Andy Burnham is a Unionist | Drumcree – Unionism Stuck in the Past | Paddy Elliott

Andy Burnham is a Unionist

Should we have been surprised by British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s crass assertion last week that the issue of the unity referendum promised in the Good Friday Agreement, “is one issue that will be off the table.”?

Two months ago as I watched Burnham address the media outside10 Downing St, on the day he replaced Keir Starmer, I wrote that he; “like every British Prime Minister governs in the interests of the English establishment. He like his predecessors is a Unionist.”

For as far back as England’s involvement in Ireland its policies have always been determined by British national interests. Not the interests of the Irish people.

Drumcree – Unionism Stuck in the Past

In the early hours of Sunday 6 July 1997 I remember vividly driving back from an event in Tralee, County Kerry because of the growing tension over Unionist demands to march down the Garvaghy Road. I arrived home as David Blevins for Sky News broke the news that hundreds of British soldiers and RUC had swamped the nationalist streets of Garvaghy Road. Protestors were swept aside and the Orange Order got its march. There were widespread civil disturbances as nationalist areas reacted to the developments. 1997 was the last year a march took place. The Parade Commission decisions and the opposition of the local community had seen to that.

Last week Drumcree and the Garvaghy Road jumped back into the media headlines when the High Court in Belfast quashed a determination by the Parades Commission to ban this year’s Drumcree march. It did so because of a procedural flaw in how that decision was reached.

The High Court decision did not clear the way for an Orange Order parade to proceed down the Garvaghy Road. But it did lead to an increase in the sectarian bombast that has long been part and parcel of political unionism in the northern state. The UUP, DUP and TUV have all united to claim “a massive victory for unionism and loyalism” and to demand that the Orange Order be able to march through the nationalist Garvaghy Road area. They want to turn the clock back to the ‘No surrender’ ‘Not an Inch’ ethos of the Orange State. They want a return to the old order.

That will not happen. Nationalists and non-unionists are looking to the future not the past. The nationalist community of the Garvaghy Road area is greater now than it was in 1997. It has lived in peace for almost 30 years. It deserves to be able to continue to do so and there is no desire within that community to facilitate a sectarian Orange march.

 Paddy Elliott

The Elliott’s and the Adams’s were cousins. They still are. Maybe second or third cousins by this generation. But back in the day my Granny Adams was a Begley. So was Paddy Elliott’s mammy. And Gerry Begley’s Daddy. Brother and sisters. Paddy and Gerry were six or seven years older than me. They were inseparable when I was growing up.

I was living in Abercorn Street North with my Granny. Gerry Begley lived in the same street. I think Paddy was reared in Gibson Street, but he spent a lot of time in Abercorn Street North. There were very few cars in those days so the streets belonged to the children. Especially during the summer. Girls and boys. Dogs.  Hopscotch and Marlies. Skipping songs, swings on the lamp posts, rounders, street soccer with a ball made from a sock filled with newspapers, hurling and handball.