Loyalist defiance feared over RBP parade

A notorious loyalist band has called on other unionists to join it in defying a Parades Commission ruling over a contentious sectarian parade tomorrow [Saturday August 25].

The parade through Belfast city centre has been organised as a part of a day of marches by the Royal Black Preceptory, the ‘senior’ wing of the anti-Catholic Orange Order.

There will be six main Royal Black Preceptory parades taking place across the Six Counties this Saturday for an event that generally marks the end of the loyalist marching season.

Young Conway Volunteers (YCV) flute band, from the Shankill Road in Belfast, has been banned from marching past a Catholic church after it performed a provocative sectarian ritual outside the church on July 12.

Afterwards the ‘kick-the-Pope’ band claimed it had been playing a tune by the Beach Boys and not a sectarian version. The song mocks the Famine, a period of British rule during which one million Irish people died from hunger or disease and a similar number was forced to emigrate.

In a message posted on the internet, the loyalists said they “will walk and play” and added, “this stance is needed by us all”. It called for a loyalist mob to assemble on Clifton Street in north Belfast ahead of the parade.

The band was set up following the death of a young unionist paramilitary and uses the same set of initials (YCV) as the UVF’s youth wing, Young CItizen Volunteers.

Organised by the ‘City of Belfast Grand Black Chapter’, the parade begins at 11am and marches from Clifton Street in north Belfast to the Lanark Way in west Belfast, expecting to arrive at 1.30pm.

The return journey follows a shorter route leaving at 4pm and arriving at its destination at 6pm. The nationalist Carrick Hill Residents Association are to hold a protest involving 300 people as it passes the area.

Urgent Appeal