No love for Ulster rally

Republican Sinn Féin are to organise a counter-demonstration to oppose a rally in Dublin by the ‘Love Ulster’ campaign on January 28, which has apparently been given the go-ahead by city authorities.

The hardline unionist rally is being organised by Willie Frazer, who said the march would feature an alliance of members of the Protestant Orange Order, loyalist ‘activists’ and victims of IRA violence.

RSF is to organise a counter-demonstration, commemorating the 33 victims of the British-backed Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974, against what they described as a “sectarian and racist” march.

“At a time when Nationalist people have been driven from their homes in the teeth of a Loyalist campaign of sectarian hate, the decision to allow such a march in Dublin displays the contempt that the 26-County state has for the nationalist people of the Six Counties,” saod RSF Vice President Des Dalton.

“The relatives of those murdered at the hands of British state directed death squads on the streets of Dublin must surely question the motives of a 26- County administration, which allows such a spectacle to go ahead, on the same streets where innocent men, women and children died at the hands of British-backed Loyalist death squads in the early 1970s.

“Successive 26-County Administrations have failed to investigate these deaths, and files relating to them have disappeared in suspicious circumstances.

“In allowing such a march on the streets of Dublin the 26 County administration is effectively turning its back on all of those, north and south who have suffered at the hands Loyalist death squads and their British masters.”

According to the organisers of January’s rally, Garda police have agreed a route for the parade, which they denied was racist.

“There have never been any problems with parades in the South. The parade will go ahead,” said Mr Frazer.

Urgent Appeal