Henry McDonald -'Respected' Guardian Ireland corr stokes unionist bigotry

by Rural nationalist lout - The green hords Mon Mar 23, 2009 18:10

Could you imagine if those student taigs organised a sectarian Catholic organisaton, got drunk and marched all summer long, waved banners and swords and insisted on marching in unionist areas?

Who would dream of doing such a thing?

The Orange Order would, that's who. Will Henry give them so much of his clearly worried attention?

Does Henry get paid extra for writing politically sectarian tripe?

by Not Whataboutery Mon Mar 23, 2009 19:21

The problem of anti-social behavior carried out by students in Holylands has been documented on indymedia previously -
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/67629
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/74981
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/62942
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/9606

...and said students are from rural nationalist backgrounds flying flags and singing republican songs - which is just possibly a bit out character with what was Belfast's only non-sectarian residential area.

by Mike - Judean Popular Peoples Front Mon Mar 23, 2009 20:20

No such thing as a "Unionist area" (or a "nationalist area" for that matter)

by Jim Browne Mon Mar 23, 2009 20:22

This story of drunken behaviour has none of the politically sectarian innuendo introduced by McDonald. He is pandering to the unionist gallery in his Newsletter article.

by Paul Larkin - Libertarian Machnovite ( Liberation Theology Wing) Tue Mar 24, 2009 08:01 paul.offworld at gmail dot com

Of course, if you put yourself in the shoes of the average Newsletter reader, or rather wellingtons as most of this dwindling band are farmers from Co.s Antrim and Down) , what you actually see is the bulging Catholic population monster writ large. Henry McDonald has made an issue of the fact that predictions of a "Roman Catholic" majority in the Six Counties are nonsense - see page 146 of his "autobiography" ("Colours") for example where he attacks Mitchell McLaughlin of Sinn Fein for crude "bio-sectarian" head counting. For all that the writers and journalists in our country who, to use Brendan O'Leary's beautiful phrase, imagine themselves to be radical, but "swim with the present tide of imperial historiography" have stamped their feet and insisted that it isn't happening, it is happening. Anyone who walks the streets of Belfast can see the change in the demographic make up of the city. Seeing young men and women casually walking around the centre of Belfast carrying GA A sports bags comes as a shock to someone like myself who worked in the BBC in Belfast in the the late 1980s, a time when GAA sports could not even be shown on the television.
For the record, it is not a matter of crowing on my part that the Catholic population in the North will soon be in the majority I want all our citizens, of whatever creed or none, to enjoy equal rights and freedom of expression but the fact is that a statelet built on supremacist Protestant hegemony is now on the cusp of a radical transformation and the demographic changes form part of that equation of change. This fact was privately acknowledged many troubled moons ago by unionist party politicians living west of the river Bann who estimated that they had about twenty years to secure a settlement with their erstwhile "enemies". Tim Pat Coogan has pointed out recently that NI department of education figures for school attendance show that the Protestant school going population has fallen to 40.7 of the total for the academic year 2008-9. However the Catholic population has risen dramatically to 50.9 and continues to grow.

McDonald's article is guilty of another sin of omission. For in "Colours" he describes at length and in detail his drink fuelled exploits as a rampaging supporter of Cliftonville's Red Army. This is what young people tend to do, as McDonald knows only too well, regardless of their religious background or the colour of the shirt/blouse they may or may not be wearing.

by Skibbereen Eagle Tue Mar 24, 2009 13:36

Another former supporter of the Workers Party (in their neo-unionist phase), Liam Clarke, adds his considerable media spin-doctoring skills, Jim Cusack style.

Today in the Newsletter, the Paddy’s Day revelers are equated with those who scribble on Orange Order Halls. Furthermore the day of somewhat drunken celebration is equated with protests against Internment on its anniversary every August:

Patrick's Day.... risks being marred by bigotry and sectarianism. There was, in the Holylands riots [?] and the subsequent [?] burning of Orange Halls [?], a nasty political edge.

The 'Holylands revelers'... hinted [?] that we should learn to live with trouble on this anniversary'

Very clever – we get the hint.

In the Newsletter today, another page is given over to attacks on Orange Halls, which consist in the main of scribbling ‘RIRA’ on the walls of one Building and on the wall outside another. In Ballykelly, 'Someone had forced entry to the Orange hall and started a small fire which caused slight scorch damage'. A 'male was arrested and later released on bail'.

From these events, Liam Clarke's theories flow.

To Unionist readers, most are, this makes an equal sign between drunken nationalists, 'subsequent' anti-Orange wall scribblers and nationalist protests against internment. Liam Clarke has provided it for them.

There is a letter on the same subject in today’s Irish News from a Mid-Ulster Trade Union Council rep. A different take on the events.

