North Belfast housing need (4)

For some years the Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) project has been very active in relation to housing need in North Belfast.  Their figures have ben used by nationalist and republican propagandists to support their claim that there is discrimination against Roman Catholics in relation to housing.  Their figures and their claims have also been accepted by others such as the UN Special Rapporteur Ms Raquel Rolnik.

 

I have already pointed out that they have distorted the housing situation by considering only part of the North Belfast constituency.  The constituency covers all or part of four Housing Executive districts, Shankill, North Belfast, Newtownabbey 1 and Newtownabbey 2 but PPR focus on the office which has a Roman Catholic majority and ignore the three offices which have a Protestant majority.

 

Such a discriminatory approach was repeated when Ms Rolnik came to Belfast and PPR took her to visit only Roman Catholic communities in North Belfast.  Once again the Protestant communities were ignored.

 

But now the fraudulent nature of PPR propaganda has been exposed in an even more alarming way.

 

For many years applicants to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive were designated as Protestant or Catholic but in 2009 the NIHE changed its practice and afforded applicants the opportunity to register themselves as Protestant, Catholic or other.

 

In their recent document Equality Can't Wait, PPR claim that this change has produced 'an 11% drop in Catholic representation and 7% drop for Protestants' (page 19), a greater drop for Roman Catholics.  In fact they have got their figures wrong and it should read '13.6% drop in Catholic representation and 14.3% drop for Protestants'.  This correction effectively reverses PPR's argument in the following pages of the report and means that a slightly higher percentage of 'perceived Protestants' than 'perceived Catholics' chose not to self-report a religion to the NIHE.

 

This is just one example of the fundamental flaws in the PPR report but it shows how unreliable PPR propaganda really is.  They have made much of the 2009 change and have claimed that it has resulted in a greater impact on the figures for Roman Catholics, whereas, if anything, it has had a greater impact on the figures for Protestants.

This is the fourth post in this series and there are more to come.  The truth is emerging and the myths that are peddled by republican propagandists are being exposed,   Unfortunately the propagandists prefer to wallow in their imagined discrimination.  Their narrative has become so embedded in the nationalist and republican psyche that they find it almost impossible to acknowledge the truth that the housing waiting list for Protestants in North Belfast is roughly the same as the waiting list for Roman Catholics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roger Casement and the Ulster-Scots

I have been reading a biography of the Irish rebel Sir  Roger Casement (1864-1916) by Angus Mitchell and was surprised to come across this little nugget on page 176.

 

'He wrote a letter to the editor of The Ulster Guardian on 14 May [1913] attacking the concept of the Ulster Scot'.

 

Casement was a keen supporter of the Gaelic revival and Irish nationalism.  He played a central role in the arming of the Irish Volunteers and at the start of the First World War he spent some time in Germany seeking German support for a rebellion in Ireland.  Casement was born into a family of Ulster Protestant descent but converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before his execution for treason in 1916.

 

I look forward to reading this letter, something which will require a visit to the Newspaper Library in Belfast Central Library.  He was obviously wrong in his reasoning but it will be interesting to see what arguments he used

 

The Ulster Guardian started in 1903 as the Lisburn Weekly Mail and then in 1906 changed its name.  It was the organ of the Ulster Liberal Association and ceased publication in 1920..

 

 

 

North Belfast housing need (3)

Question time at Stormont

Today I had Oral Questions in the Assembly and the first question, from Sinn Fein MLA Raymond McCartney, was not about his own constituency of Foyle but about social housing in North Belfast.  He asked: 'The minister for Social Development to outline the analysis used to reach a determination of equal Unionist and Nationalist housing need in north Belfast.'

 

For many years nationalist and republican politicians have claimed that the social housing waiting list in North Belfast is overwhelmingly nationalist and Roman Catholic.  That became the nationalist narrative about housing need and was repeated so often that it came to be accepted more generally, by journalists, academics and commentators.

 

One part of the narrative was that there was a young and growing Roman Catholic population in North Belfast and the other part of the narrative was that the Protestant community was older and declining.  As a result, according to the nationalist narrative, the social housing waiting list was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic.  But is that narrative true?

 

Well Sinn Fein got their answer and here it is:

I have stated a number of times now that the need in both communities in the North Belfast Constituency is roughly the same.  This is not my view or interpretation of the figures, it's the facts that speak for themselves.

