‘Love Ulster’ parade gets go ahead

A sectarian loyalist parade organised by Willie Frazer has been given approval to march through Dublin city centre and past the GPO on O’Connell Street, the site of the 1916 Easter Rising, according to reports.

A similar ‘Love Ulster’ event in Dublin in 2006 had to be abandoned amid intense rioting by local youths, leading to 14 arrests and 41 injuries.

The Sean Heuston Society, a member of the republican 1916 Societies, said this week that it will oppose the parade and called on other groups to join them.

The society said the people of Dublin did not want the parade, which it described as a “spectacle of bigotry and an attempt at provocation”. It said it will “oppose this parade on the streets if it is allowed to take place and we call on others to do likewise and ensure Dublin is not used as a stick with which to beat besieged Irish citizens in other parts of our country”.

The original 2006 ‘Love Ulster’ parade was intended to display the ‘acceptability’ of loyalist parades to the nationalist people of Dublin in the hope that sectarian parades might be allowed to pass through nationalist areas in the North, such as Ardoyne in north Belfast and Portadown’s Garvaghy Road.

The plan backfired disastrously, however, when rioting spread rapidly across the city centre.

Although no official date has been set, the new march could take place within a month. Tensions in Dublin are already high following a wave of arrests of politicians, activists and youths in connection with anti-austerity protests.

Frazer, a veteran loyalist lobbyist, has said he could still call off his threatened parade if the Dublin government admits that it colluded extensively with the Provisional IRA in the North.

Sinn Fein leader Adams said the ‘Love Ulster’ march was “controversial”, but should be facilitated.

“Dublin city is a capital for all,” he said. “That includes unionists.”

“Anyone who seeks to disrupt the march or to use the occasion to cause trouble in the city centre; to engage in confrontation with marchers or with the gardai, are not serving the cause of Irish republicanism or the cause of peace on this island”.

Urgent Appeal