Love Ulster March

[Bald Student]

None of my opinions above are contradictoy or hypocritical. The march should not have been allowed because it was incendiary. There was always going to be trouble and the right to free speech is less important than keeping the peace IMO

I think that's the nub of the issue. I would have the right to free speech above keeping the peace. Both sides of the argument are valid though and not hypocritical.

[Block G Raptor]

guy's the issue is being fudged here. The right to free speach is one thing the right to protest another, and the right to organise a march that was designed to be controversial offensive and to provoke a reaction is an entirely different kettle of fish. there could be no winners on saturday. The Scum of this city, The government and the gardai all let us down badly. The march should not have ben allowed for the reasons stated above. The Scum should never have got the opportunity to wreak havoc in the manner in which they did and the Gardai should have been better prepared there was wrong on all sides and there is no justification for any of it

[Poor Student]

Block G, you can't work under that frame of mind. If you ban something because you know people will be intolerant towards it then you're giving into a form of bullying which is again crapping on our civil liberties. The government can't just submit to the will of implicit threats. Where the authorities fell down was underestimation of the size of the counter protest.

[Block G Raptor]

government can't just submit to the will of implicit threats. Where the authorities fell down was underestimation of the size of the counter protest.

I understand your point of view. but I think many posters on here are confusing love ulster with the Orange order particularly those mentioning Republican rallies in britain. I dont think a republican rally in warrington in which marchers are carrying plancards with young matthew parry on them would pass off peacefully
or similar in Birmingham or guildford in which marchers carried placards of the perpetrators of the pub bombings. It is the charge of any government to protect its citizens something they failed to do on saturday.what about the civil liberties of innocent bystanders or shop owners do these come secondary to a loyalist hate group?

[Poor Student]

or similar in Birmingham or guildford in which marchers carried placards of the perpetrators of the pub bombings. It is the charge of any government to protect its citizens something they failed to do on saturday.what about the civil liberties of innocent bystanders or shop owners do these come secondary to a loyalist hate group?

The picture of your man is was an unconfirmed rumour, no? Again Block G we boil back down to the point, if someone sounds out enough noises that citizens are going to get hurt do you back down from democracy? If there was to be a march for the right to full gay marriage tomorrow and I intimated that I would disrupt it by any means necessary then should the government give into my bullying and stop the democratic process? Intolerant bullies should not be allowed to kill the democratic process. It makes me sick to the core that such violence should explode onto our streets due to people refusing to accept the democratic process.

[Block G Raptor]

The picture of your man is was an unconfirmed rumour, no? Again Block G we boil back down to the point, if someone sounds out enough noises that citizens are going to get hurt do you back down from democracy? If there was to be a march for the right to full gay marriage tomorrow and I intimated that I would disrupt it by any means necessary then should the government give into my bullying and stop the democratic process? Intolerant bullies should not be allowed to kill the democratic process. It makes me sick to the core that such violence should explode onto our streets due to people refusing to accept the democratic process.

I Think you are missing the point I'm trying to make. A march for Gay marraige would not have at its a core an intention to offend and enflame people although it may do both it would not be the sole purpose of the march. IMHO the sole purpose of the love ulster march was to provoke such a reaction as we saw on saturday and regretably the mindless goons that ran amok could not see past their tiochfaidh Ar La mentality to realise that they were being used to further the cause of this loyalist hate group.

[Poor Student]

Oh, so that's what you meant. It may well have been the pretext Block G and my personal opinion is that Donaldson would be not too disappointed at what happened yesterday, but they were well within their rights to do it given permission by our democratically elected government.

You also have to ask, why are we producing such mindless goons? Who or what is responsible for it? Do you mean the pure criminal knackers or the tiocfaidh ár lá types? Is it time the educational system took a bit of emphasis off the whole 800 hundred years of opression riff?

[Thunderblaster]

On Questions and Answers tonight, an invitation has been extended to FAIR by the panelists to come back down to Dublin and have their march. Jeffrey Donaldson has expressed some reservations towards it.

[Dodge]

Well if the panelist want it, thats alright then...

