on this and put it on the table for discussion in the autumn, because we need a solution. We can’t allow what is an issue of cultural rights to be turned into a political football, and there has to be a consensus on how this is dealt with.”

Indymedia Ireland

Southern Politicians Silent on Ardoyne Havoc

**Here is a whole page of opinion and comments with photos you might find interesting.

>>>Read it

BreakingNews.ie

Officers urged to fire baton rounds sooner

13/07/2005 - 13:55:32

A police chief today urged officers to fire baton rounds sooner, in a bid to halt any repeat of the rioting that left nearly 90 people injured in Belfast.

Rounds were discharged for the first time in Northern Ireland in nearly three years when a nationalist mob went on the rampage last night.

Blast and petrol bombs exploded in the flashpoint Ardoyne district as serious violence flared after a bitterly-disputed Orange order march.

Hordes of protesters ignored attempts by Sinn Féin chiefs Gerry Adams and Gerry Kelly, and republican marshals, to launch rooftop attacks on police and army.

Eighty officers were hurt, one seriously, and about seven civilians, the Police Service said.

Two journalists were among those injured, with one hit in the back by a blast bomb.

Riot squad officers helped him out and took him to hospital for treatment.

A car was also hijacked and set on fire close to police lines.

As rubble was cleared from the streets around Ardoyne where water canons blasted troublemakers, the head of an organisation representing rank and file officers claimed tactics used to restore order were ineffective.

Irwin Montgomery, chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, said: “The evidence is that rioters are not being held sufficiently far back to prevent injury to officers.

“These incidents are turning into a war of attrition on the Police Service and it is totally unacceptable that we are failing to subdue the rioters sufficiently to send them home or make arrests.

“The Federation has had assurances from the Chief Constable that the authority is there to fire impact rounds.

“Unless more forceful tactics are employed earlier in the confrontations, sooner or later officers will become severely injured or even killed.”

Until Tuesday night no baton rounds had been fired in Northern Ireland since September 2002.

But after concerns over the most contentious of all Northern Ireland’s Twelfth of July parades proved well founded, security chiefs deployed their new weapons, known as attenuated energy projectiles.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain insisted the disorder could not be tolerated, but stressed it had been isolated.

Speaking in the British House of Commons, he said: “The truth is that regrettable and unacceptable violence was an isolated incident compared with a marching season of about 3,000 parades which went off overwhelmingly peacefully.”

Ardoyne priest Father Aidan Troy, who had worked all day to try to defuse any tensions, spoke of his sadness at what happened.

“I have been out and looked at the streets this morning and it says failure. It all went so horribly wrong,” he said.

Fr Troy, who had to help traumatised children during the Holy Cross Primary School protests, said no-one had won.

Yet again there had been “the betrayal of this community”, he added.

The security forces had attempted to hold back nationalist protesters as hundreds of Orangemen marched along the Crumlin Road for the return leg of their parade.

Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist MP for North Belfast, hit out at republicans for what he described as a deplorable attack on a totally peaceful, lawful parade.

“The scenes of intense violence which has left so many police officers and members of the press injured are a scandal and a disgrace,” Mr Dodds said.

He claimed the use of blast bombs “clearly demonstrates premeditated, organised violence on the part of republican paramilitaries.”

Mr Dodds added: “Either Sinn Féin/IRA cannot control this violence or do not wish to control it.

“Either way, it raises serious questions about the future of the political process.”

The Orange Order called on the Parades Commission to ban all future protests at the Ardoyne.

A spokesman for the order’s leadership said: “The rioting happens so often that the Ardoyne has become synonymous with serious, orchestrated violence.

“Do we have to wait for people to die before the Parades Commission acts to put a stop to it?”

Gerry Kelly claimed the trouble was created by the ruling Parades Commission allowing Orangemen to walk along the disputed route.

Minor stone throwing and insults between youths and marchers would have been manageable if police had not intervened with a baton charge and water canon, the Sinn Féin MLA alleged.

He said: “This action disempowered the local residents stewards and for a time control was lost.

“This is not what we wanted to see happen, nor was it what the residents of that area wanted to see happen.

“The hit-and-run decisions of the Parades Commission is part of the problem. Bad decisions which others are left to manage.”

Sinn Féin

Published: 13 July, 2005

Sinn Féin Councillor Christy Burke has accused Dublin City Management of treating the people of the city with contempt after trees at the top of O’Connell Street were removed in the dead of night.

Councillor Burke said:

“Three years ago Sinn Féin had a motion passed at the City Council, preventing the City Manager from removing the trees at the top of O’Connell Street until public consultation had taken place. In the intervening time, and as recently as last month, I raised this matter with the City Manager and was told that the report on the public consultation would be going to the O’Connell Street Committee on July 14th.

“It is a disgrace that the trees at the top of O’Connell Street were removed in the dead of night, just one day before this report was to be made public. Furthermore Councillors for the area met yesterday and City Management never informed them about what was to take place.

