The following article by Raymond O'Connell was first published in Unity, the weekly paper of the Irish Communist Party.
HAVING enjoyed the fleadh like tens of thousands of others I was settling back into routine. This includes listening, usually briefly, to the BBC Talkback programme. Of course the fleadh was all over it and rightly so. It was heralded as a kind of sea change, things had changed dramatically for the better. Never had there been so much harmony, respect for one another's culture and just sheer enjoyment. Optimism was everywhere that we were on a trajectory towards a brighter future.
Well it has turned out all this may have been a bit previous. Before you could say 'next year's fleadh' we were being told Stormont was in danger of collapse. Then it seemed this was all related to jockeying for position due to the elections next year – same old same old.
While this seems to have settled down it was a reminder that it takes but little to rock the boat.
Then last week we had the court ruling overturning the Parades Commission decision to ban the Orange Order from Garvaghy Road, not because it decided the march should proceed but because the Commission had done a very shoddy piece of work. The three unionist parties were cock-a-hoop and definitely in election mode. The Orange Order was also a tad pleased. The media went into speculation mode, but in truth we didn't need them to tell us the potential ramifications.
Trenches are being got ready, helmets are being polished and the Hollies are striking up: 'here we go again makin the same mistakes, headin for more heartaches'. The most recent news is that the Orange Order will not compromise by accepting a token gesture. They are determined to walk their traditional route and are planning to do so on 27 September, so-called 'Ulster Day'. If and when they are denied permission we could be faced with déjà vu all over again, again. Interestingly the OO voluntarily re-routed the main Belfast Twelfth parade many years ago which used to go to 'The Field' at Finaghy, presumably because demographics had changed there and they felt it was no longer safe.
Once the legal ruling was made and made public what followed was more or less predictable. This makes the way in which the Parades Commission arrived at their decision bordering on criminal. What these incompetent, bungling, lazy Commissioners have done is drop us right back in the mess of Drumcree. They should go.
I have a personal reason for being agitated. Back when the parade was forced through and Paisley and Trimble did their jig I was principal of the Jaffe Centre, a school for teenagers who would now be referred to as having ADHD. The old building, originally a Hebrew school was destroyed along with everything in it in subsequent rioting. The building, at the bottom of Cliftonville Road was a local landmark.
At the time I said "Burning Schools is burning the future".