Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Across north Belfast to Rathcoole. I’m a little bit slow off the mark with this one, and Pete Baker on Slugger has already juxtaposed new party leader Brian Ervine’s insistence that the PUP should not act as ’an apologist’ for violence, with Ken Wilkinson’s comments about street violence in Newtownabbey, doing just that. It’s the usual story, as parroted by generations of republicans and loyalists.  A riot in the Rathcoole Estate can be ascribed to the presence of police, who raided houses in the area, in order to investigate UVF murders and other crimes. The PUP recently voted to retain its link with paramilitaries, a connection which Ervine alleges ’fixates’ the media and prevents it reporting the party’s ’tremendous work’.  Work that members clearly believe would be undermined without the patronage of the UVF and ’Red Hand Commando’. The necessity of the paramilitary connection is usually explained by a euphemism beloved of Troubles apologists - ’conflict transf...

Some local bloggers make it their business to immerse themselves in ’sectariania’, forever compiling a list of grievances against ’themmuns’.  They seem to think it important to prove which ’side’ in Northern Ireland includes the most hate-filled thugs.   Generally I avoid covering hate crime and the squalid list of ’dissident’ attacks in Northern Ireland.  They are, after all, terrible topics to commentate upon.  Anyone with any wit knows that it’s inexcusable, it’s loathsome, it’s repugnant - what more is there to say?  The idea that these attacks have political content, which should be taken seriously, is itself beneath contempt. Sometimes, however, there is an incident which makes you feel so hopeless, which makes the bile rise in your throat to such an extent, that it’s necessary to contextualise it, somehow. Yesterday saw just such an event , as a group calling itself the Real UFF left two pipe bombs at Catholic Primary Schools in Antrim.  This ...

I’m afraid that, once again, this piece resembles a ‘Quote of the Day’ which ‘Three Thousand Versts’ purports not to carry. The Ulster Political Research Group is a rather grand title for the UDA’s ‘advisory wing’. This repository of wisdom has defended Torrens Knight, the loyalist murderer, who was recently returned to prison after an assault on two sisters in Coleraine. You’ll remember that the brave soldier’s original conviction was for entering the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel where he and his colleagues proceeded, indiscriminately to gun down eight unarmed civilians who happened to be drinking there. The UPRG’s Ali Crawford commented , “As far as I am led to believe Torrens Knight has bothered no one in or around Coleraine since his early release up to the point where he has been found guilty, pending appeal of this alleged assault." Well good for him! Between his involvement in cold blooded murder and assaulting women Mr Knight has been a fine upstanding citizen! With du...

‘When Tory politician William Hague referred to loyalists as ‘thugs’, my heart sank’, claims Roy Garland, in his weekly diatribe against ‘English’ Conservatives. ‘No group of people’ should, he contends, be dismissed in such a way. Not even, apparently, groups whose activities conform to the very definition of thuggery. First, I don’t believe that Garland’s ‘heart sank’ when the Foreign Secretary attacked loyalist paramilitaries. On the contrary, his communal instincts kicked in, ‘he’s having a go at ussuns as well as themmuns, what an opportunity’ (or words to that effect). Second, his latest article contains a heart rending tale of a nice young man who joined a paramilitary organisation and then began to change it. Indeed it is positively glowing on the topic of loyalist groups and their stout community work in general. What a load of twaddle! This is the same narrative, told from a different perspective, which we get from Republicans. Fine young men, compelled by extraordina...