Orange Order honours Shankill Butcher
by Dan O'Neill
The family of Con Neeson, murdered at the hands of the Shankill
Butchers has reacted angrily to the news that a Shankill Road Orange
Lodge has honoured one of the gang Bobby `Basher' Bates.
The Old Boyne Island Heroes have commemorated the killer on a
bannerette with the words `In fond memory of our fallen brethren'.
Bates, a former lodge member was killed in June 1997 in an apparent
loyalist revenge attack on the Upper Woodvale Road. He was a
ringleader of the Shankill Butchers who used knives and meat cleavers
to murder 19 Catholics in the mid 70's.
Charlie Neeson, whose brother Con was murdered at the hands of the
`Butchers' said he was disgusted that the Lodge could carry the
banner during marches. He said, ``I can't understand their logic and
their talk about Christianity. I would like someone to give me an
explanation about this.
``They are really insulting. They are really provocative. It hurts the
memory of those that the Butchers' killed.Something should be done
about this. The `Butchers' killed innocent people in a way animals
wouldn't even be treated.''
The Shankill Road lodge has named four other dead UVF men on the
banner who were also members of the Orange Lodge. They include a UVF
man blown up by his own bomb, and murdered UVF commander John
Bingham.
It has also been revealed that the man who murdered 16-year-old
Catholic schoolboy James Morgan is still a member of the Orange
Order.
Norman Coopey murdered the teenager with a hammer in July 1996 after
offering him a lift in his car. Coopey and an accomplice then set
fire to the boy's body before dumping it in a pit full of animal
carcasses in a field at Clough, Co. Down, near the boy's home in
Annesborough, outside Castlewellan.
The Orange Order has also refused to suspend Richard Monteith, a well
known solicitor. Monteith was found guilty of blocking a road with a
tree during the Drumcree stand-off but was elected deputy district
master of Lurgan only weeks after the conviction.