Clarke portrays an allegation of provocative police behaviour as a sign on nationalist guilt. Are nationalists permitted to criticize the PSNI? Can police be provocative? Not if you are a unionist and those making allegations are nationalists, it seems.

I don’t doubt that a day of youthful drunkenness is unpleasant for other residents. I do doubt that there is any connection whatever with the sustained sectarian activities of the Orange Order right though the summer (which Clarke minimizes), or with anniversary protests against internment (which Clarke distorts). Clarke has a big anti-republican chip on his shoulder that protrudes through his copy from time to time, like today.

Henry is following in Liam's footsteps.

Liam Clarke divides and not unites society Newsletter 24th March 2009

Another view from an Irish News TU rep letter writer

by Not Whataboutery Tue Mar 24, 2009 21:17

"I don’t doubt that a day of youthful drunkenness is unpleasant for other residents."

I think the point is - at least reported here on indymedia on several occasions over the years - is that it is not a day but a consistent pattern of anti-social behavior which reaches a highpoint on particular occasions and which is associated with the transformation of an area. A transformation which can be related to profiteering landlords and the refusal of Queens to build sufficient on campus accommodation. The result being that long term residents are moving out of the area (consistently less and less 'other residents').

To what extent this is specifically sectarian anti-social behavior is open to debate (though that its associated with nationalist tradition is pretty apparent) but I suspect the eagles of Skibbereen paid little attention to this issue until it could be used as a football against some hacks long loathed in republican circles. Thus such eagles are perhaps not be best placed to inform a debate on this issue, and in fact their interest seems to be more about revenge for Skibbereen than the very real social problems faced by long term residents as reported on in the indymedia articles linked to above.

by Skibbereen Eagle Wed Mar 25, 2009 08:01

"A transformation which can be related to profiteering landlords and the refusal of Queens to build sufficient on campus accommodation. The result being that long term residents are moving out of the area (consistently less and less 'other residents')."

Agreed - QUB should build more student accommodation and not be party to aiding profiteering landlords.

Your definition of what constitutes 'sectarian' behavior requires teasing out. Why is anti-social behavior while wearing a Glasgow Celtic or GAA top 'sectarian'? That does not make sense. It might be stupid behavior (of a type that Henry McDonald himself admits to engaging in when he was young, it appears), but it is not sectarian . If they formed into massed ranks under the banner of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, put pictures of the Pope on their drums, which they beat unmercifully and incessantly as close as possible to areas where mainly Protestants lived, while singing grossly offensive anti-Protestant songs, that would be sectarian. If they formed rules that no Protestants could join their group and that Protestants should not marry Catholics that would also be sectarian. But they don't behave as the Orange Order behaves.

They behave like drunken young students from a mainly nationalist background. Their behavior is being cynically exploited by McDonald and Clarke in order to create a reactionary 'moral panic'. Northern Ireland is a sectarian state, formed on the basis of a sectarian head-count, whose demographic basis is gradually disintegrating. But there is no point in telling Clark and McDonald, who are too busy trying to rally the diminishing ranks of Newsletter readers, a far more homogeneously sectarian constituency (in their terms) than drunken young students.

I stick by my comment: cynical (and sectarian) - they have overreached themselves with their Newsletter claptrap.

by Not Whataboutery Wed Mar 25, 2009 08:57

These two articles here.......

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YZHKNKSpWHI/SGJhcqvoGVI/AAAAAAAAAH0/Ce633tiIPA0/s1600-h/article.jpg

http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/mar/22/belfasts-holy...-war/

have former long term Holylands residents describing the student behaviour as sectarian. One of the residents in question is a former IRA volunteer who spent 10 years in Long Kesh so I would guess he cannot be accused of a sticky neo-unionist sectarian agenda.

From this thread your definition of sectarian seems to be (a) resembles the Orange Order or (b) accuses students engaged in anti-social behaviour from a catholic and nationalist background of sectarianism.

...and I would suggest you would pretty quickly classify this long running problem as sectarian if it involved drunken youths in Rangers shirts singing loyalist songs.

Could it be you are guilty of the same thing you accuse McDonald and Clarke of - if their actual interest in the issue is to apparently have a go at catholics and/or nationalists in general, is yours not to have a go at Clarke and McDonald - both disliked for being critics of republicanism.

by Not Whataboutery Wed Mar 25, 2009 09:10

Here is a text version of the .jpg article linked to above - http://www.tribune.ie/article/2008/jun/01/the-never-end...ell-/

Here is a particularly relevant passage from it -

Brian Gillen, who served 10 years in Long Kesh as a republican prisoner, lived in the Holyland after release. He says there was no trouble from Protestant students but Catholic students, post-peace process, became increasingly sectarian and contemptuous: "You'd try to sleep against a backdrop of shouts of 'Up the Ra'.
"Anyone challenging them was deemed a Protestant and got a mouthful of sectarian abuse. They weren't genuine republicans just cowardly arseholes. One night, students in the house next door to me were partying at 5am.
"My child couldn't sleep. I asked them to turn it down. 'F**k off you Orange bastard!'
one told me as the 'Boys of the Old Brigade' blasted from their stereo. 'I'll give you the 'Boys of the Old Brigade'.' I said. I got laid into them." Gillen has also moved out: "I'm one of the lucky ones. My heart goes out to people still left there. It's only going to get worse."

by Skibbereen Eagle Wed Mar 25, 2009 10:21

Offensive and unpleasant (as I have said) - an abdication of responsibility by landlords and by the university. No argument. Going down the cynical Clarke-McDonald route will make it worse, that is the real sectarianism. My point is that it is cynical journalism - do you agree?