“Dublin City Management have treated the people of the City with contempt.”ENDS

Note to editor: O’Connell Street Committee is a group made up of local public representatives, trade unions, business community and O’Connell Street’s sole resident. Their role is to monitor the O’Connell Street development.

buzzle.com

**From last year

Plane trees that survived Easter rising may be cut down as city tries to create a cafe culture plaza.

By Guardian Newspapers, 10/19/2004

July 1995 photo of O’Connell St from here

They survived the two most traumatic events in modern Irish history, the bloodbath of the 1916 Easter rising and the civil war that followed, and watched Ireland change from an economic basket case into one of the wealthiest countries in Europe.

But an avenue of ancient trees lining Dublin’s central boulevard, whose bullet holes and shell scars are a source of national pride, are facing the axe in what some call an act of official philistinism.

In a controversy that has pitted the old Ireland against the new, an alliance of academics, artists and politicians is fighting to save the 100-year-old trees, which are to be swept aside to improve the view of Dublin’s Spire - a towering silver needle shortlisted for this year’s Stirling prize for architecture.

This is the spike preferred to the trees - photo from junk

A row is growing in Dublin over the landscaping around the 120-metre spire. Known affectionately by Dubliners as the “Stiletto in the Ghetto” or the “Stiffy near the Liffey”, the €4m (£2.8m) giant pin was completed last year to replace Nelson’s Pillar, bombed by the IRA in 1966.

O’Connell Street had fallen into shambolic decay in the 1970s and until the €300m redevelopment which began during the economic boom of the late 1990s, it was a tatty collection of fast-food shops and bargain basements.

Already, more than 50 historic London plane trees in O’Connell Street, which witnessed the beginning of the new state, have been felled to make way for the spire and the city’s new tram system and to create a “cafe culture” plaza in front of the bullet-scarred General Post Office - scene of the 1916 rising, which left 500 dead and ravaged 100 buildings.

But despite a motion by Dublin city council to protect the remaining 10 trees, developers plan to axe them, saying they do not fit plans to transform O’Connell Street into a European boulevard to rival the best of Paris and Barcelona.

The outrage deepened when plans were made to bulldoze a house in nearby Moore Street dubbed “Ireland’s Alamo”, where the 1916 rebels made their last stand and decided to surrender in what was then the back room of a fish shop. It was to be destroyed to make way for a shopping centre.

Christy Burke, a Sinn Féin councillor in Dublin, led the campaign which secured a reprieve for the Moore Street house last week. He said he would fight for the trees.

“They are part of our history,” he said. “Some people couldn’t give two tosses about Irish history, particularly 1916. But 1916 has been hidden long enough - it is time to put it out in the open. We should be proud of it.”

Ciarán Cuffe, a Green party MP and former architect and town planner, said that destroying trees which were “witnesses to history” would be “a crying shame”. Michael Conaghan, the Dublin mayor, said piles of letters of complaint had arrived on his desk every day and he would fight to get the old trees incorporated into the new design of the street.

Imogen Stuart, a sculptor, who sent an angry letter to the Irish Times, said: “These trees are monuments, living witnesses to the liberation of Ireland. How can we destroy them?”

A spokesman for the O’Connell Street Project said public consultation over the trees had just ended and a report would be considered next month before the city manager made a final decision. About 160 replacement trees would be planted.

He said the felling of the mature trees was regrettable. “But from an architectural point of view, it was felt their height didn’t lend itself to the design of the street in terms of symmetry.”

© Guardian Newspapers Limited

BreakingNews.ie

13/07/2005 - 08:15:47

Dublin City Council has cut down the last 10 remaining mature trees on O’Connell Street’s central median, despite continued objections from environmentalists.

The 100-year-old London Plane trees are being felled as part of the on-going renovation of the Dublin’s main thoroughfare

They were cleared from the southern end of the street last year amid widespread condemnation from green groups and heritage campaigners who said they dated back the 1916 Rising.

Yesterday evening, the last 10 of the trees were removed from the northern end of the street.

The London Planes are being replaced by smaller, nursery trees as part of the O’Connell Street renovation.

Indymedia Ireland

by Kevin Doyle - WSM Tuesday, Jul 12 2005, 11:36pm
corkwsm@eircom.net

Oil Tankers Turned Back Again

A second successful blockade was held this morning outside the Shell Oil Terminal on Centre Park Rd. in Cork.

A second successful blockade was held this morning outside the Shell Oil Terminal on Centre Park Rd. in Cork. The blockade was held in solidarity with the Rossport 5. About 20 people turned up at 7.30 am. This time Shell reacted aggressively, ‘ordering’ protestors away from their gates. However after being given short shrift by the blockade, the Gardaí were called. By this time the three gates into the Terminal were blocked. The Gardaí - a force of four! - consulted with Shell management and then desisted from attempting to force any of the tankers through. One theory suggests that Shell is running scared to the adverse publicity in the light of the growing boycott of their operations. In all nearly 10 tankers were prevented from entering. However one tanker did attempt to run a line of picketers with nearly tragic consequences. But this tanker also turned back.

