Love Ulster plans- Parade rerun an historic opportunity

William Frazier, of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR), the South Armagh Protestant Victims group, wrote to An Garda Síochána and the Department of Foreign Affairs last week, seeking a meeting to discuss the possibility of organising another Love Ulster march in Dublin for mid-September.

Last year a similar march developed into a riot on O’Connell Street, but the 200 or so thugs who caused all the trouble were not representative of the people of the Republic. He and the other members of his organisation have become more convinced of this as a result of the scenes witnessed in Croke Park before the recent international rugby match between Ireland and England.

The unionist people of Northern Ireland witnessed a television spectacle that could hardly have been seen anywhere else in the world. Thousands of people sung the British national anthem without so much as a catcall or chant of derision from the respectful crowd. The last time the Republic of Ireland played England in a friendly soccer international at Lansdowne Road, it ended in a fiasco generated by English thugs.

Over the decades there have been many occasions on which the vast majority of decent Irish people have been ashamed of what was done in our name, but at Croke Park on that day everybody could be proud, which probably explains why so many found the singing of Amhrán na bhFiann such a moving experience. And then the all-Ireland team went on to produce what many people considered the best performance ever by an Irish rugby team.

It is important that the memory of what happened last year be erased, just as the ghosts of that awful night at Lansdowne Road were exorcised at Croke Park. The FAIR people realise that what happened last year was not representative of the great majority of our people.

Mr Frazer and the Democratic Unionist politician Jeffrey Donaldson were warm in their praise of the conduct of the gardaí during last year’s debacle. The organisers think that another parade would afford the opportunity of building on what was witnessed at Croke Park.

Most people love a parade and the Northern bands are among the most colourful that can be seen anywhere in the world. While hundreds came to Dublin for last year’s parade, thousands of Ulster people have now reportedly expressed an interest in taking part in a parade later this year.

Many people in the North have grown up with such a distrust of the Republic that they have never even visited this part of the island. The way to alleviate that distrust is by closer association. In addition to breaking down the barriers of distrust, this has the added attraction of developing our tourist market.

Hopefully we will see a new dawn in Northern Ireland next week with the renaissance of power sharing. The holding of a Love Ulster Parade in which the Northern unionists would be welcomed in a true sense of ecumenism and fraternity would afford a magnificent opportunity of further developing the spirit of Croke Park.