Irelandclick.com

A “unionist line” has been drawn through proposals to build 70 homes for nationalists in the Oldpark, say housing campaigners.
Plans for the site at Hillview, behind Dunnes Stores, were opposed at a recent meeting attended by members of the unionist community and politicians in the Avoca Street Community Centre.
But the St Patrick’s and St Joseph’s Housing Committee this morning demanded answers from the Housing Executive over its housing policy in North Belfast where nationalists number 85 per cent of those in housing crisis.
Officials of the Housing Executive attended the meeting as well as unionist councillors including the PUP’s Hugh Smyth, Independent Frank McCoubrey, UUP councillor Fred Cobain and the DUP’s Diane Dodds.
Gerard Brophy of the St Patrick’s and St Joseph’s Committee said nationalists were being blocked from housing “at every turn”.
“Here are 70 families that could get a decent house and again the unionist bloc has got together to oppose any housing for nationalists.
“What they are saying about it becoming an interface is groundless, because there’s nothing but derelict houses in Manor Street.”
“They have opposed housing in Sailortown, where there is no unionist community anywhere near, and in every other place where Catholics are trying to get decent housing. In Somerdale, unionist housing is going ahead and that will create another interface. This is the unionist line being drawn again to keep North Belfast unionist. The minute there’s a row from the unionist side the Housing Executive immediately backs down. There needs to be an inquiry into who is in charge of housing policy in North Belfast. Is it the Housing Executive or unionists?”
But Hugh Smyth today denied that there was any political motive in the unionist opposition.
“I am opposed to this because it would create another interface. It’s nothing to do with politics. It’s a clear matter of creating another flashpoint. It will create nothing but difficulties for both sides of the community.”
A Housing Executive spokeswoman said it was in favour of the development.
“The site at Hillview has been acquired by North and West Housing.
“The Housing Executive, through the North Belfast Housing Strategy, has supported their proposals for social housing at this location on the grounds of housing need in North Belfast,” she said.
“The North Belfast Strategy Manager and senior Housing Executive officials regularly meet with community groups and elected representatives about proposed developments in North Belfast. Initial contact has been made with local politicians about the site at Hillview and the Housing Executive and North and West Housing are awaiting a response from Sinn Féin about possible dates for public consultation.”
Sinn Féin’s Margaret McClenaghan said, “Sinn Féin is asking unionist politicians to stop scaremongering around the issue of the proposed new Hillview Housing Development.”

Journalist:: Andrea McKernon

To read the 8 November issue of The Plough, click >>here

To join Seven Stars Republican Socialist News, go >>here

Belfast Telegraph

Move ‘part of intimidation campaign’

12 November 2005

A FORMER All-Ireland camogie championship medal winner intimidated out of her home after her grandson wore an Antrim jersey last night condemned anti-GAA posters in a mainly Protestant Co Antrim village.

Around 30 posters declaring “No fascist GAA jerseys in Ahoghill” were erected overnight on bus shelters, road signs and other public property.

Nationalists said it was the latest incident in a campaign against Catholics in the village which saw several attacks on homes this summer.

Kathleen McCaughey (51), who won an All-Ireland medal in 1979 told how the campaign against her started after her 11-year-old grandson Nathan was playing hurling in her garden in the mainly Protestant Brookfield Gardens estate and was wearing an Antrim GAA top.

Mrs McCaughey, who now lives in nearby Portglenone, said: “The ball hit a car and we were told there would be none of that type of game here. We were told to go out to Cloney (nearby St Mary’s GAA club) and play Gaelic if we wanted.

“My family had played hurley and camogie in the estate for years and Protestants used to come out and play with us too.

“The erection of these latest signs is only to keep the bother going in Ahoghill.”

Sinn Fein Assembly member for North Antrim Philip McGuigan said he was “outraged and angry” after the posters appeared.

Mr McGuigan added: “I have been contacted by nationalist residents in Ahoghill who have woken to find posters erected warning people not to wear GAA jerseys in the town.

“It seems that this is the latest stage in the unionist campaign to force all Catholics and nationalists from the town. Over the summer this campaign used pipe bombs, paint bombs and violence to force innocent people from their homes.

“Ahoghill is home to a successful GAA club and this campaign is clearly aimed at that club, its members and the wider nationalist community in the area.”

North Antrim DUP Assemblyman Mervyn Storey condemned the erection of the posters.

