Well Done Young Conway Volunteers Flute Band.
Young Conway Volunteers Flute Band recognised the idiocy of the Parades Commission’s ruling regarding them and the Black Preceptory Parade today, 25th August 2012 in Belfast, and ignored it.
About time the Loyalist community stopped being dictated to by this group set up by the nanny state to prevent freedom of expression and any display of Loyalism.
The Parades Commission made a determination that, not only were Young Conway Volunteers not allowed to play any tunes while they walked past St. Patricks Roman Catholic Church on Donegall Street during the parade. No, this wasn’t enough for the Parades Commission and whoever they were aiming to please. They determined Young Conway Volunteers, a strictly run band which has encouraged its members to engage with local community workers and groups in education and cultural programmes, were not even allowed to walk past the Roman Catholic Church.
This Commission also determined that all other bands were only allowed a single drum beat as they passed this building.
What has required these draconian measures to be put in place? What catastrophe has taken place that requires such measures? What lives have been lost, premises destroyed, civil unrest taken place? (you get the sarcasm).
This band had the audacity to walk in a circle on the 12th July while the parade paused to allow Orangemen to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph at the City Hall. They played tunes outside this church which had its doors closed and gates locked. No one was in this building, it was closed for business. So how was there offence caused?
Welcome Sinn Fein failed Assembly candidate JJ Magee. On the SF web site JJ Magee claims to ‘engage with the Unionist community’ in North Belfast. You can see how he engages in the picture below.
JJ Magee engaging with the Unionist Community
JJ Magee decided to go and watch the 12th July Celebration. He left a residents demonstration at Carrick Hill and walked over to the parade in order to be offended. He then preceded to film this offence happening to him on a mobile phone. He put this footage on a web site www.thenewlodge.com with the statement ‘We Newlodgers let them march on our roads, in between 2 catholic areas, we’ve never moaned to the parades commission and this is how we are thanked, in front of children and outside a catholic church.’
(check out this site, you’ll see among other things their republican bonfire with the Union Flag on it).
So, understand this, because a republican attends a Loyalist band parade and takes offence the independent Parades Commission punishes every band in the next parade!
St Patricks Roman Catholic Church has been at Donegall Street since 1877. How many parades have passed its doors since then? Never has there been any mention of any offence being taken by this building. Yet because one republican, in need of votes, attends a Loyalist parade and takes offence and posts his footage on a republican web site the result is Loyalists are punished.
This picture was taken recently in West Belfast
Yet the press, Parades Commission, PSNI didn’t take any notice. Is this not more offensive than a tune outside a closed building?
Today after Young Conway Volunteers’ act of non-violent civil disobedience the PSNI have stated,
It is our assessment that there have been breaches of the Parades Commission determination and I can assure everyone that we will be working to bring those believed to have breached it before the courts. - Assistant Chief Constable Dave Jones
The Parades Commission allowed a number of ‘concerned’ residents groups to protest today, again as they do now it seems, at every parade in Northern Ireland. These ‘concerned’ residents once again attacked those taking part in the parade and the PSNI. Is it these people ACC Davy Jones is talking about? I hope so.
I often find it ironic that these ‘concerned’ residents can get so ‘concerned’ at bands walking passed a Roman Catholic Church, some shops on a main thoroughfare in Belfast or in a village like Rasharkin, (where there has been a steady campaign of ethnic cleansing against Loyalist) etc etc. But they don’t get concerned, for example, at an institution in their midst which protected and defended pedophile Priests while they abused their children. Have you heard of one protest outside a chapel due to the abuses which took place in their communities?
Or, are these ‘concerned’ residents only concerned about erasing every trace of the Loyalist Community from this country? Are they only concerned about stopping or curtailing every law abiding parade which takes place or doing all they can to be offended and then calling for restrictions on law abiding parades and law abiding bands?
Sinn Fein once again are behind all of these protests, speaking out against these law abiding Loyalist parades. Once again making a mockery of their hollow words about reaching out to Loyalism.
I hope to hear Unionist politicians speaking out in support of Young Conway Volunteers over the coming days when Sinn Fein and the republican press try to crucify them for a justified act of civil disobedience.
Or will they once again stand idly and quietly by while their friends in Sinn Fein castigate Loyalism without reply?
well done YCV and all brethren and bands who took part and defied the charades commission idiotic restrictions, the clowns that sit and decide what we must and must not do whilst on parade should get the message that the loyalist community have had enough !
As expected and right on cue, the limp wristed upper class pinkies at the head of the Church of Ireland, have jumped in headfirst in their eagerness to dance gayly, to the tune being pumped out for them by the IRA/Sienfein propaganda machine. It was in fact a photo finish brtween them and the world champion speedy handwashers, of the Presbyterian Church. As usual they have both jumped in with both feet and got their clerical knickers in a twist, without first checking out the facts from the hundreds of members of their their own denominations including clergy, who where actually there. They even go as far as suggesting that the Roman Catholic Church should be treated with the respect it deserves. They should try telling that yarn, to the thousands of innocent children who have been systematically, sexually and physically abused by the institutionaly authorised, perverted priests of the Roman Catholic Church. It is obvious to me that if the 1798, Presbyterian inspired rebellion in the cause of civil and religous freedom for the working class Presbyterians and Roman Catholics of Ireland was to happen again tomorrow, there would be very few Protestant Ministers worth hanging.