The protest continued until 9 am. A mass meeting of protestors agreed to call a further protest this Thursday morning at the same time.

BreakingNews.ie

12/07/2005 - 23:12:50

More than 40 police officers were injured tonight as rioting erupted in north Belfast after a contentious Orange parade passed through a Catholic area.

Two journalists were also hurt when missiles and suspected pipe bombs exploded in the flashpoint Ardoyne district.

The security forces had attempted to hold back nationalist protesters as hundreds of Orangemen marched along the Crumlin Road for the second time today, after attending a mass rally in the city centre.

But even though senior republicans urged nationalist youths not to attack police and soldiers, bricks rained down from rooftops.

The PSNI confirmed one police officer was seriously injured in the trouble and more than 40 were injured.

A car was also set on fire close to police lines where a massive security operation had been put in place for the most controversial of all the Twelfth of July demonstrations taking place across Northern Ireland.

As tensions heightened a water cannon was used to douse large crowds of nationalists and restore order.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, who was at the scene along with senior party colleagues in an attempt to keep the situation calm, was among dozens doused by the jets.

But the trouble escalated even before the Orangemen had made their return from the city centre up along the contentious route past Ardoyne’s shopfronts.

A number of explosions occurred as devices were hurled from the crowd that had gathered.

One hit a BBC journalist who was carried away by police officers.

He was taken to the Mater Hospital where he was treated for flesh wounds to the back.

The PSNI confirmed another member of the media was hurt as the trouble flared.

At least one policeman was seen wounded and had to be taken away by his colleagues.

Mr Adams and his senior party colleague Gerry Kelly held talks with police commanders in the area amid attempts to stop any further serious disorder.

The Sinn Féin chief insisted that in spite of the attacks and blast bombs the situation could have been much worse.

Mr Adams said: “The fact is that the vast majority of people have demonstrated peacefully and in a calm manner.”

The West Belfast MP also blamed the strategy adopted by police for what followed.

“When the police moved in what I think was quite a reckless manner, they took management completely away from the stewards,” he said.

“They brought the water cannon in too quickly, we should have been allowed to keep order.

“In a situation where people on the front line like myself, Gerry Kelly, different MLAs and Fr (Aidan) Troy were completely soaked on six or seven different occasions.”

“What we are trying to do now is negotiate calm back into the situation but it’s a bit difficult to get stewards to move here because they get soaked.

“There are only a few dozen young people engaged in stone-throwing and we are trying to get control of that situation which is quite difficult.”

SDLP West Belfast MLA Alex Attwood condemned those responsible for the rioting.

Mr Attwood said: “The scenes are an utter disgrace. It is in complete contrast of the conduct of so many during the day including the police, the protesters and so many others.

“The throwing the blast bombs and the injuries sustained by a journalist reflects the viciousness of the rioters.

“Having stood on police lines all night I can say the police behaviour has been characterised by restraint and compliance with minimum force required.

“The rioters represent no one but a minority. Those responsible have a great deal to account for.”

At the height of tonight’s trouble nationalist youths with scarves over their faces were seen with stockpiles of petrol or paint bombs.

This morning police in riot gear moved in to clear a sit-down republican protest in the Ardoyne area.

Around 60 demonstrators, some of whom chained themselves to a set of traffic lights, were lifted from the Crumlin Road.

Mr Adams and Mr Kelly called for calm as police moved in on the protesters shortly after 8am.

The demonstrators, who wore white T-shirts with the slogan: “Equality and Respect for Ardoyne Residents”, were removed from the road after a 30-minute operation before the Orange march passed peacefully.

Last year loyalists and nationalists pelted each other with missiles in Ardoyne as the Orangemen passed through the area after the day’s festivities in the city centre.

In Derry a female police officer suffered minor facial injuries after petrol bombs were thrown at officers.

The trouble flared at Butcher Street and St Joseph’s Place areas of the city after the main Orange parade had finished.

A PSNI spokeswoman said several arrests were made following the “minor disturbance”.

The officer was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital for a check-up.

Today’s Orange parade was the first on the city’s nationalist Westbank for 13 years.

It followed an agreement between business leaders in the city and senior members of the order.

Meanwhile, in Co Antrim, riot police moved into a village today as a stand-off developed between Orangemen and nationalist protesters.

Cars used to block a route through Dunloy, where marchers involved in the huge Twelfth of July demonstrations were due to pass through had to be cleared away.

But residents in the mainly Catholic village responded by parking an articulated lorry across the entrance in a bid to disrupt any procession.

Even though the Parades Commission had limited the Orangemen to only walking directly outside their hall, nationalists suspected they would attempt to flout the rules and stage an illegal procession.

Negotiations were launched in a bid to broker a compromise to the stand-off.

Police said Orangemen had complied with the Parades Commission ruling.

The stand-off later ended after Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness arrived to help broker a resolution.

Around 30 nationalists who had staged a sit-down protest were removed from the road by police and Orangemen made their way to the church for the delayed wreath-laying ceremony.