He said: “Any attempt to intimidate any section of the community isn’t to be welcomed. Whilst I have reservations about the ethos of the GAA, I would not advocate this type of behaviour.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Marie Foy
mfoy@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
12 November 2005

A DECISION by the Ministry of Defence to forbid Royal Irish Regiment members from wearing their uniforms at some Remembrance ceremonies has been branded “outrageous” by a unionist peer.

Lord Laird has been in contact with the Ministry in a bid to reverse the ruling.

“This is trying to take away people’s basic rights,” the Ulster Unionist politician insisted.

“For 30 years locally recruited soldiers have been able to pay tribute to their fallen comrades and friends, some of them fathers, uncles or grandfathers or men who have died alongside them.

“This has been taken away by the MOD and they are saying they will discipline anyone who transgresses. It is a step too far.

“Those soldiers died mainly in the line of duty in their uniforms. Why can’t their comrades honour them in theirs.

“This is putting salt in the wound, particularly as it comes in the week when the On The Run legislation is being allowed to come back in.

“This is another obscenity towards the unionist people of Northern Ireland and we are not putting up with it.”

An Army spokesman confirmed that only those attending events in an official capacity would be allowed to wear uniforms.

The spokesman said that the regiment had reduced in size over the years and there was no longer enough manpower to officially attend every Remembrance ceremony and service in the province.

For example, the 3rd Royal Battalion, based at Drumadd Barracks in Co Armagh, would have official representation at around 40 memorial events on Remembrance Sunday.

He said that members of the regiment were still permitted to attend the other events, just not in uniform.

The spokesman added that they had been in contact with the UDR Association, the Royal British Legion and other groups to ask them to play a greater part in the organisation of events.

Belfast Telegraph

By Ashleigh Wallace
awallace@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
12 November 2005

RETAIL company TK Maxx has been accused of treating the people of Northern Ireland with “utter contempt” after it emerged that it has banned its Ulster workforce from wearing poppies.

Lagan Valley Assembly member Edwin Poots said the company’s policy of banning poppies has “perpetuated the divisions in Northern Ireland,” prompting him to call for a change in policy.

A spokeswoman for the company confirmed staff in Northern Ireland were banned from wearing poppies to work, adding that the ban did not extent to employees in stores in England, Scotland and Wales.

Branding the policy as “outrageous” Mr Poots said he had been contacted by several members of staff employed in the Lisburn branch who have been left upset by the ban.

Despite the ban, several employees chose to ignore it and wore their poppies to work earlier yesterday.

All TK Maxx stores in Northern Ireland were due to observe a two minute’s silence - in memory of those who lost their lives in the wars - both yesterday and tomorrow.

Mr Poots said: “The poppy is representative of the entire community but TK Maxx has turned it into a sectarian issue, which is to their shame.

“The people of Lisburn and Northern Ireland paid a heavy price during the two World Wars and also during the 30 years of terrorism here from 1969.

“The policy of TK Maxx is an attack on the men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.

“2005 marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two and is the last major chance to thank all those ordinary men and women who went on to do extraordinary things 60 years ago.

“TK Maxx has treated the people of Northern Ireland with utter contempt by its refusal to allow their members of staff to wear the poppy.”

A spokeswoman for TK Maxx said: “Given the conditions in Northern Ireland we, along with other retailers, ask our employees not to wear any emblems, except those of our nominated charities.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Eddie McIlwaine
emcilwaine@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
12 November 2005

Click to view - ‘Syeamores Ballygrainey’ by Colin Middleton - photo from >>here

A PAINTER whose canvasses inspired the poets is being honoured today with an Ulster History Circle blue plaque.

It is being unveiled at the former home of Colin Middleton (1910-1983) at 6 Victoria Road, Bangor, by his daughter Jane.

Middleton, whose paintings are more in demand today than ever, was largely self-taught.

~~Born in Belfast in 1910, Colin Middleton was probaly the most eclectic Irish painter of the 20th century - moving with ease and conviction through Cubist, Surrealist and Expressionist styles throughout his life. Largely self-taught, his father’s influence as an amateur artist and visits to London and Belgium fuelled his early interest in art. He worked in the family damask business until 1947 when the opportunity to teach art enabled him to give more time to painting. Throughout the rest of his life, frequently made precarious by poverty, Middleton painted images thrown up by his rich imagination. These derived their strength from two main sources - the passion with which Middleton presented them and the artist’s interest in the colourful life of ordinary people - who sold fish, worked the streets and entertained the bus queues.

