Dee Fennell - "what an eejit!"

On Friday 11 April I was at the Marrowbone pitches off the Oldpark Road and it was the first time I ever encountered Dee Fennell, who is standing as an Independent Republican in the Oldpark area in the forthcoming local government elections.

Fennell has a leading role in the Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (GARC), a group of extreme republicans who oppose all Loyal Order parades down the Crumlin Road.  He is also a member of the Sean MacDiarmada 1916 Society, one of a number of small extreme republican groups in Ardoyne.

As I was leaving the park and crossing the road back to my car Fennell appeared and proceeded to engage in an incoherent  republican rant.  He didn't say who he was but I had seen his picture in newspapers and recognised him.

It was only a short distance to the car and it only took a couple of minutes but he walked along beside me every step of the way shouting at me.

He also left a rather rambling letter for me but omitted to put his address on it.  How does he expect anyone to reply to his letter if he doesn't put an address on it?

As I listened to his rambling and incoherent rant I just thought to myself, of a little response which appears in both Ulster-Scots and Ulster vernacular, 'What an eejit?"

However as I recalled his role in relation to parades I also thought, "What a dangerous and malicious eejit?"  And this is the sort of person who leads the  Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective.

Sammy Cusick of the Republican Network for Unity is also standing in Oldpark, and they are competing against each other for nationalist and republican votes, as well as competing against Sinn Fein and the SDLP.  Of course Fennell and Cusick represent just two of the extreme republican factions in Ardoyne.  There are also the IRSP and Erigi.  Such are the divisions and differences within extreme republicanism.