[Forever Dreamin]

I would hope that all those convicted of involvement in the riots are jailed, and when released barred from all football grounds be it soccer, rugby or gaa. What would those morons have done if they had been at the English game in Lansdowne??? Who really gives a **** if some loyalists want to walk down oconnell street roaring and shouting. If they were just let walk down and ignored or even applauded they would have gone home feeling like idiots after failing in their attempt to provoke violence. Yes they came intent on causing violence and mindless gob****es responded by attacking our police force, robbing our shops, burning our cars and terrorising our citizens and tourists. Meanwhile the love ulster brigade were having a great laugh.

[dfx-]

The €64 million question:

You also have to ask, why are we producing such mindless goons? Who or what is responsible for it? Do you mean the pure criminal knackers or the tiocfaidh ár lá types? Is it time the educational system took a bit of emphasis off the whole 800 hundred years of opression riff?

I'd love to know how some people are trying to "understand" the violence and picking on those who planned it instead based on it shouldn't have been allowed in the first place. I didn't know democratic decisions were ever based on a "they started it first" mentality. Our democratically elected Government made a democratic decision to allow a march on democratic grounds through our city, so what is the response? To throw missiles of their own city at their own police to teach their own Government a lesson perhaps? No sane Government or even our own one for that matter( ) will listen to those who throw their fists around.

Mindless goons is certainly the term I have for those on Saturday who couldn't accept the democratic decision by our democratic Government to allow a march and threw their toys out of their prams again in such a childish manner as "well if I don't get my way democratically, I'll get it by force instead" - the thought processes of brutes, criminals and childish bullies and I for one will not be bullied into thinking that episode on Saturday was even remotely justified or anyone else's fault that the thugs who did it.

It's all too easy to come out with the anti-Gardaí, anti-McDowell usual rubbish for such events......this for me was the back breaking straw so to speak. Enough is enough - time to tackle the idiots at their level.

Solve Poor Student's questions, we go much further to eradicating the disease than kicking a few people out of their state-paid Mercs.......again.

[Block G Raptor]

Is it time the educational system took a bit of emphasis off the whole 800 hundred years of opression riff?

Absolutley Not. Those who forget their history are destined to repeat it. But i do think more enphasis should be put on the last decade and a half of our history too

[Dr.Nightdub]

Let's go back to the root of the thing here. Orange marches are DESIGNED to be provocative. Case in point: Drumcree, where there's a perfectly non-contentious route available but the Orangemen refuse to avail of it, on the surface because it's not their "traditional route" but in reality cos there's no fun having an Orange march if a few fenian noses can't be rubbed in the dirt along the way.

I posted these quotes way back in this thread:

The Orange system seems to us to have no other practical result than as a means of keeping up the Orange festivals, and celebrating them, leading as they do to violence, outrage, religious animosities, hatred between classes and, too often, bloodshed and loss of life.

Belfast is liable to periodic disturbances on occasions well known as the Orange anniversaries...If the celebration of these anniversaries be attended with such risk we might well ask why any party should obstinately adhere to it.

Not a lot has changed in Orangeism since the 19th Century. Saturday's march was equally intended to be provocative. On one level, O'Connell St reverts to being "the queen's highway". Or, on a different level, they get to flaunt pictures of one of the perpetrators of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings and dress him up as a "victim".

I can understand a level of repugnance at such people being let march in Dublin. At one level, that was what the RSF counter-demonstration was all about - pointing out the hypocrisy of commemorating as a "victim" someone who himself consciously set about creating actual victims.

People are banging on about free speech and how the loyalists should have been let march. At one level, that's justified - except in the case of proven fascists (in the political sense, rather than the pejorative sense), I'm all for free speech - and I don't consider FAIR / Love Ulster to be political fascists. But the flip side of free speech is the right to protest at something you find offensive.