Middleton received many awards and considerable recognition throughout his career but critical response to his work was always modified by a confused reaction to his numerous stylisic changes. Those changes may have affected Middleton’s commercial success buy they did not alienate the poets, including Michael Longley and Seamus Heaney, who have made a number of references to his work in their poems.
>>modernart.ie~~

The plaque, the placing of which is supported by North Down Council, will be a huge attraction in the seaside resort where the artist used to be a popular figure either strolling on the prom or working on another canvas.

“His work derived its strength from his sheer passion and his interest in the colourful lives of ordinary folk,” says Dr James Hawthorne, the former BBC chief, who is now at the History Circle and has been working on the Middleton plaque for some months. It was his fondness for the ordinary things in life that came across in his canvasses that prompted poets like Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley to mention Middleton in their writings.

Meanwhile, another blue plaque is going up on Monday, this time in honour of Franciscan scholar Aodh Mac Aingil (1571-1626). It will be unveiled in the garden of the St Patrick’s Centre of Downpatrick ? his home town ? by Senator Maurice Hayes.

Bishop Mac Aingil was a scholar in philosophy and theology as well as being a writer of poems in Irish and had a tremendous influence in Ireland and in Rome too, says Dr Hawthorne.

“He was the personal envoy from the Earl of Tyrone in Philip 111 of Spain,” he said

However, when Mac Aingil was appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1626 he died before he could get back to Ireland to take up office.

Belfast Telegraph

12 November 2005

REDUCTION of the present 26 councils to just seven could cause the “sectarian Balkanisation” of Northern Ireland, the SDLP warned last night.

Just over a week ahead of the expected Government decisions on the review of public administration, the party’s annual conference also rejected any proposals to give added powers to local councils under Direct Rule.

Party chairperson Patricia Lewsley warned that the priority must be the return of devolution with direct rule Ministers intent on imposing huge rates increases and water charges.

Today a key motion warns continuing intransigence by the DUP and Sinn Féin is preventing elected representatives from fulfilling their responsibility to improve the provision of Health and Personal Social Services.

Health spokesperson Carmel Hanna will warn against the persistence of waiting lists forcing people to opt to go privately and jeopardising the public service ethos of the NHS.

The South Belfast MLA will hit out at continuing instability and lack of leadership which, the motion says, “has created an unstable environment where it takes too long for decisions to be made and encourages a culture of lack of responsibility-taking”.

BreakingNews.ie

12/11/2005 - 11:11:22

Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionists were today expected to be accused of carving up the peace process in the North to serve their own interests.

Sources close to nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan said he would launch a hard-hitting attack on Gerry Adams and the Rev Ian Paisley in his speech to delegates at the party’s annual conference in Belfast.

The attack will follow claims by SDLP deputy leader Dr Alasdair McDonnell last night that Sinn Féin’s approach to the peace process was reminiscent of the George Orwell novel, 1984.

The South Belfast MP told SDLP members: “In George Orwell’s often-quoted novel 1984, he includes an appendix on the principles of Newspeak – a language based on English and promoted by the ruling Party to subvert debate and individual thought.

“Under the Newspeak regime, words look like English and sound like English but don’t mean what the untrained eye expects them to mean. Sound familiar?

“What a great coincidence that we see the Provisional Movement unwittingly adapt another of Orwell’s messages as their rallying cry: ’Building an Ireland of Equals’ where, as we know, they think that they and they alone are more equal than everyone else on the island.

“But, I like you decided long ago that I would not allow my politics and values to be hijacked, twisted or determined by the Provos or anyone else for that matter.

“These phrases – Prosperity, Equality, Respect for Diversity and United Ireland – still mean much to me and still form the background and the backbone of this party’s politics and values.”

Dr McDonnell also queried Sinn Féin’s economic policy including its opposition to the euro.

He claimed the Economist Intelligence Unit had said if Sinn Féin got into power in the Irish Republic, it would cause the country uncertainty and instability.

He also rounded on the DUP and the Ulster Unionists over their response to rioting which erupted in loyalist districts of Belfast in September when a Protestant Orange Order march was rerouted from a contentious area in the west of the city.

The SDLP deputy leader said: “The DUP makes great noises about being the Party that will cut red tape and encourage business, yet excuses and justifies loyalist protests that bring the whole country to a standstill and make a mockery of our work to promote Northern Ireland to inward investment opportunities.

