I'LL TELL MY MA 2005

I'll tell my ma when I get in
That I've just torched a wheelie bin
I pushed it up to a peelers car
Then went and robbed the local Spar
It's not handsome it's not pretty
It's a stain on Belfast city
But it makes me oh so cool
Loads more fun than Primary school.

Parents that let their children riot are CHILD ABUSERS.

Rumour mill is that the police told some schools to close early in east belfast.

Banks and post offices on Shankill told to close early on Shankill (Source Post office worker)

I work near Sandy Row, and my employers were told to close and send their employees home by the building security (who were themselves undoubtedly informed of same by "community representatives").

Apparently the fun and games will start today at 4pm. I've been told that they're putting women and children on the streets this time. It appears that they are re-using the Sinn Fein tactic of keeping them there as a shield against the police.

our offices are closing at 3.30pm. lovely sunny afternoon - might have a BBQ in back garden later!

I hear that central station is closed and the possibility of a bomb at great victoria st station is highly likely.Damn this country!

Very glad I decided to work from home today - as I would commute by train. But can I rely on the train to Belfast and back tomorrow?

The bottom of the Ormeau Road has been closed off by Police. Lots of office workers streaming home. Traffic in the city centre is bumper to bumper.

(Usual Monday evening rush hour then...)

(BTW - The advice section of the PSNI website has useful information on buying dodgy kitchens.)

Unionism has lost control of its self. Its seems to me that the IRA statement of earlier in the summer has been the most destablising thing in Ulster since the IRA cessation of 1994. The DUP, UUP, Orange Order UDA and UVF are calling for the IRA to rescind its statement.

"I've been told that they're putting women and children on the streets this time"

I heard this too. The defence offered was to keep it "peaceful" (this usually means peaceful until a landrover takes a drive at the protest line)

J Kelly,

Unfortunately something like this crossed my mind: provoking the provos back into the war.
A dangerous card has been played, but what for?

"I've been told that they're putting women and children on the streets this time"

I heard this too. The defence offered was to keep it "peaceful" (this usually means peaceful until a landrover takes a drive at the protest line)

J Kelly

This isn't about Unionism and nationalism its about a section of Unionism and the state

Protest blocking Glenmachan street

Belfast's most senior Orangeman, County Grand Master Dawson Bailie, told the BBC on Monday that the Orange Order was not responsible for the weekend disorder.

GUBU.

When asked if the Order condemned the violence, he said: "As far as I'm concerned the people to blame for that are the secretary of state, the chief constable and the Parades Commission, fairly and squarely."

That's right.

Peter Hain flew specially in from Wales to siphon petrol out of people's cars, before chucking petrol bombs at the cops on Lanark Way.

It was actually Hugh Orde, personally, who stole the truck and smashed all the lampposts on the Albertbridge Road, before nicking the ATM in a deviously conceived PSNI black propaganda operation.

And Tony Holland, John Magee and John Pringle were all seen rioting on the streets of Ballymena last night, exhorting the crowd to burn the chapel in Harryville.

He added: "I'm not condemning anything at this moment in time."

This from the man who "won't talk to terrorists". What a patheric specimen.

Correction Glenmachan Street, Donegall Road and lisburn bound lanes of Westlink blocked

This isn't about Unionism and nationalism its about a section of Unionism and the state

Fair deal

It involves the DUP, UUP and the Orange Order

That is a pretty big section

Loyalists: What, disarm the IRA? You can't do that to us!

A secondary school in East Belfast was promised by it's headmaster Monday and Tuesday off if Northern Ireland won the footy last Wednesday.

Unfortunately he couldn't deliver that, but pupils and staff did get sent home early after a warning...

Cloughfern is getting under way - heavy police presence with large crowds of youths gathering.

Someone got hit by a car at the Broadway roundabout protest. Protest now over at Broadway roundabout. The rumour is no riots round here tonight "Orders".

