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.