“What about the Ulster Unionist Party, which once prided itself as the party of business?

“Its leader, Reg Empey, whom I once worked with on a range of economic development issues here in Belfast, and who was once a very competent Minister of Enterprise, gets elected as leader and announces that parades, not prosperity need to be at the top of our political agenda.

“We saw what parades do for prosperity on September 10 when Belfast was shut down and so much was burned down.”

Conference delegates were also due to hear today from the vice chairman of Northern Ireland’s Policing Board Denis Bradley during a debate on policing.

In September Mr Bradley was savagely beaten in a bar in Derry in an attack blamed on dissident republicans.

BreakingNews.ie

12/11/2005 - 14:07:47

Leading loyalist Andre Shoukri has pleaded not guilty to charges of blackmail, intimidation and money laundering, Belfast Magistrates Court was told today.

The 28-year-old, whose address was given as Clare Heights, gave a thumbs-up to around a dozen supporters in the magistrates’ court as he appeared alongside William Boreland in the dock.

Mr Shoukri, who was dressed in a green t-shirt and casual jacket, faced one charge of blackmail, one charge of intimidation and one charge of money laundering.

Thirty-eight year old Mr Boreland faced one charge of blackmail, two charges of using a firearm or imitation firearm to cause fear and to cause an arrestable offence, one charge of intimidation and one charge of money laundering.

A detective sergeant told magistrate Bernadette Kelly that Mr Shoukri replied not guilty when the charges were put to him yesterday.

He also said Mr Boreland made no reply.

The detective sergeant said he believed he could connect both men to the charges.

Both suspects were remanded in custody to appear by video link on December 9.

Their solicitor, Philip Breen urged the media to report today’s proceedings with respect for the principle of a fair trial.

He criticised the Police Service of Northern Ireland for the leaking of information in the run up to today’s appearance before magistrates.

Among those allowed inside the courtroom was Mr Shoukri’s brother Ihab.

Outside, around 40 loyalists, some of them hooded or wearing baseball caps and scarves to disguise their faces, gathered at the gates of the Laganside court complex.

A massive security operation was launched by the PSNI, with a dozen land rovers outside the court, police in riot gear and half a dozen officers inside the courtroom.

Bemused parents and children arrived at the Waterfront Hall across from the courts for an Irish dancing championship, only to be confronted with the heavy security operation and the loyalist mob.

As they left the court to go back into the cells, Mr Shoukri and Mr Boreland were applauded by their supporters.

They were told to “keep your chin up'’ and “see you soon.”.

BreakingNews.ie

12/11/2005 - 15:36:49

A second man has appeared in court charged with the murders of two teenagers in County Armagh five years ago.

Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine from Portadown were stabbed to death after leaving a disco.

25-year-old Mark Robert Burcombe from Lisburn has been charged with the murders.

He has been remanded in custody to appear again on December the 6th.

BBC

Mr Bradley said 50-50 should be got rid of as soon as possible

The PSNI’s 50-50 policy for recruiting Catholic and Protestants will have to end in the longer term, Policing Board vice-chairman Denis Bradley has said.

Mr Bradley played down concerns over restorative justice during a speech at the SDLP’s annual conference.

Ending 50-50 recruitment would aid a proper human rights culture, he said.

Earlier, SDLP leader Mark Durkan said Gordon Brown would have better addressed NI’s difficulties since the Good Friday Agreement than Tony Blair.

The SDLP leader was speaking ahead of an address to his party’s 35th annual conference in Belfast on Saturday.

He said Mr Blair’s contribution had been vital in securing the Agreement.

However, he believed Mr Brown would probably have proved “less tolerant” of “disruptive tactics” by the local political parties.

The SDLP conference got under way at a Belfast hotel on Friday night and will continue until Sunday.

Mr Bradley told delegates he was “not terribly fearful that Sinn Fein or any other republican organisation or loyalist group will try to control policing within their own areas”.

“If they do try to control it, they will fail miserably. It will not happen and if it happens for a month or two or a year, it won’t happen in the long term,” he said.

“That is not the kind of people that we are.”

He added: “We have a 50-50 recruitment process at this moment in time but it was got as an aberration to right an old wrong and to make right that which was not rightable by any other process,” he said.

“It should be got rid of as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, SDLP leader Mark Durkan told the conference the British and Irish governments had to stop their “concession of the week” approach to the DUP and Sinn Fein.