CG

My personal analysis of what is going on is this.
1. The Unionist community voted in the DUP to communicate they were angry but the government didn't get the message.
2. The confidence building measures package the DUP had negotiated was 95% wrapped up with devolution returning so the 5% is viewed as getting too little e.g. de-rating and Victims commissioner.
3. The manner of the demilitarisation announcements etc made Unionist leaders look excluded.
4. The DUP have been asleep at the wheel the last 6-8 weeks. The broad Unionist view of the July statement and the governments' reaction was the bare minimum move from the IRA heaping large rewards e.g. decommissioning only (no definitive statement on armed means, no disbandment, no joining policing board) with the Colombia 3 stuff throwing a nice bucket of shite into the mix. All the DUP did was basically issue one statement and meet Blair then most of them quite literally went on holiday. The news agenda was driven by Sinn Fein in August and Whiterock seemed to get dropped until about a week ago. (The Love Ulster stuff (inept and flawed as it was) was another indicator of frustration)
5. Unionist discourse uses the word angry too much. So a cry wolf situation has developed. When the anger is palpable and genuine pointing it out reaches tin ears.
6. The OO in West Belfast had ran out of options. Dialogue was entered into and it got threw back in their faces and the Parades Commission moved the goalposts. To prevent trouble in June and creating a posionous atmosphere for the 12th July they postponed the parade to try and take the heat out of the situation. The community's reaction to the trouble in Ardoyne lead to a shift in opinion against continuing dialogue and wanted protest. There was a plan on Saturday at the Whiterock to try and hold protests but then get people away from the interfaces with the rally at Woodvale it fell apart when the parade was cut in two by the police shutting the Mackie gates and when troubled developed at the Whiterock.
7. Since the July statement the government and Parades Commission have avoided the RM being put to a test. Their inability to maintain peaceful protest in Ardoyne twice in a month was an embarassment they did want to repeat.
8. Loyalist paramilitaries have ridden the waves of the political process. They tried to ride a pro-talks and pro-agreement stance which helped them dig into communities with government backing and jumped off when it wasn't working. Now they have picked up on the anger and are trying to ride that wave successfully. In the Unionist community there are three basic views to violence explicit, implicit and rejection. They've picked up in the communities within which they exist the stock of explicit and implicit are doing well.
9. Having failed to pick up what was going on the Unionist parties have been left flatfooted.
10. All of it shows how bad the social capital in Prod areas has deteriorated too. What the hell we do to de-paramilitarise and getting people buying into normal politics is the debate Unionism should have been having for a long time but didn't, about feckin time it did.

Thanks for the honest response Fair deal

I've been looking at the photographs of the march and been surprised at the age of the marchers, 'old enough to have more sense' describes it.

The numbers of rioters is well down on Drumcree days too. This seems to be more of a damp squib than a spark, although very distressing to those caught up in it.

Just back from buying my evening takeaway there is interface trouble at Roden Street/Westlink the rest of Donegall Road area is quiet.

Got a phone call from a mate in North Belfast trouble in ballysillan, woodvale and shankill.

"The OO in West Belfast had ran out of options. Dialogue was entered into and it got threw back in their faces."

An excellent post marred only by this piece of gramamtical mayhem.

The OO in West Belfast had RUN out of options. Dialogue was entered into and it got THROWN back in their faces.

What next - "I seen.......I done.........I had of went"?!?!?!?

Pedant

I was one of the first guinea pigs of the GCSE English curriculum thus my ignorance of the beauty that is the English language ;)

Looks like there are about three choppers hovering over the top of the Shankill, one with a spotlight on.

Bogexile

how long did that take you?

I like it:)

I need cheering up!

Enjoyed the alky who interrupted Bailie's interview on Newsline and made the boul' Dawson sound positively articulate!!

Apart from all the negative outcomes of the rioting that we have discussed it seems to me that for the time being the concept of peaceful protesting has taken a battering. Supposing someone genuinely wanted to organise a (genuinely) peaceful protest about some issue of concern to unionists. They haven't got a prayer. I wonder how long it will be before such a thing will be possible. The problem will always be that trouble makers will always flock to it. But in the short term no-one who isn't will want to be part of a protest just in case. This in itself is something to protest about!

Sorry fair_deal - it's just one of the things that really gets my goat about the North - the general standard of spoken and written English is APPALLING (so it is like). Anyway, enough pedantry - I can't think of a single post of yours that I've ever agreed with in the past but your 5:55 was most illuminating - more of the same please!

"it's just one of the things that really gets my goat about the North"

Wouldn't life be truely wonderful if written English was the biggest problem we had!

Fair play box exile, keep up the good work :p

fair deal
Do you think that the DUP will be able to stop the concessions?

Do you think that the "end of push over Unionism" has been achieved?

Do you think the motivation behind recent events was a call for social justice or an attempt to make certain areas no go areas for the police?

Do you condemn outright all paramilitary activity?

Do you think that the fair deal negoitated by the DUP was a good enough for the Unionist people?

"Enjoyed the alky who interrupted Bailie's interview on Newsline and made the boul' Dawson sound positively articulate!!"

It was like something from a Chris Tarrant show.

