New York parade was on Saturday, not Sunday

St Patrick's Day in New York

This year, with St Patrick's Day falling on a Sunday, the Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council moved its St Patrick's Day parade in Armagh from Sunday 17 March to Saturday 16 March, so that those who attended church on Sunday could share in the parade, either as participants or spectators.

The decision drew some adverse criticism and some media reports claimed that the Armagh event would be a day before parades in the rest of the world.  The implication was that Armagh would be out of step with the rest of the world.  

It's an argument that I first encountered a few years ago when It was suggested that the St Patrick's Day parade in Belfast be held on a Saturday in those years when 17 March was a Sunday.  However it is an argument that simply untrue.

Of all the St Patrick's Day parades around the world, the largest and the oldest is the one in New York and this year it was held on Saturday 16 March, the same day as Armagh.  

They have been holding St Patrick's Day parades in New York since 1762 and that is what they do when St Patrick's Day falls on a Sunday.  They move the parade to the Saturday.

I'm not suggesting that we should copy every aspect of what happens in New York, because there is a very anti-British racism about some of what happens in New York.  

However if Irish-Americans in New York can cope with moving the parade to the Saturday, perhaps their 'friends' in Ulster might consider it as well.

Gerry McGeough and the Ancient Order of Hibernians

On Saturday 23 February the Irish News reported that the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America had backed the campaign of opposition to a planned goldmine in county Tyrone.

American members of the AOH visited the area recently with Tyrone AOH president Gerry McGeough and former Noraid leader Martin Galvin, who was described as a spokesman said, 'We support those who are defending this beautiful part of Tyrone from the threat Dalradian poses.'

McGeough joined the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional IRA in 1975 and was arrested in August 1988  while crossing the Dutch-German border with two AK47 rifles in his car.  He was charged with attacks on the British Army and held for four years in a German detention centre.  However his trial in Germany was interrupted by extradition to the USA where he was charged with attempting to purchase surface to air missiles in 1983.  He served three years of his sentence in US prisons until his release in 1996.  At that point he was deported to the Irish Republic.  McGeough was a member of the Sinn Fein national executive before leaving the party.

He was arrested in March 2007 and in February 2011 he was convicted of the  attempted murder of Sammy Brush in June 1981.  Sammy Brush was a member of the DUP, a postman and an off-duty UDR soldiers.  Gerry McGeough was sentenced to 20 years but under the terms of the Belfast Agreement he only served 2 years and was released on 29 January 2013.

The unusual aspect of the story is that, while he was on trial for attempted murder, Gerry McGeough was elected president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in county Tyrone and still holds that senior office within the organisation, being elected year after year!

Yet this received almost no attention in the media.  I wonder what the reaction of the media would have been  if the Orange Order had elected someone as a County Grand Master, a post that is similar to that held by McGeough, when the person was standing trial for attempted murder!

I highlighted this back in 2011 and was reminded of it when I saw that McGeough is still the AOH president for Tyrone in 2019.

We are approaching one of the key dates in the AOH calendar, St Patrick's Day, so perhaps someone in the 'main stream media' might care to take it up!  

Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charlotte Elizabeth

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was an American abolitionist and author and she is best remembered as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin..

She was born in Connecticut, the daughter of Rev Lyman Beecher, a Presbyterian minister, and had a good education.  

After that she settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, where her father was president of Lane Theological Seminary, and in due course she married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a Biblical scholar and a professor in the seminary.

There had been racist riots in Cincinnati in 1829 when Irish-Americans attacked African-Americans.  Harriet met some of the African-Americans who had suffered in the attacks and when she heard their stories it confirmed her in her opposition to slavery.

Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852 as an anti-slavery novel and it was the best-selling novel of the 19th century.  It was also the second best-selling book of the century, second only to the Bible.  Its first appearance in print was in 1851 as a 40-week serial in the National Era and then the following year it was published as a single volume.

In 1844 she wrote an introduction to The Works of Charlotte Elizabeth, which was published in three volumes.

Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna

These were the works of Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna (1790-1846), a British author who was born Charlotte Elizabeth Browne in Norfolk and was a daughter of a canon of Norwich Cathedral.  She married a British Army officer who had a small estate in Ireland but it was a very unhappy marriage and they separated about 1824.  After the death of her husband in Dublin in 1837, she married Lewis Tonna in 1841.

Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna was an evangelical Protestant and she wrote books, evangelistic tracts and poems on a variety of subjects but always from an evangelical perspective.  She also edited the Protestant Annual and The Christian Lady's Magazine and produced an abridged version of Foxe's Book of Martyrs.

Among her poems were hymns and also several written on Orange themes, including The Maiden City and No Surrender.  She was a fine poet and writing in 1899 the Irish Catholic editor D J O'Donoghue said: 'These are extremely vigorous and popular.  They are quite the best Orange songs that have ever been written.'

She also wrote a novel titled Derry: A Tale of the Revolution.

Sadly Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna is now largely forgotten but those who uphold the Protestant tradition in Ulster and who would share her evangelical Protestant faith could learn much from her fearless defence of truth. Harriet Beecher Stowe spoke well of her and so should we.

More hypocrisy from Sinn Fein

Sinn Fein commemoration for the Brookeborough IRA raid

In my Belfast Telegraph column today I highlighted the hypocrisy and inconsistency of Sinn Fein on New Year's Day in protesting against a 'drag hunt' in North Down in the morning and then commemorating and celebrating an IRA attack in the afternoon.