“When we meet the two governments later this month, our message will be clear: get on with the agreement,” Mr Durkan said.

“Drop the concession of the week approach that has undermined confidence so badly.

“Get back to the consensus building approach. That gave us the agreement in the first place and offers the only credible basis for taking it forward now.”

Guardian

· Mother and baby ‘doing well’, says hospital
· Child arrives six months after near-fatal attack

Robert Booth
Saturday November 12, 2005
The Guardian

Abigail Witchalls, who was stabbed and partially paralysed while walking with her young son in a country lane, gave birth to a baby boy yesterday.

She gave birth nine days after being discharged from hospital following more than six months of treatment for serious injuries sustained in an attack on April 20.

A spokesman at St George’s hospital, Tooting said yesterday: “Abigail and Benoit Witchalls [her husband] are delighted to announce the birth of a healthy baby boy at 2.30pm today weighing 5lbs and 6oz. The delivery went very well and mother and baby are doing fine.”

Article continues
The baby was due around Christmas, but Mrs Witchalls went into labour early on Friday morning, six weeks early. Until her discharge this month she had been treated at the spinal injuries unit of the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital in north London. When she returned to her home in Surrey she had some movement in her right arm, which meant she was able to feed herself. She was also able to breathe and speak.

Medical experts said last night that Mrs Witchalls’ ability to give birth would not have been compromised by her paralysis.

Donald Campbell, a Harley Street consultant neurosurgeon, said: “You can’t push because you can’t use your abdominal muscles. But the womb itself will contract normally and the baby will be born. Most of it is really a reflex that is not controlled consciously.”

Mr Campbell said there was no reason she would have to have a caesarean section, although if it was a difficult birth it would be possible the method could be employed or forceps used. Hospital staff would have been on alert to spot any complications she would not have been able to feel.

Mrs Witchalls, 26, was in the early stages of pregnancy when she was attacked while pushing her son Joseph in a buggy near their home in Little Bookham, Surrey. They had just left his nursery when she saw a man in a car who had made her feel uneasy. The man reappeared and Mrs Witchalls panicked and ran down the lane, but as she was blocked by a gate she saw her attacker was holding a knife to her 21-month-old son’s throat.

The man insisted she should approach him and when she did he grabbed her hair, pulled her down towards the ground and stabbed her once in the back of the neck leaving a three-inch wound.

Three weeks after the attack a suspect, Richard Cazaly, died in hospital following a paracetamol overdose.

Cazaly was a neighbour of Mrs Witchalls. It is thought he had driven to Scotland on April 25 and, at some point, taken a large number of tablets. He was admitted to Raigmore hospital in Inverness on April 28 and later that day transferred to the Edinburgh Royal infirmary where he died on April 30.

Surrey police said no one had been charged in connection with the attack and papers had been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. No decision on the file has yet been made.

Guardian

Ian Cobain
Saturday November 12, 2005
The Guardian

The British government operated a secret torture centre during the second world war to extract information and confessions from German prisoners, according to official papers which have been unearthed by the Guardian.

More than 3,000 prisoners passed through the centre, where many were systematically beaten, deprived of sleep, forced to stand still for more than 24 hours at a time and threatened with execution or unnecessary surgery.

Some are also alleged to have been starved and subjected to extremes of temperature in specially built showers, while others later complained that they had been threatened with electric shock torture or menaced by interrogators brandishing red-hot pokers.

The centre, which was housed in a row of mansions in one of London’s most affluent neighbourhoods, was carefully concealed from the Red Cross, the papers show. It continued to operate for three years after the war, during which time a number of German civilians were also tortured.

A subsequent assessment by MI5, the Security Service, concluded that the commanding officer had been guilty of “clear breaches” of the Geneva convention and that some interrogation methods “completely contradicted” international law.

On at least one occasion, an MI5 officer noted in a newly declassified report, a German prisoner was convicted of war crimes and hanged on the basis of a confession which he had signed after he was, at the very least, “worked on psychologically”. A number of people who appeared as prosecution witnesses at war crimes trials are also alleged to have been tortured.

The official papers, discovered in the National Archives, depict the centre as a dark, brutal place which caused great unease among senior British officers. They appear to have turned a blind eye partly because of the usefulness of the information extracted, and partly because the detainees were thought to deserve ill treatment.

