Let’s engage at home— not in South Africa
However, to issue a rebuke to the Garvaghy Road residents’ group for declining an invitation to engage in a mediation initiative in South Africa is unwarranted.
For many years now Garvaghy Road residents have requested their local MP, David Trimble, to engage with them directly in an attempt to resolve the parades issue. For nine years now he has steadfastly refused to respond.
Equally, the Grand Orange Lodge has described the Parades Commission as an unelected quango, and has instructed the Portadown Orangemen to refrain from engaging in any dialogue with it.
The Belfast Agreement makes demands on all our traditions. It requires the Orange Order to engage directly with residents’ groups in affected areas, not through a third party in South Africa. Is it not way past time the Church of Ireland in the North stopped providing religious camouflage for a bigoted organisation whose ethos is based on hatred of Catholicism.
Tom Cooper,
23 Delaford Lawn,
Knocklyon,
Dublin 16.