There is a Sinn Fein calendar of IRA commemorations and the Brookeborough event, which commemorates an IRA raid on 1 January 1957, marks the start of another year of that calendar of shame.

However the hypocrisy of Sinn Fein is further highlighted when we recall their voting record in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

When the Wildlife and Natural Environment Bill came before the Assembly in 2010 there was an amendment which placed a ban on hare coursing, and this was passed by 23 votes to 18.

Hare coursing - backed by Sinn Fein

However when the Bill came back for its Further Consideration stage on 7 February 2011 the Sinn Fein MLA Francie Molloy, now the Sinn Fein MP for Mid-Ulster, attempted to amend it and prevent a complete ban on hare coursing.  Indeed during the debate he said, 'I support coursing'.

In the end his attempt was voted down by 53 votes to 33 but that 33 included Molloy and the other Sinn Fein MLAs.  

Sinn Fein supported hare coursing but oppose fox hunting.

So the next time Sinn Fein attempt to assert their 'progressive party' credentials by protesting against fox hunting, it is worth remembering that the party backed the retention of hare coursing.

Prophet of Brexit doom arrested

Carlos Ghosn

Last month the car manufacturer Nissan warned that a 'hard Brexit' would have serious implications for its plant in Sunderland.

The company issued a statement and the Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosin, speaking at the Paris Motor Show said, 'We are preparing for the worst but I do not want to tell you how we are preparing because you will say I am trying to scare people.'

His comments got a lot of attention because he is head of a business empire Alliance that includes Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi.

Indeed such has been his standing over many years that he was honoured by the United Kingdom with an honorary knighthood (KBE) in 2006.

But earlier today it was reported that he has been arrested in Japan on suspicion of financial misconduct and BBC News has reported that the Nissan company is preparing to sack him.

Nissan said that it had been conducting an internal investigation for several months which showed that Ghosn had been under-reporting his pay package.  'Numerous other significant acts of misconduct' including 'personal use of company assets' were also found.

It's a funny old world!

Every EU language 'except Irish'

Irish Gaelic activists have certainly been silent in recent months about what I thought they might regard as a grievous insult to the Irish language.

The European Commission has just completed a consultation on abolishing 'daylight saving time' and in due course will produce some proposals.  The consultation ran from 4 July to 16 August  information about it was available on the European Commission website.

There will various views about 'daylight saving time' but I was interested to find the following on the web-page with information about the consultation.  This is what the European Commission said:

The online questionnaire is accessible in all official EU languages (except Irish) and replies may be submitted in any EU language.  We do encourage you to answer as much as possible in English.

Irish Gaelic is one of the 24 official languages of the European Union and Irish language activists are always keen to assert the rights of Irish speakers, so here are some questions.

Why did the European Commission exclude the Irish language from the online questionnaire?

What did the government of the Irish Republic do or say about the exclusion of Irish?

What did the MEPs from the Republic do or say about the exclusion of Irish?

What did the Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson do or say about the exclusion of Irish?

What did Irish language organisations such as Conradh na Gaeilge do or say about the exclusion of Irish?

Why was there no protest by Irish language activists outside the office of the European Commission in Belfast, rather in the same way as they did outside the Department for Communities?

Perhaps some answers will be forthcoming but in the meantime I was disappointed by the exclusion of Irish because it would have been interesting to see how many of the respondents from the Irish Republic or indeed Northern Ireland would have responded in Irish and how many in English!

On the other hand, while the questionnaire is accessible in  23 of the 24 official languages, with Irish excluded, it states that 'replies may be submitted in any EU language', so was it possible to read the questionnaire in English and yet reply in Irish; and if so how many people did?  So that brings the number of questions up to seven.

Scotch Readings at Ballysillan

Ballysillan Presbyterian Church

Back in the 1890s Ballysillan Presbyterian Sabbath-School held an annual fete and there was an interesting report of the 1891 fete in the Northern Whig (5 September 1891). 

The teachers and children assembled at the Wolfhill Mill School and then, led by Wolfhill Flute Band, they walked to the grounds of the Wolfhill Spinning Company.

There were games, swings, a shooting gallery and a four-a-side football competition.

Afterwards there was a tea, the Ballysillan choir sang and R Diamond read Bobbie Barefeet.  

I was unfamiliar with this but discovered that it was a short story titled Wee Bobbie Barefeet and that it was from SCOTCH READINGS Humorous and Amusing by Alexander G Murdoch.

The volume of readings includes titles such as The Sittin Doon Cauld and Wha Rules the Hoose?

As regards Wee Bobbie Barefeet, most of the narrative is in English, interspersed with some Scots,  and most of the dialogue is in Scots.

The fact that a 'Scotch reading' was included in the Ballysillan fete is another insight into the Ulster-Scots heritage of the Ballysillan area.  It seems that the adults and children of Ballysillan and Ligoniel were able to understand the language of the reading and that is only to be expected.  Those who came into the area to work in the mills were coming from surrounding rural areas which were thoroughly Ulster-Scots in their language and culture.

Unfortunately much of our Ulster-Scots heritage, linguistic and cultural has been eroded, especially in more recent years and there is much work to be done to recover what has been forgotten.  

The author of the book was Alexander Gregor Murdoch (1841-1891) who contributed many poems, both serious and humorous, to the Glasgow Weekly Mail and also published two volumes of poetry.  Eventually he joined the staff of the Glasgow Weekly Mail.  

 His Scotch Readings was very popular and went through a number of editions, with a fourth edition being published in 1889.  His poetry, which was written in Scots, was also very popular and received very positive reviews, both for the quality of the poetry and the quality of the Scots.