Not all the torture centre’s secrets have yet emerged, however: the Ministry of Defence is continuing to withhold some of the papers almost 60 years after it was closed down.

Daily Ireland

‘On the run’ man slams agreement of facing special tribunal on return

Zoe Tunney

A Belfast man currently on the run in the South yesterday said he was “disgusted” with the deal struck between Sinn Féin and the British government over his proposed return to the North.
Under the terms of the deal, announced by the Secretary of State, Peter Hain, in Westminster on Wednesday, on-the-runs wanted for offences committed before the Good Friday Agreement will face a two-stage legal process.
If they are granted a certificate allowing them to take part in the scheme, they will be brought before a special tribunal which will have the same powers as a Crown court.
They will, however, be exempt from arrest, questioning and remand in relation to the offences.
There will be no jury sitting at the tribunals.
In the event of a conviction, the person will be eligible to receive a licence guaranteeing that he or she will not be jailed.
The same amnesty applies to members of the security forces wanted for crimes committed on civilians before the Good Friday Agreement.
Stiofán MacGib was 19 when he arrested at his home in west Belfast in 1978 for membership of the IRA and possession of a weapon.
He said he is totally disgusted with the terms of the amnesty.
“I was neither a member of the IRA or in possession of a weapon when I was arrested just before my 20th birthday,” he told Daily Ireland.
“For 27 years, I have had to live in the Free State for something I did not do and now Sinn Féin tells me - through the media - that I have to stand trial in a British court.
“I do not even recognise the state, never mind the court.”
Mr MacGib said he was struck by the legitimacy the deal gives to the British state and court system.
“I now have to put myself at the mercy of a British court and to do so would be to own up to the legitimacy of the British presence in the North,” he said.
“It seems like the British are happy to accept the IRA’s disbandment and decommissioning but will still assert their authority.
“How can we, as republicans, say that the British have no legitimate right to be in the North and yet expect people to attend their court?”
A Sinn Féin spokesperson said only cases where there was evidence to support a claim that an on-the-run committed an offence would have to go before a special tribunal.

BBC

David McIlwaine and Andrew Robb were killed in February 2000

A second man has been charged with the murder of two teenagers in County Armagh more than five years ago.

Andrew Robb, 19, and David McIlwaine, 18, both from Portadown, were stabbed to death on 19 February 2000 after leaving a disco in Tandragee.

Their bodies were found on a road outside the town.

A 25-year-old man is due at Banbridge Magistrates Court on Saturday. On Friday, another 25-year-old man was remanded in custody over the killings.

**The Irish Heritage Email Group sent round a compilation of an article on Kevin Barry, and in looking for the original link, I found the Wild Geese Today site with all the parts and photos.

“Between November 1920 and June 1921 the British government executed twenty-six Irish Prisoners of War by firing squad or by hanging. Among those executed were ten men who were to become known as the Forgotten Ten. These ten men, one of whom is Kevin Barry, remained buried in the grounds of Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. On October 14th 2001 the ten were reburied in the Republican plot in Glasnevin cemetery.” –Sinn Féin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE FORGOTTEN TEN

thewildgeese.com

“Ten IRA volunteers, fighting for their fledgling nation, met their fate more than 80 years ago at the end of a British noose, and until [2001] lay buried in Mountjoy Prison. Kieron Punch relates each of their stories, starting with 18-year-old Kevin Barry.”

>>READ ON

Sinn Féin

Published: 11 November, 2005

Sinn Féin MLA for North Antrim Philip McGuigan has today slammed comments made by Ian Paisley Junior after posters were erected in Ahoghill, Co Antrim stating that GAA jerseys were not welcome in the village.

In response to media questioning, the DUP MLA said that he found it difficult to take the threats seriously.

Speaking today Mr McGuigan said:

“Ian Paisley Junior’s comments are reflective of the DUP attitude to the ongoing campaign of intimidation against the Catholic community in North Antrim over recent months.

“During the height of the loyalist sectarian campaign of intimidation the silence of DUP representatives in the county spoke volumes. Now we have Ian Paisley Jnr saying that he finds it difficult to take such threats seriously. Well Mr Paisley should go to the village and tell those residents who have been under siege since the summer and before, that he is unconcerned by the posters.

“These disgraceful comments show the distance the DUP must still travel if it is to disassociate itself from the vestiges of militant and sectarian loyalism. In fact, the DUP have contributed to the cold house culture which pervades many vulnerable nationalist communities in North Antrim” ENDS