Parades Commission boss knighted

Tony Holland , chairman of the Parades Commission in Northern Ireland has been awarded a knighthood in the British Birthday Honours today.

He has headed the controversial body which decides whether to allow potential flash-point loyalist and republican parades to proceed since the beginning of 2000.

The banning of the annual Orange Order Drumcree parade in Portadown, Co Armagh by the commission over recent years has prompted continuing unionist demands for the disbandment of the body.

So incensed is the Orange Order that it will not even speak to the Commission to plead its case over parades.

Among others honoured in Northern Ireland is the man who kept the world famous Europa Hotel in Belfast open throughout the troubles despite repeated bomb attacks.

Hotelier Billy Hastings, who is awarded a CBE, is chairman of the Hastings Hotels Group which now comprises six top hotels across Northern Ireland.

But it is with the Europa that he will forever be linked. Long known as the most bombed hotel in the world, Mr Hastings kept it open without fail despite the IRA’s best efforts to blow it to pieces.

It was badly damaged on a number of occasions, but it became a matter of honour with Mr Hastings that he did not close down.

The man who ensures public money in Northern Ireland is properly used and for the right purposes is also honoured with a CBE.

John Dowdall has been Comptroller and Auditor-General for Northern Ireland for the past eight years and advises the Public Accounts Committee both at Westminster and – when it is operating – at the Stormont Assembly.

Aubrey Fielding, who has been a Cathedral campanologist for 50 years, and Trevor Boyd of Bangor, Co Down, who has spent 43 years as a voluntary meteorologist, are awarded MBEs.

Mr Fielding has been a bell ringer and member of the choir at St Columb’s Cathedral in Derry for half a century and for the last five years has played a major role in the increasingly popular Two Cathedral Festival in Northern Ireland’s second city.

Mr Boyd has spent more than four decades providing weather data to the Met Office in a voluntary capacity.

He has made observations at the same time every day of the year without exception and submitted weekly returns to the Belfast Climate Office.