The poor guy even gave his name

I think he was called Dawson Baillie

I am absolutely bewildered, just absolutely bewildered. This is normal life in Northern Ireland? Do you not see what it is? Has it always been this way? I suppose it has, recalling all the television news reports I've seen over the years. I can only shake my head and think how anyone could see this as normal living. Some of you have commented in the past that Texas should be given back to Mexico. But, if there were such "protests" here as there in Northern Ireland, it would be called a revolution, and then we'd all decide once and for all, whether Texas would go back to Mexico or not, again. The stress must be awful, and to think of the children. Watching it all from this side, ignoring the parties involved, ignoring all the politics, ignoring all the statesmen, it's still quite clearly the supreme struggle, it never ended. Not the cheering crowds of people knocking down the wall, but the slow painful extraction of one brick at a time. I wish I could help, I'll shut-up now.

Thomas from Texas

YOU'RE bewildered? Imagine Davy Crockett (Ulster), and the rest burning the Alamo because they loved it so much. Thanks for caring about our children, more than so many of us.

I think Thomas from Texas is possibly advocating civil war. Or maybe just a desire to see the whole sodding thing over and done with. The political process is like extracting teeth. If he sounds war-weary and he lives in Texas, imagine how bored us over here are with it.

Tolstoy

"Do you think that the DUP will be able to stop the concessions?"

What Sinn Fein is presently getting was by and large promised in the Joint Declaration (prior to the DUP being given the mantle).

The DUP had the political sense not to know that what was in the Joint Declaration wasn't going to be revoked so instead they presented a long shopping list on a variety of issues (something the UUP had been significantly remiss about). Nor did they act predictably e.g. the Devolution Now proposals.

The DUP's political gamble seemed to me to be that if they got significant reforms to the Agreement, the IRA to disarm and disband and a good confidence building package they could manage the discontent over demilitarisation etc.

Also I would remind you of the slogan that delivered the election victory for the DUP "It's time for a fair deal". It appealed to a broad section of the Unionist community becuase it was a demand for equilibrium in the process NOT domination. A hopefully realistic and achieveable political goal. The Unionist community was not therefore expecting an end to the nationalist community getting concerns addressed but that Unionist concerns would get action too (and more than platitudes from condescending Secretary's of State).

However, the Provos walking away from the deal in December scuppered the DUP gameplan. With the robbery and McCartney murder the DUP got complacent and failed to drive the political pace especially on voluntary coalition.

"Do you think that the "end of push over Unionism" has been achieved?"

Yes. Trimble would have most likely caved at the Leeds talks the DUP didn't. Trimble's response to the July statement would have been to squirm meekly back into government. The DUP was robust in its response. However the question remains whether either approach can deliver results for the Unionist community. The Unionist community certainly knows that Trimble's and the UUP's trembling certainly didn't.

However, post-December 2004, the DUP has not done enough. It has lost its focus on achieving a "fair deal" (the terminology has largely disappeared from their discourse) and they are reverting too much to type. The fair deal election campaign had the right balance of positive and negative messages (apart from that terrible doomsday political broadcast). Too much negativity has slipped back in.

Also while the UUP could have been accused of being too high politics the DUP can be accused of being too low politics. There is also growing internal disgruntlement with its policy unit.

If Unionism under the DUP doesn't deliver something better then I believe it is only a matter of time before young turks remove the older leadership of the loyalist paramilitary organisations or yet another organisation appears. It will be pointless and only deliver more death but driven simply because of a perception of no other options.

"Do you think the motivation behind recent events was a call for social justice or an attempt to make certain areas no go areas for the police?"

An event can have mulitple motivations and aims. I think the core motivation for the week-end trouble was simple, rage/frustration/anger.

As Loyalism and Unionism lacks a strategic approach it is often simply emotionally driven (hence outbursts like Drumcree and this week-end rather than sustained campaigning). Poor and deterioriating relationships with the police, social injuctice, politicial exclusion, cultural demonisation, dictation of change to Unionist reward for change to republicans etc etc all feed the rage. It just needed something to set it off and as usual the ivory-tower Parades Commission jumped willingly into that breach.

I would caution on a socio-economic repsonse alone to these events. Government has made a number of small initiatives in terms of Prod communities. However, the rage is driven by low, middle and high political problems and the government response seem to be just willing to footer about at low or mid-level. From talking to those involved in government they have begun to realise there are deep-seated problems but honestly don't know what to do.

"Do you condemn outright all paramilitary activity?"

Yes.

"Do you think that the fair deal negoitated by the DUP was a good enough for the Unionist people?"

Not any more.

Correction

1st line 2nd para

The DUP had the political sense to know