The figures are the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's and are based on housing waiting list figures for the North Belfast Assembly and Parliamentary constituency.  They are the Housing Executive's totals for the number of applicants for social housing and transfer applicants who self-identified as either Protestant or Roman Catholic within each Common Landlord Area in the constituency.  The latest figures I have received from the Housing Executive, from 31st December 2013, again speak for themselves with 1,994 Protestants and 1,988 Roman Catholics on the waiting list in the North Belfast Constituency.

Previously, I had quoted the figures from September  2013 and they were 2059 Protestants and 1,986 Roman Catholics but we now have the most up-to-date figures available.

 

There are fluctuations from day to day and month to month but the general pattern is that the number of Protestants on the waiting list in North Belfast and the number of Roman Catholics on the waiting list are roughly the same.

 

The reaction from nationalist politicians and the supplementary question from SDLP MLA Alban Maginness demonstrated that they had not accepted the facts.  The nationalist narrative is so deeply embedded in the minds of nationalists that they find it very difficult to accept the facts, even those provided by the Housing Executive. 

 

The claim that the waiting list is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic is untrue but it has become almost an article of faith for nationalists.  The only answer then is to keep repeating the facts and challenging the myths.

 

I also had the opportunity today to explain how nationalists were able to manufacture their myth about social housing and here is the explanation.  The North Belfast Constituency covers all or part of four Housing Executive districts - Shankill, North Belfast, Newtownabbey 1 and Newtownabbey 2.  One of these districts is more nationalist than unionist whereas the others are more unionist than nationalist.  Nationalists however simply took the figures for one of those areas, the one that is most nationalist, and ignored the figures for the areas that are most unionist! 

For example, in the case of Rathcoole CLA there are 432 people on the waiting list and of these 222 are in housing stress but that need was simply ignored by nationalists.  Nevertheless that figure shows just how much new social housing is needed and I am glad to say that more new social housing is programmed for Rathcoole.

 

I will return to this in future posts because the issue is very complex and is best dealt with in bite-sized chunks.  Today's chunk is the basic fact that the waiting list for Protestants and the waiting list for Roman Catholics is roughly the same.

 

GOOD NEWS FROM LOWER OLDPARK

 

Meanwhile another Sinn Fein MLA Fra McCann asked a written question about social housing in the Lower Oldpark area.  He asked: 'The Minister for Social Development to detail how the refurbished houses in the Lower Oldpark were allocated, including whether they were allocated to people within the area by transfer or allocated from the housing waiting list.'

 

My answer to this was:

Clanmil Housing Association, who own the properties in question, has advised that properties continue to be allocated in accordance with the Housing Selection Scheme.  They have handed over five properties in Manor Court and four in Mountview Street.  These nine properties have been allocated to applicants whose area of choice was the Lower Oldpark area; this includes one transfer.

This is the first stage in the regeneration of Lower Oldpark and I was delighted to be able to report that houses which had previously been derelict were now fully refurbished and occupied.  Clanmil can now move on to the next phase of the refurbishment programme.  Alongside this the Housing Executive have programmed a number of new build social houses for a vacant site below Century Street.  This shows that a community such as Lower Oldpark, which was neglected for so many years, can have a bright future, with a growing population and good quality houses.

Lower Oldpark is one of the six areas selected for the new Building Successful Communities programme and in this case it is off to a good start.  No longer will people be condemned to living amongst dereliction and decline.  That is simply unacceptable.

 

 

 

 

More alcohol incidents at the Odyssey



Box nightclub

Two of our local papers on Saturday (22 February) carried front page stories about the Odyssey in Belfast.

The Irish News led with the headline Night out at drink-promo club almost kills teenager.  Robert Kelly (19) was found unconscious with hypothermia in the car park at the Odyssey complex just after 2.00 am having been ejected from the Box nightclub where £1 shots and half-price wine were being sold.

Robert Kelly is a cousin of Joby Murphy who died after falling in to the Lagan on 26 January 2012.  He had been drinking heavily at another nightclub offering similarly cut-price drinks.

The Thursday night promotion in the Box nightclub is advertised as LOKO THURSDAYS and Robert Kelly was ejected from the nightclub around 1.00 am.  A spokesman for the Box said, 'We had 450 people there last night.  A couple of people were asked to leave for having consumed too much drink.'  An hour later Robert was found outside lying on the ground.  Robert's father John Kelly said, 'There's going to be another one.  The next boy won't be so lucky.' 

Odyssey

The Belfast Telegraph lead with the headline Terrified kids caught up in Odyssey fights.  Their report started - 'Families fled in terror as drink-fuelled fights broke out during a rowdy darts tournament hosted in the Odyssey Arena.