What does the Student's Union say?

by Pedantic Wed Mar 25, 2009 13:06

Calling a former republican prisoner an 'Orange Bastard' is, depending on your point of view, misdirected vulgar abuse. Calling a member of the Orange Order (a sectarian organisation) an 'Orange Bastard' is vulgar abuse (also not possible since an Orangeman has to have been born to Protestant parents 'in wedlock', so also, if you like, in a certain sense, misdirected).

Vulgar abuse should be avoided. However, nothing whatever sectarian about it in this case. 'Protestant Bastard', now that is sectarian - any evidence of that?

by Guardian Wed Mar 25, 2009 13:29

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/mar/20/hol...dents

Here is a typical comment:

Arcangel666

20 Mar 09, 11:17am

Having lived in the Holylands for a couple of years there's a couple of very glaring stereotypes in this article. Culchie - does this count for anyone who doesn't live in a major city? And are you actually bigotted enough to claim that only people from cities know "how to behave". Coming from a rural community myself I found nothing overly special about a big city. Just more people.

I have some very good friends from both religious communities in Belfast who think that once you pass beyond what was yorkgate shopping centre you're in a wilderness. Also having spent several St. Paddy's days in the area I have to admit that yes the students do go a bit mad and that there have been a couple of incidents but to be brutally honest I think the real cause of the problems this year was a significantly increased police presence. Which is understandable under the current circumstances but turning up in full riot gear definitely isn't and is sure only to provoke problems.

The holylands is one of the few areas in Belfast where religious beliefs aren't a problem, so why start something like that up now.

by Roger Rarebit Wed Mar 25, 2009 19:53

Holylands is a slum; the houses where students live are kips and the landlords do not give a shite. The locals, a lot of them elderly, put up with constant anti-social behaviour, which if the sudents were living on the Shankhill or the Falls, would have seen them kneecapped by now. The point of course is that they don't live in either loyalist or nationalist working class areas. They live close to college, go home most weekends, and party hard. I follow GAA; most of those wearing the assorted jersies of the 32 counties- Dublin, Cork, Kerry etc all get a run out, worn by people from Tyrone and Fermanagh mostly, have little or no interest in sport; they wear the gansais to wind up the Prods in Queens or to point out to everyone, in case we didn't know, that they are Catholics.
BTW The Students Union condemned the trouble. A few years ago Alex Maskey tried to appeal to the students to respect their neighbours; no such luck.
A lot of it is relatively innocent carry-on, but when it is condensed into a few streets and when there is a undertone of cease-fire 'Ra' mentality and macho crap it becomes a problem. The students burnt out a car on Paddys Day; do you think that the cops arn't going to turn up if your at that crack?

by obvious Wed Mar 25, 2009 21:04

'they wear the gansais to wind up the Prods in Queens'

And the 'Prods in Queens', as you put it, their problem with GAA tops is what, exactly?.

As to your reference to wearing this attire having something to do with the ceasefire, the problem before that was what, exactly?.

Being shot by unionist paramilitaries, maybe.

Thanks for implying the explanation.

So, the QUB SU, majority from a nationalist background, are against the anti-social behaviour. Alex Maskey from SF is against it and tried to do something about it. The landlords are making a quick buck from creating a student slum. The university won't build more student accommodation. The replies on the Guardian blog (see above) refute the lazy politically motivated journalism of Henry McDonald.

Let's end the politically motivated and prejudicial generalisations. Period

by alanmurraybelfast Wed Mar 25, 2009 22:55

Hi,
I lived in the Holylands for 18 years. There are only 50-80 residents left. Most want, but cannot get, rehoused. Everyone else left, and they did not go willingly. It was not merely intolerable noise till 4 or 5am. People were targeted and driven from their homes. The journalist Suzanne Breen put it well,

"If paramilitaries had done this there would have been universal outrage"

She has a long list of personal horror stories to tell, but this one captures the flavour. A gang of students stopped her on a dark night and told her to,

"Sell your house and get the fuck out of the Holylands. This is our area now."

My blog should give you useful background.

by Desmond Hagen Sun Apr 19, 2009 13:28

See also:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/91778