However, I'm not naieve enough to think that what happened on Saturday was entirely motivated by some kind of righteous political anger. It wasn't. It may have had political protest as a seed bed but it was hijacked by opportunistic boneheads who used the occasion to vent their own disaffection or alienation from the public face of this state. Riots aren't planned - they're spontaneous opportunities that are seized upon by whoever happens to be in the vicinity with a mind to violently express their hostility to the status quo. Saturday was no exception.

Put it this way: Love Ulster marchers don't drive Dublin-registered beamers. But it was Dublin-registered cars that were vandalised, robbed and burnt. They were attacked, not for being Orangemen's cars, but for being symbolic of everything the perpetrators may aspire to but will probably never achieve - money, status, prestige, whatever.

What started off as a politically-motivated counter-demonstration to an intensely provocative political march rapidly degenerated into a more generalised free-for-all. The rioters simply took advantage of the usual cack-handed policing of public events - be they sporting or political - in this country.

The way Saurday descended into mayhem showed an appalling lack of foresight on the part of the authorities. They should've seen it coming but they didn't. Whether that was a deliberate oversight, or simply down to congenital stupidity, is another argument.

[CollegeTillIDie]

Does Dublin need a parades commission in light of this past weekend.. the Reclaim the Streets protest etc. ?

[Dodge]

No. Two in a few years does not need more tax money spent on it. What it needs is a strong Dept. of Justice

[pete]

The march was not an Orange Parade. It was a legal protest that the irish authorities knew about well in advance. They could easily have choosen a route that did not go through a building site.

If anyone had proof that an inflamatory picture was to be displayed please post it here otherwise stop mentioning rumours (see forum rules).

I fail to understand how anyone could be offended by the unionist protest on saturday. Please explain this to me as i do not understand.

[WeAreRovers]

On Questions and Answers tonight, an invitation has been extended to FAIR by the panelists to come back down to Dublin and have their march. Jeffrey Donaldson has expressed some reservations towards it.

Good to see Donaldson and his mates not getting any joy with the the Q & A audience. Despite his bleating about victims and poor old Unionists and Bowman's softly softly approach, the audience didn't fall for it.

The only person to get applause was Susan McKay when she mentioned Drumcree. The very strong feeling I'm getting from talking to lots of people fronm different backgrounds and of different ages is that Dublin people did not want this march. We were never asked or consulted and mayhem ensued.

McDowell and the media have called this one wrong - just look at today's Irish Times, blaming the Ultras for Saturday's trouble.

KOH

[pete]

The only person to get applause was Susan McKay when she mentioned Drumcree. The very strong feeling I'm getting from talking to lots of people fronm different backgrounds and of different ages is that Dublin people did not want this march. We were never asked or consulted and mayhem ensued.

That shows up Dublin people to be unaccomadating bunch. If you not able to accomadate a victims protest then how can you operate a United Irealnd with 1 million unionists? I disagree anyway as most people don't see what the fuss is & acknowledge the scumbags don't represent anyone.

[Macy]

The only person to get applause was Susan McKay when she mentioned Drumcree. The very strong feeling I'm getting from talking to lots of people fronm different backgrounds and of different ages is that Dublin people did not want this march. We were never asked or consulted and mayhem ensued.

I don't want RSF, or various religious nutters gathering outside the GPO whenever they fill the need to rant their poison. I don't feel it gives me the right to riot and loot.

How many protesters out of the population of Dublin? Most people from Dublin, and the rest of Ireland, really didn't give that much of shít about the march going ahead, and I dare say the vast majority would've preferred that it passed off peacefully and they all fooked off with nothing to make political capital out of.

[WeAreRovers]

That shows up Dublin people to be unaccomadating bunch. If you not able to accomadate a victims protest then how can you operate a United Irealnd with 1 million unionists? I disagree anyway as most people don't see what the fuss is & acknowledge the scumbags don't represent anyone.

It wasn't a victims march. No amount of spin can change that. It was a deliberately provocative quasi-paramilitary Loyalist march through our main thouroughfare, yards from where dozens of people were murdered by these people's fellow travellers.

Bear in mind that Love Ulster marches are banned from Belfast City Centre by the PSNI and Belfast City Council. There's a reason for that.

KOH