One person at the event said, 'It was all just drink-fuelled, everybody was quite drunk towards the end of the night.'  Another said, 'It was a bit of a rough and ready atmosphere and the amount of booze at it was unreal.  I saw one guy take on about seven bouncers.'

These incidents come just days after the night when around 100 young people at the Odyssey were heavily intoxicated with some requiring hospital treatment.

A responsible retailing code has been introduced and health minister Edwin Poots has commissioned research on the benefits of setting a minimum price for alcohol but clearly there is nothing responsible about serving alcohol to someone who is so drunk that he has to be ejected and is soon unconscious.

Republican Flute Bands and their Volunteers



Vol Sean McIlvenna RFB colour party with paramilitary uniforms.

Members of the Vol Sean McIlvenna RFB with 'replica' weapons

The Volunteer Sean McIlvenna Republican Flute Band glorifies IRA terrorism but it is not the only republican band to use the word VOLUNTEER in its name and thereby associate itself clearly and unequivocally with an illegal organisation, namely the IRA.

 



There is also the Volunteer Martin Doherty Republican Flute Band, based in Glasgow, which is part of Cairde na hEireann and thereby aligned with Sinn Fein, as indeed is the Volunteer Sean McIlvenna Republican Flute Band.  Martin Doherty was shot dead on 21 May 1994 by a UVF gang who were attempting to plant a bomb at a pub in Dublin.  The pub was being used that night for a fund-raising event for IRA prisoners.  Doherty had joined the IRA in 1981 and the following year was given a 7 year prison sentence for terrorism.  In August 1994 the IRA shot dead Martin Cahill, a member of the Dublin underworld, who was said to have helped the UVF carry out the attack.

 

Cairde na hEireann has produced a CD of republican flute bands with such interesting tunes as 'Say Hello to the Provos' by the Volunteer Sean McIlvenna Republican Flute Band and 'Armalite Mary D' by CRFB, presumably Coatbridge Republican Flute Band.  For those not familiar with 'Say Hello to the Provos', the words of the chorus are - Say hello to the Provos, say hello to the brave, Say hello to the Provos, and Ireland shall be saved.

The Volunteer Ed O'Brien Republican Flute Band from Wexford commemorates a member of the IRA who died 'on active service' on 18 February 1996.  He was killed after a bomb he was carrying exploded prematurely on a London bus.  Two other passengers and the driver of the bus were also injured and when police searched O'Brien's home they found 15 kg of semtex.  The inquest into his death heard that O'Brien was probably responsible for planting a similar bomb in a London telephone box on 15 February but it was deactivated by the police.  These explosions came just days after the London docklands bombing (Canary Wharf bombing) on 9 February, in which 2 people were killed

The Volunteer Billy Reid Republican Flute Band was named after Billy Reid from the New Lodge area of North Belfast.  He was killed on 15 May 1971 during a gun-fight with soldiers.  According to local sources he was the IRA who shot Robert Curtis, the first soldier to be killed by the IRA in the Troubles.  The band was formed in Scotland 1978 but has now been renamed the Parkhead Republican Flute Band because of disagreement with Sinn Fein and mainstream Irish republicanism.  Apparently the family of Billy Reid still back mainstream republicanism.

 

The Volunteer Patricia Black Memorial Flute Band was formed in the Garngad area of Glasgow in 2010, with the approval of members of Patricia Black's family.  According to a report on the Newry Republican blog, it is 'politically aligned to Eirigi, the Irish republican socialist political party'. 

The report also contained this observation: 'At a time when republican flute bands seem to be dwindling, it's uplifting to see a new RFB on the road, it's also a welcome development for Eirigi who are growing from strength to strength.'

It has also been referred to as the Volunteers Patricia Black and Frankie Ryan Memorial Flute Band - Black and Ryan were Provisional IRA volunteers who were killed on 15 November 1991 when a bomb they were handling exploded prematurely.  The two terrorists were killed by their own bomb.

The practice of incorporating the word Volunteer in the name of republican flute bands seems to be restricted to Scotland and the Irish Republic but such bands do come across to Northern Ireland and should be subject to the same rules as other bands, that they should not carry or wear anything that associates them with proscribed or terrorist organisations.  This is an issue that the Parades Commission has ignored for far too long.

Volunteer Sean McIlvenna Republican Flute Band

The Volunteer Sean McIlvenna Republican Flute Band is named after a member of the Provisional IRA.  Just in case there is any doubt about it the band include the word 'volunteer' in their name.

So who was Sean McIlvenna (1951-1984)?  He was born in the Docks area of North Belfast and grew up in Fortwilliam Park before settling on the Antrim Road.  After marrying Pat Burns he moved across the border to Dundalk and the couple had seven children.

