THE IRISH OBSERVER: Loyal Order Parades 2021

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Loyal Order Parades 2021

Following The PIRA ‘cease-fire’ of August, 1994, The Sinn Fein/PIRA Leadership needed to adopt various tactics to occupy their rank and file members, or those rank and file members might start to ask what it was they had achieved.

The tactics adopted such re-opening border roads, release of prisoners and de-militarisation, happened or begun to happen, at a much faster pace than anticipated. This fast pace of change meant that the Sinn Fein/PIRA Leadership needed a tactic with some longevity, and one that would fit with the long-term Policy of Ethnic Cleansing.

Fergie O'Neil leads the campaign to open border roads in Monaghan

The decision was taken to manufacture opposition to Loyal Order Parades across Northern Ireland, this tactic would serve several purposes, it would be a tactic with longevity, it would occupy the rank and file and it could be used in various areas to drive out remaining Protestant communities. In places such as the Ormeau Road, the last vestiges of Protestantism such as the Cricket Club would be burned down by Sinn Fein/PIRA.

As early as 1995 I had argued, within Sinn Fein/PIRA, against adopting this tactic, as I believed that it would simply cause opposition to the ‘peace-process’ and fill the ranks of those who may wish to undermine the push for ‘peace’. I even argued that such a tactic with such longevity would play into the British narrative that Northern Ireland was simply a conflict between two sectarian tribes, a narrative that Sinn Fein/PIRA had rejected for decades.

The tactic was adopted, Sinn Fein/PIRA personnel, mainly former PIRA prisoners, were selected to lead the campaign in various geographical locations. Gerry Adams championed the tactic in a speech in 1996 in Athboy in County Meath, a speech that was heard by only Sinn Fein/PIRA supporters and their proxies in the media.

Even when it was clear that opposition to Loyal Order parades was being manufactured and was not organic, journalists who knew that it was a Sinn Fein/PIRA tactic, pointed at the alleged intransigence of the Loyal Orders.

The Loyal Orders were an easy target for propaganda, the parades issue was quickly high-jacked by extremists such as The Loyalist Volunteer Force, and moderate voices within the Loyal Orders were drowned out. Sinn Fein/PIRA once again presented themselves as the victims in a modern conflict, that they had again manufactured.

As Gerry Adams and the Leaders of Sinn Fein/PIRA sat comfortably behind the bulletproof glass in their homes, which was provided for them by The British Government, innocent Catholics such as Michael McGoldrick were murdered as they done an honest day’s work.