‘Love Ulster’ – A Celebration Of Hate
The recent decision by the Gardaí to facilitate Willie Frazer and Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR) in organising another Love Ulster march through Dublin’s city centre has been greeted with widespread dismay across Dublin.
The last such march in February 2006 ended in riots along O’Connell Street and other main thoroughfares of the city. The cost to the city, in both damage and lost business, of the last march and accompanying disturbances, has been estimated at in excess of ten million euros. This latest Love Ulster march is scheduled to occur in late September or early October next.
Éirígí is opposed to this re-scheduled march taking place for the reasons outlined in detail below.
On the last occasion that Frazer’s Love Ulster came to Dublin it was accompanied by less then two hundred supporters and a small number of pro-British marching bands. For his next outing to Dublin, Frazer has indicated that he intends to bring upward of two and a half thousand supporters and up to thirty marching bands.
The organisers of Love Ulster claim the purpose of the march as seeking ‘recognition and justice for victims of republican violence’. This claim must be viewed with considerable scepticism. The true motivation behind this march has far more to do with Mr Frazer promoting himself as the ‘true defender of loyalist Ulster’ than it does with the alleged grievances of those who have suffered as a result of republicans actions.
Indeed the very name of the march indicates the true intent of those organising it. ‘Love Ulster’ – the Six County version one presumes – is a somewhat strange term for a ‘victims’ demonstration and there is a very good reason for that.
The last Dublin Love Ulster march was only one in a proposed series of such marches organised by Love Ulster – a loose network or coalition of pro-British organisations including the pro-British death squads. The leader of the UDA in South Belfast Jackie McDonald was a prominent figure in the launch of Love Ulster in August 2005. As part of that launch 200,000 copies of the ‘Love Ulster’ newspaper were docked at Larne harbour in an attempt to rekindle memories of the landing of arms for the UVF in 1914. The Love Ulster organisers have no compunction about associating with organisations that have murdered hundreds of nationalists in the course of the recent conflict. Nor do they have any difficulty in trying to link their organisation with the landing of arms in Larne by the UVF in 1914.
The format and route of the proposed march are also more reminiscent of a provocative political demonstration than that of a genuine victims’ protest. Would it not be more fitting for a delegation of those whose relatives were killed or who were themselves injured during the course of four decades of war to walk, unaccompanied by pro-British marching bands?
Assuming that Frazer wants to follow the same route that was abandoned last February this will put upwards of thirty pro-British bands, complete with their accompanying paramilitary paraphernalia, marching past the GPO on O’Connell Street, the headquarters of Republican forces during the 1916 Rising. More offensively these musical apologists for Britain’s death squads will pass the sites of a number of fatal bomb attacks carried out by their paramilitary hero’s. These include Parnell Street where 25 people were killed in two no-warning car bombs in May 1974 and Sackville Place off O’Connell Street where a car bomb in December 1972 killed two CIE inspectors and a second attack in January 1973 killed another innocent civilian.
Scene on Parnell Street after Loyalist no-warning bomb. 17 May, 1974.
Many pro-British marching bands are aligned and/or organically linked to the various pro-British death squads. For example two of those responsible for the 1974 Dublin/Monaghan bombings, Wesley Somerville and Harris Boyle, are fondly remembered by the Portadown Defenders Loyalist Flute Band on their website – www.pdfb.co.uk . Both men were later killed when the bomb they were planting on the bus belonging to ‘The Miami Showband’ exploded prematurely. The 'action' also resulted in the murder of three innocent members of the popular Dublin music band.
These bands, who delight in their nicknames of ‘Kick the Pope’ and ‘Blood and Thunder’ have served as apologists and cheerleaders for the slaughter of hundreds of Catholics over the course of the last forty years. The true intent of those behind the Love Ulster march can be measured by their desire to bring such bands into Dublin.
Éirígí holds the right to free assembly and political protest as democratic principles - to be defended and protected, but – also understand that these rights are open to abuse. Furthermore, Éirígí is also committed to fighting imperialism and fascism, in all of its forms.
Orange and pro-British marches in the Six Counties regularly highlight the conflict of rights between the ‘right to march’ and the rights of a community to live free from triumphalism and provocation. Due to the courage and determination of local communities within the occupied territories the ‘right to march’ has now been somewhat reconciled with the rights of those same local communities.
If this is part of the backdrop against which the proposed ‘Love Ulster’ march should be judged so too should be an examination of who Willie Frazer is. He is currently the Director of FAIR, a South Armagh based group that focuses on those who have suffered through the actions of Republicans but has little or no interest in those who have suffered at the hands of the occupation forces or the pro-British death squads.
Frazer is on the record as stating that he supported the actions of pro-British death squads and suggested that members of the UDA, UVF and other loyalist paramilitaries should never have been imprisoned for their actions including the murder of nationalists. In an interview with Irish Times journalist and author Susan McKay, Frazer elaborated:
‘But if the security forces had been allowed to do their job, there would never have been any need for the loyalist paramilitaries….You take the UDR thing in South Armagh. You take a UDR man. He is in fear of his life. He knows who these boys are. He has the information. He knows the government won’t do anything about it. What does he do. He passes it on to the loyalist paramilitaries. If you were in the UDR and your brother was shot, are you telling me you wouldn’t? See if a Paki comes from India [sic] and kills a Provo? I’m going to shake his hand.”
Frazer, previously a fervent supporter of Ian Paisley and the DUP, is now extremely vocal in his attacks against his former comrades for entering government and sharing power with nationalists. It is clear from his website www.victims.org.uk that Willie Frazer represents the most bigoted, sectarian and fascistic element of the pro-British population.
It is this reality that leads Éirígí to oppose this latest ‘Love Ulster’ march. It is abundantly clear that it is FAIR’s intention to bring a triumphalist, fascistic display into the heart of the capital with the intent of provoking confrontation and in the process portray Frazer as a hero of ‘Ulster’. Éirígí calls on both the Dublin government and the Garda authorities to recognise this fascistic parade for what it is and prevent it from happening.
Over the course of the coming weeks it will become apparent when, or if, this march is going to occur. It will also become apparent what format and route it will take. When these facts are established Éirígí will decide what form its opposition will take.