He was killed on 17 December 1984 during a gun battle with the RUC in county Armagh.  McIlvenna was part of an IRA unit that had undertaken a landmine attack on a UDR patrol vehicle, with the intention of murdering the soldiers in it.

Today he is commemorated by the Vol Sean McIlvenna Republican Flute Band and the Sean McIlvenna Celtic supporters Club in Dundalk. 

As regards the band you can get a flavour of their activities on two Facebook pages.  The band's own page is entitled VSM - RFB

There is also a page for the 'Vol Sean McIlvenna - Female Cumann'.  It says, 'We are the first all female cumann and part of the Vol Sean McIlvenna Republican Flute Band and are based in Glasgow.  We work within Cairde Ne hEireann and are currently looking for new girls to join our cumann in 2012.'  One of their announcements (15 May 2013) is that the band has produced a new badge to raise funds and they kindly provide a picture of the badge, incorporating two rifles of the kind often used by the Provisional IRA.

 

This is the advertisement for their band practices and it is interesting that they are able to secure the use of a Roman Catholic secondary school for their band practices.

You can also visit the website www.vsmrfb.org which provides a history of the band and a picture of another badge, which incorporates a depiction of a masked IRA terrorist.  The website notes that 'the band has also enjoyed a special relationship with the close knit community of Bawnmore in North Belfast.'

Every Easter, for a number of years, the band has visited North Belfast for a Saturday parade down the Whitewell Road, past two Protestant churches and past an Orange hall, on its way to the republican memorial in Bawnmore.

This is not a parade that is solely within a nationalist community but rather it is a parade which passes places of worship and an interface.  Moreover it is a parade with which Sinn Fein has a close association.

That brings us to two questions.

1. Will Sinn Fein or the organisers of the Whitewell parade, who are clearly aligned with Sinn Fein, book Volunteer Sean McIlvenna RFB again this year for their Easter Saturday parade?  The very name of the band links it to a member of the Provisional IRA.

2. How will the PSNI and the Parades Commission respond to the parade this year?  Will they place any restrictions on the band and in particular as regards those things that associate the band with IRA terrorism and glorify IRA terrorism?

Time will tell .......

As regards the republican memorial in Bawnmore this commemorates republican activists who died in the Troubles and especially three IRA men who died on 7 April 1972.  They were preparing a bomb in a garage in Bawnmore Grove when the bomb exploded prematurely and they were killed instantly.  The three IRA men were John (Jackie) McErlean, Samuel Hughes and Charles McCrystal and the memorial was built in 2004.

Irish - 'a bullet in the freedom struggle' (3)

Belfast Media Group

In a recent post I exposed the claims put forward by the columnist Squinter in the North Belfast News (8 February) about the origin of the notorious phrase that 'every word spoken in Irish is another bullet in the freedom struggle'.  Squinter claimed that it was invented by someone in Thiepval barracks, a reference to the British Army, presumably as some sort of black propaganda.

However I was able to point out that in fact one of the first examples of the phrase, if not the first, was in a Sinn Fein publication, produced back in 1982, more than thirty years ago, at the point where Sinn Fein took to using the Irish language as a weapon in its cultural war.  It was an official Sinn Fein publication, reporting the proceedings of a Sinn Fein seminar and with an introduction by a young Sinn Fein cultural officer, now Belfast lord mayor, Mairtin O'Muilleoir.

The Belfast Telegraph reprinted my post as a platform piece in the newspaper and it was amusing to see that not a single nationalist or republican came back to rebut what I had reported.  Of course they couldn't rebut it or refute it because it was simply the truth.  Instead they kept their heads down and hoped it would soon be forgotten.  However the information is now accessible on the internet, rather than buried in the Sinn Fein archive or the shelves of a reference library.

Squinter logo

I thought that the North Belfast News might have had the honesty to print a correction in the next issue on 15  February but no.  Squinter got two pages in the paper but there was no mention of the matter and no correction. Clearly Squinter prefers to stick to the traditional republican line of 'blame the Brits' and ignore the fact that it was Sinn Fein strategists and propagandists who concocted and disseminated that ugly phrase and the equally nasty strategy behind it.

I wondered if it was pressure of space that prevented Squinter owning up and perhaps there might be something the next issue of the North Belfast News.  However that issue appeared tonight and there is no correction, no retraction and no apology.

Of course, if Gerry Adams can't remember being in the IRA, then perhaps Sinn Fein have really forgotten that they launched a cultural war with the Irish language as their main weapon!