THE Orange Order said this week that not enough is being done to promote the Twelfth to tourists. Drew Nelson was speaking after “bands activist” – yes apparently that’s a thing – Quincey Dougan said that parades were the “hidden gems within the tourism industry of Northern Ireland”. Mr Dougan does not only have a name befitting a Bond villian, he also has a point. While much of the publicity that surrounds the marching season is negative – and the Orange Order must take responsibility for that – there is a uniqueness and pageantry to the parades that I can see would be attractive to tourists if presented correctly. I’ve covered countless parades over the years. At one point I’d been to so many marches in the space of a month I found myself singing The Sash while hanging washing on the line much to the bemusement of my neighbours. And to lump all parades together is to do an injustice to what can be a very colourful, family orientated day out. I can see the attraction when it comes to marches in rural or uncontested areas where police presence at a minimum and music and merriment at a maximum.
Young, old – and all that comes in between – enjoying a spectacle that would, if properly presented, surely be of interest to tourists visiting these shores. The fact that it’s an exclusively Protestant pastime shouldn’t be a barrier to making parades and the Twelfth more accessible to visitors. The same could also be said of other sporting or cultural pastimes such as GAA or even Irish dancing, which cater almost exclusively to one section of the community. No the wheels come off this grand plan when you take a look at the city parades and the remaining contested routes in Belfast.
Back when I first became a journalist it was Drumcree, the Whiterock and the Lower Ormeau where the news cameras positioned themselves in July.
However, in recent years, and with those three marches either banned or severely restricted, it’s north Belfast where press attention is now focused. The real challenge the Orange Order faces if it wants to transform the image of marching – and if they honestly expect the tourist board to promote the event as culture – is solving these disputes, or at least removing the heat from them. Those of us who have spent a lot of time at the side of the road watching parades go past will tell you in many cases it’s not the Orangemen themselves but the bands and supporters who follow them that cause the real controversy.
Over the years we’ve seen bands named after paramilitary groups, memorial marches dedicated to killers applying to march past the very spot where their victims were murdered, hoards of drunken abusive stragglers following behind shouting sectarian abuse and even bandsmen urinating outside places of worship and disrespecting people who are then asked to show tolerance. Parading in Northern Ireland really has become a game of two halves. In Derry massive efforts have been made to ensure parading in the city has been peaceful for many years. Rural lodges have in the main engaged with communities and in some areas recognised the changing demographics of many towns and villages and adjusted how they engage with communities as a result. Compare that with Ardoyne where, since 2013, a hardcore of Orangemen and their supporters have set up camp at the Twaddell interface and hold nightly protests that have gained nothing apart from raising tensions in the area. They care not for the multi-million-pound policing bill in this time of austerity, nor do they care that what they’re doing has no hope of succeeding. Those who offer political advice to the protesters have done a great disservice to their community by encouraging a futile protest while they continue to claim handsome salaries working in a ‘cross-community’ basis. Talking out of both sides of their mouth, rather than giving sensible guidance, they have created a situation that continues to present the Orange Order in a negative and destructive light. How they expect the tourist board to market that shambles to visitors is beyond me. Caravanning at Twaddell is not my idea of a fun-filled holiday.
Who is Louise Richardson? In 2003, as a terrorism expert and Dean of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard, she testified before the U. S. Senate Banking Committee. Recently as the new Vice-Chancellor of St Andrew’s University, Professor Richardson spoke before the British Council and revealed a contempt for both President Bush’s “incompetent” post 9/11 policies and for the American public by claiming the British population was more resilient in coping with terrorist activities. The Senate testimony, her remarks before the Council and in an interview with the FINANCIAL TIMES in 2009 suggest this Irish born Harvard educated woman is just the ‘shill’ the British want and need when the U. S. State Department and Members of Congress raise questions and demand answers about British violence in Ireland. She also gets to focus the government dollars of St. Andrews University ‘s Institute for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence set up in 1994. What better way to define terrorism than to buy the people doing the defining? You can be sure the American public will be hearing more from Mrs. Richardson as new revelations of Britain’s lawlessness and killing spree in Ireland unfold.
So what might we expect from the academician turned terrorism expert? In 2003 testimony she defined the characteristics of terrorist movements and distinctions between them. She mentioned the IRA 5 times in six pages but asserts “terrorism, as we understand it, is conducted by clandestine groups not states”[emphasis added]. Can’t you just hear the imperial “We”? Although there is nothing the IRA has done in the UK that Her Majesty’s government hasn’t done in Ireland, British actions are nicely labeled by her as “covert actions of the state.” That is surely a distinction without a difference and cold comfort to the victim’s families. She then has the temerity to say that State covert actions, although often depicted as terrorism, can be addressed by “…the whole panoply of international laws to assist us.” She failed to note, of course, that Britain has veto power in the U. N., has managed to fight every violation of the European Human Rights Convention, has the U. S. Department of State in its back pocket and has the Irish government so scared it has never invoked any treaty, international protocol or covenant to challenge its murder of Irish citizens .
