Two parades have been applied for on the Crumlin Road this month, 16th June (Tour of the North) and 24th June (Whiterock). In the run up there have been some sectarian incidents – a slashing, ball bearing attacks on cars using the Ardoyne Road, and homes attacked at Deerpark, Twadell and on the Crumlin Road (the latest incident saw a 91 year old Catholic widower’s home paint bombed and stoned – subs required). In the Shankill Mirror, the North and West Belfast Parades and Cultural Forum, announced it had trained over 100 new parade marshals (a number it wishes to increase) to ensure good parade and crowd management.
In the North Belfast News, Joe Marley, spokesperson for the Ardoyne Parades Dialogue Group, has called for peaceful protest if decisions do not go in favour of the residents saying;
“The violence which followed last year’s march only undermines the efforts of the Ardoyne Parades Dialogue Group, local community workers and politicians to get a resoltuion to the issue of contentious parades on the Crumlin Road”.
He also called for parents, teachers and youth providers to ensure children are kept away from;
“volatile situations”
He highlighted how:
“…children as young as eight years of age, often unaccompanied by an adult, were on the front of the road in the run-up to the parades”