Republican News · Thursday 23 July 1998

[An Phoblacht]

Our cry is still that of No Surrender.

Orange Chaplain Hugh Ross on calls to end the Drumcree protest. Friday 17 July.

 

If the people of this province stand together and they see to it that this assembly falls apart then maybe proper democracy would be restored to the people who haven't had it for 30 years.

Harold Gracey of the Orange Order attacking the Good Friday Agreement at the same rally.

 

The Prime Minister gave us assurances that the RUC will remain the RUC.

Six-County `Police Federation' Chairman Les Rogers after his meeting with Tony Blair last week.

 

drew Faulds (letter 8 July) suggests a NATO bombardment of Serbia because of the Kosovo problems. I suggest that NATO first bombs England for the English actions in Ulster.

Letter to the English Independent last week.

 

But it was too late. History had passed him by too, leaving him there on top of the hill at Drumcree, full of wrath and fury, fulminating at the wind... Earlier that day his DUP colleague and fellow Presbyterian, Joel Patton, had gone to fight for Ulster at Pomeroy. With an umbrella and his index finger, which he pointed at the enemy, the Rev William Bingham, a young clergyman then at prayer. Hardly the stuff of myth.

Patsy McGarry on the beginning and end of the Orangmen's `last stand at Drumcree'. Irish Times, Saturday 18 July.

 

Instead the muddy fields were disturbed only by a few police and soldiers, who, without any apparent urgency, were carrying out a sixth day of searches in an operation which has all but ended the stand-off.

Report in the Examiner on the collapse of the mass Orange protest at Drumcree. Monday 20 July.

 

On the Garvaghy Road a mural painted in just fives hours last Saturday is frighteningly prophetic. It shows an Orangeman, looming over three young, dancing figures. In his hand is a petrol bomb coloured red, white and blue.

ne Cadwallader. Ireland On Sunday, 19 July.

 

The satellites and burger vans are gone, along with the tents and huckster stalls. The TV crews have disappeared, even the soldiers are yawning in the afternoon sun. This is the protest that died of shame.

ne Cadwallader on Drumcree.

 

Of course the IRA have been quite definitive about this, you need only refer to their statement of April last. They said then on the issue of IRA arms: ``Let us make it clear, there will be no decommissioning.'' That's it, flat, bald, like it or lump it, no two ways about it, clear as a die, any cliché you like.

Niall O'Dowd writing in Ireland On Sunday on decommissioning. 19 July.

 

Given the fact also, that there are some 130,000 legally held weapons on the other side, not to mention the scarifying scenes in the past few weeks - Catholic children burned alive, entire families uprooted from their homes, attempted pogroms in several housing estates where Catholic minorities lived - it is hardly surprising they [the IRA] would reiterate their April message.

Niall O'Dowd.

 

It is crucial that the new inquiry into the Bloody Sunday deaths retains the confidence of relatives of the dead. Without that, the capacity of the investigation to heal the wounds left by that awful day will be severely limited.

Editorial in the Irish News on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in Derry. Tuesday 21 July.


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