In addition, Professor Richardson made distinctions between State sponsorship of terrorist groups. It is no surprise she failed to cite the example of the United Kingdom as a State exercising “…considerable control over the [terrorist]movement it sponsors…” e. g. MI-5 and Special Branch control of loyalist death squads like the Glenane Gang, the violence of the uniformed Ulster Defense Regiment and the manipulation of the IRA itself. You can be sure this was no casual omission but an academic sleight of hand to ‘not bite the hand that feeds her.’ Similarly, her reference to the aims of the 1981 hunger strike were erroneously referred to as “…to secure political prisoner status…”. With this half-truth she hid from Members of the Senate panel that the strike was to restore [emphasis added] political prisoner status which Prime Minister Thatcher chose to revoke in favor of her own ‘criminal’ stamp.
Her remarks before the British Council about President Bush’s handling of the 9/11 aftermath as “incompetent” and about the British population coping with terror better due to their IRA experience were both ignorant and insulting. First, in 30 years of conflict with the IRA nothing like 9/11 was ever inflicted upon the British public. Nor since WW II has England ever experienced anything like 9/11. The Taliban killed twice as many people in one day than the IRA did in 30 years. To suggest the British public faced anything like that from the IRA may have gratified her new British masters but was a tawdry fabrication. Second, the response to 9/11 by the Bush administration and Congress was measured, comprehensive and proportional to the attack. On the other hand, the British Parliament and public, were so frightened by civil rights protests in N. I. they unleashed lawless police and loyalist thugs and embraced draconian legislation in Northern Ireland like the Special Powers Act, the Internment Act (1971), the Emergency Provisions Act (1973) and Diplock courts instituting arrest without charge and trial without jury. American citizens were never the victims of any such dictatorial powers after 9/11 as were Her Majesty’s Subjects. Such remarks from a ‘so-called’ terrorism expert may have pleased Whitehall and the University but are insulting to Americans and their elected officials.
Perhaps when Vice-Chancellor Richardson next visits America’s university’s or our President and Congress, the students and elected officials might pose these questions and challenge her understanding of the conflict in Ireland.
You stated : “A deliberate strategy of targeting non-combatants is what sets terrorism apart from other forms of political violence.” So when the British Army in 1974 built and delivered car bombs to the shopping centers of Dublin and Monaghan for the largest massacre of innocence in the history of the Irish state killing 34 (mostly women and children), in your opinion this was not an act of terror but a “covert action of the State”?
Lawyers Patrick Finucane and Rosemary Nelson and journalist Martin O’Hagan and hundreds of other innocent Catholics were assassinated by agents, uniformed and otherwise, working under the direction and control of the British government. You have indicated that “…the terrorist movement is rendered more effective and more lethal by support of the sponsoring State. In your expert opinion, doesn’t this “covert action of the State” strategy of presumably trying to end a conflict actually become a strategy for its continuation?
In your academic experience is it common in a modern democracy for the handlers of informer agents to allow murders…even mass murder as in the case of the Dublin/Monaghan & Omagh bombings? Baroness O’Loan stated serial killers and psychopaths were used as informants and agents in the killing of nearly 900 Catholics; six elected officials among them? Can you identify any other democracy besides the UK that has done this on the scale of the UK?
Is it common for terrorist movements, as you define them, to employ the non-violent hunger strike protest? Specifically with respect to the 1981 Hunger Strike led by Bobby Sands, an elected Member of Parliament, where 10 members of what you describe as a terrorist movement gave their lives for the RESTORATION of political prisoner status, is there any parallel anywhere in the world in the last 30 years?
You have made a distinction between “terrorism by clandestine groups” and “covert actions by the State” because you apparently have great faith in “…the whole panoply of international law to assist in interpreting and responding to their actions.” Can you specify any law or convention that has proven to be effective in altering the violence of Britain against its own Subjects in Northern Ireland? Or against the citizens of Ireland who have been murdered by British agents in the Dublin-Monaghan bombings or what is more correctly described as an ‘undeclared act of war’ by some scholars? Isn’t it Great Britain that should have been put on a Terror Watch List?In 2009 Mrs. Richardson was baited by Jennie Erdal of the FINANCIAL TIMES to explain why some book reviewers said she had an “over-romantic view of terrorism” because of her Irish roots. “My moral code,” she responded , “is simple: inflicting violence on others is utterly and incontrovertibility reprehensible.” Her recent references to the IRA and the absence of any public references to British violence In Ireland and her characterization of that violence as “covert actions” suggests her employers have had a profound effect on her moral code.
A balcony that collapsed at a newly renovated apartment complex in Berkeley killed six young people and sent seven others to the hospital with life-threatening injuries early Tuesday morning. The collapse was reported before 1 a.m. at a building on Kittredge Street and Harold Way near the UC Berkeley campus.
The victims have been identified as Ashley Donohoe, 22, from Rohnert Park; Olivia Burke, 21, from Ireland; Eoghan Culligan, 21, from Ireland; Niccolai Schuster, 21, from Ireland; Lorcan Miller, 21, from Ireland; Eimear Walsh, 21, from Ireland.
Donohoe’s cousin was one of the five victims who were from Ireland.
Crews examine a balcony that collapsed and killed and injured several people in Berkeley, Calif. on June 16, 2015. KGO-TV/Elissa Harrington
“It looks like it may have collapsed from the fourth floor and then struck the third floor balcony, which is below it, but we don’t know specifically how it happened at this point. That will all be part of the investigation,” Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Jennifer Coats said.
The Board of the United Irish Cultural Center released a statement saying: “Heartfelt condolences, prayers and support are coming to all for the terrible tragedy in Berkeley. The United Irish Cultural Center, its staff, all of its members and Board stand ready to help and support in any way that we can as this incredible tragedy unfolds. The Consul General Philip Grant will let us know if there is any way that we can be of immediate support/help at this point in time. We stand ready for a long term commitment to help as well.”
Irish Consul General Philip Grant is in the Bay Area and said his heart was broken. “It’s something that has left us all frozen in shock and disbelief.”
“It is too early to know the full extent of this dreadful accident, but I have opened my department’s Consular Crisis Center and activated our emergency response line so we can provide assistance and guidance to the families of those affected and to others who have concerns,” Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said in a statement.
Witnesses say the group was celebrating a 21st birthday when the fourth floor balcony they were standing on collapsed, dumping them 40 feet onto the sidewalk. “I was woken up by my parents who thought it was an earthquake,” Jason Biswas said.
Biswas lives nearby and said the whole building shook. Then, he heard screaming and ran downstairs to find people lying bloody in the street. “It was very sad. I couldn’t stay there for too long. It was a lot to look at,” he said.
The balcony seems as though it folded over, breaking apart from the stucco wall. Police say they are doing all they can to figure out why this happened and keep people back from this potentially dangerous scene. “Right now street is closed for safety reasons because we don’t know what caused this collapse and we are also concerned the balcony might fall to the street,” Berkeley Police Department Ofc. Byron White said.
The victims are being treated at three different hospitals, including Eden Medical Center, John Muir and Highland Hospital.
Police did receive a noise complaint around midnight but did not respond. “We did not respond to that call because four minutes after that call came in we received multiple complains of shots being fired in South Berkeley, so of course that’s a higher priority call so that’s where our officers were dispatched to,” Berkeley Department Police Chief Michael Meehan said.
Five of the victims were from Ireland, working for three months on a J-1 visa and excited about spending the summer in the Bay Area.
“I think we’re all just really shocked and overwhelmed,” Irish student Gemma Parsons said.
Parsons is from Ireland on the same program and is among the many who have left flowers outside the police tape.
ABC7 News is getting new insight into the tragedy from emergency responders as radio conversations from 911 calls started pouring in to Berkley fire and police dispatch starting at 12:41 a.m. “RP (reporting pary) advising that one of the balconies broke and at least 10 people fell,” a dispatch operator said.
“Not sure if this going to be a structural issue or if they were just playing around on the balcony and fell off,” another operator dispatcher said.
Investigators are talking with building inspectors to get a better idea of what may have caused the balcony to collapse.
Father Mcbride from the Irish Immigration Pastoral Center arrived at Highland Hospital to counsel grieving students who have been there all morning to check on the status of their friends.
ABC7 News talked with Highland Hospital’s spokeswoman a short while ago, who had this to say about their patients and the doctors treating them. “Our healthcare professionals are focusing on the patient’s. That’s their first priority,” Jerri Randrup said. We’ve had these situations before, we’re a trauma center we are well prepared to deal with these kind of situations.”
The tragic news was generating panic among their families overseas. “All our phones were going off from our parents calling us. I woke up this morning with 27 missed calls from my mom,” Parson’s said.
Investigators in cranes have been taking pictures and assessing the damage, trying to figure out what went wrong. It’s unclear how much weight the balcony was designed to hold.
The balcony collapse has been traumatic for families on both sides of the Atlantic. The consul general of Ireland says the first families of the dead and injured will be arriving Monday evening and have asked for privacy.
The consul general of Ireland for the Western U.S. said this was supposed to be the start of a memorable summer when 8,000 Irish college students go to the U.S. to work and learn. “This is normally the high point. This is normally a life-forming experience. It’s deeply, deeply tragic and it touches every single family in Ireland,” Grant said. The grief caused by the balcony collapse will be felt across Ireland and certainly among the group of students. “We got around 700 Irish students in the Bay Area at the moment and there’s very few of them who wouldn’t know someone who was at that party or someone who was unfortunately was injured or unbelievably lost their lives.”
Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates assured reporters a thorough investigation will be conducted to learn why the balcony gave way. Extra scrutiny will be given to 13 projects currently under construction. “It’s a wake-up call. We have all these buildings that are under construction and we want them to be built perfectly and we want them to be solid. We want them to hold up and we certainly don’t want this kind of thing to happen,” Bates said.
The building owner from investment firm Blackrock issued a statement saying: “We are terribly saddened by the tragic accident and our hearts go out to the victims and their families. An independent structural engineer is being dispatched to conduct a thorough review of the situation.”
The Library Gardens building is newly renovated and marketed to students. According to the Berkeley Daily Planet, the building was supposed to open in 2002, but it stayed empty for a long time because the developer backed out.
The first building was finally completed in 2006 and the second building in 2007. Then, the complex was sold and is now managed by a Houston-based developer called Greystar, which manages five other buildings in Berkeley.
Anyone with concerns about friends or family should call the Emergency Consular Response Team at +353 1 418 0200.
Several of the students worked at Fisherman’s Wharf. ABC7 News spoke with a woman from Ireland who lived close to the accident.
“I was asleep when I heard fire brigades going by 2 a.m. maybe. I really don’t know because I was asleep. We were awoken around 4:30 a.m. by our parents’ texting to see if we were okay,” said Andrea Gainford, Wexford, Ireland.
The Irish Immigration Pastoral Center in San Francisco helps coordinate the J-1 visa program that many of the young Irish students used. Several members of the staff are at the hospital helping grief stricken students.
U.S. Congressman Brendan Boyle has officially requested a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing to examine what he describes as “the shocking revelations into collusion” between parts of the British government and terrorists on their payroll.
The revelations were aired in a recently broadcast BBC “Panorama” news documentary.
Congressman Boyle is also formally calling on Secretary of State John Kerry to intervene.
“The BBC documentary shines a much needed light on this subject,” said the Philadelphia Democrat.
“As the report states: ‘It is a fact there were murderers on the government payroll acting with impunity.’ It is clear to me Congress must investigate these matters to ensure they are finally dealt with in a just way. I am also calling on Secretary Kerry and the State Department to support an independent U.S. inquiry into this matter.”
Boyle added: “The Good Friday Agreement is one of the great foreign policy achievements of the last thirty years. It is important to remember this would have never happened without direct U.S. involvement to ensure all sides were listened to and represented.
“Similarly, it is quite clear to me that the issue of collusion between the state and terrorists will never fully be known unless the U.S. acts. The interests of justice demand it.”
Boyle has spoken to New Jersey GOP representative Chris Smith, asking for a hearing before his committee in addition to the full foreign affairs panel. Smith chairs the House Human Rights Subcommittee.
Others, including Amnesty International, have called for an investigation after the Panorama broadcast which was entitled “Britain’s Secret Terror Deals.”
It is with deep sorrow that I inform you of the death of our Hibernian sister, Betty T. Murphy.
Betty was a beloved member of the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians Division #19 in Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn and served in several offices within her Division. She was also an active member of the LAOH Kings County and always assisted with various events especially the Division #19 and County Card parties. Betty was a longtime parishioner of Resurrection Church and active in many church activities. She was also a member of the VFW in Gerritsen Beach as well as the Columbus Council #126 Columbiettes.
Betty will be remembered as a wife, mother and grandmother but most importantly a “Catholic woman of deep faith”. A woman who trusted in God, a women who lived the Hibernian motto of Friendship, Unity, and Christian Charity and proud of her Irish heritage, Betty will be greatly missed by the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians. Please stop and say one Hail Mary for our departed sister, may she rest in peace.
HIBERNIAN PRAYER SERVICE:
Sister & Brother Hibernians – please assemble on Thursday, June 18, 2015 at 7:30 pm at Byrnes Funeral Home for our prayer service for our sister. Please wear your Sashes.
