A bad day's work

Last Saturday's ugly scenes in Dublin could, and should have been avoided. I am no fan of the Loyalists “Lov...e Ulster” campaign. It has little to do with “Ulster” or love of any kind. It offers a loyalist view of the past but no vision of a different or better future.

Willie Frazer, the campaign's main organiser, has lost members of his family who were killed by the IRA. Other supporters of the “Love Ulster Campaign” also lost loved ones at the hands of republicans.

They feel betrayed by the peace process. Frazer has been a vocal spokesperson for that section of unionism, which is totally opposed to the possibility of republicans being represented in a power-sharing executive a la the Good Friday Agreement. Or any other agreement for that matter.

So why did they want to march in Dublin? Maybe it's a sign of the times. Northern unionists and loyalists of various shades of Orange have taken to engaging with the capital. Representatives of all of the main unionist paramilitary groups have met with the Taoiseach. It is now an open secret that the President keeps a line of communication to these groups as part of the necessary efforts to encourage them to fully embrace the peace process. The President's husband, Martin McAleese, does sterling work on this front. So maybe Willie Frazier was coming in from the cold and reaching out to public opinion in Dublin 4 and other parts.

Or maybe not? Perhaps the intention was to be provocative. If that was the case it was a very successful manoeuvre. It would have been better for everyone involved if the “Love Ulster” march had been allowed to proceed unimpeded. That certainly was the Sinn Féin position. That's why we didn't organise a protest. On the contrary we directed our membership to ignore the proceedings. A loyalist march, replete with Union flags and marching bands, is unlikely to be welcomed anywhere in ‘nationalist' Ireland. But that's not the point.

They had opted to march in Dublin and they should have been allowed to do so. O'Connell Street is hardly a residential area. Of course people may have been offended. But they would have had to come to O'Connell Street in order to be offended.

The Sinn Féin head office is in Parnell Square. I phoned there to find out what was happening. It was just before the situation began to deteriorate. One of the people there told me, “if the Gardaí move now before it gets out of hand it should be ok”.

The Gardaí didn't move. I presume because they didn't have the personnel. I'm writing this before the Minster for Justice Michael McDowell clarifies these matters, so perhaps I'm wrong on this point. But without doubt by the time the Gardaí did move there was a full-blown riot.

I come from a place where there have been a lot of full-blown riots. Hopefully the worst of that is behind us. But if ever anyone wanted to organise a riot a building site is a useful resource. And as anyone who has been on O'Connell Street recently will testify – it's like a building site. The official line is likely to be that there were a lot of preparations before hand and that people came armed with weapons and so on. Maybe they did. But they didn't need to. It was all there. Bricks, stones, rubble, missiles of all sorts. Planks, and sections of fencing. A virtual armoury of rioting material.

Dublin Council says they made the site as secure as they could, and I'm sure they did. The gardaí will protest that whatever street was involved the rioters were intent on confrontation. I'm sure they're right also. But there's no point in making it easy for them.

A lot of what happened has to do with mindsets. There's a mindset within the Dublin establishment, which felt that the loyalist marchers should be allowed to proceed up O'Connell Street without any contingency for the counter demonstration getting out of hand. And there's a mindset within those who organised the counter demonstration that they could do so without consideration of the consequences. And who did the rioting? Clearly some were opposed to a loyalist parade on O'Connell Street. I'm told there were also some intent on anarchy who went into town looking for trouble and others who took advantage of a confused situation to rob and steal. And on a Saturday afternoon in Dublin a fair smattering of people with drink taken. All in all a heady mix.

Of course the media told us that “republicans” had blocked a loyalist parade, or that “republicans” had attacked the Gardaí, or that “republicans” were burning cars and smashing shop windows. That message was trotted out over the entire weekend. There was no real effort made to identify those who had organised the counter demonstration and quite remarkably RTÉ failed to produce one spokesperson to defend the afternoon's events. I could imagine what would have happened if Sinn Féin had organised a counter demonstration. Every newsroom in the land would have been screaming for myself or some other representative to explain ourselves. But not on this occasion. On this occasion it was enough to simply blame “republicans”. When it transpired that republicans weren't actually involved, and that Sinn Féin had played a positive role, then a new line was peddled. The rioters we were told were members of the republican family. Nonsense.

So all in all it was a bad day's work. It didn't last very long. No one was killed. The damage was limited. And the injuries were non-life threatening. It could have been worse. The loyalist marchers could have been attacked. So maybe on that count we got off light but it was a bad day's work nonetheless. Of course the easy option is to blame it on sinister elements who sneaked into the city armed with petrol bombs and other equipment, prepared and ready to exploit a situation for their own ends. The harder option is to look at the stupidity involved, including a certain degree of naivety and a lack of preparedness by the various agencies involved.

Many northern Protestants may feel that Saturday's events mean they are not welcome in the capital. That's what one Protestant man said to me. I don't think he feels like that personally. But I do have a sense that he is reflecting a widespread view.

So, the real damage is that Saturday's events will be exploited by elements within unionism, and within so-called dissident republicanism, to suit their own agendas. Each will cite what occurred as proof of how right they were all along. Those of us who live in the north, where there are almost 4,000 loyal marches each summer, could tell a different tale. The fact is that at this time Sinn Féin is involved in outreach work to try and ensure that the marching season is peaceful. In my address to the Sinn Féin ard-fheis I pointed out that there was a need to resolve the difficulties caused by a handful of contentious Orange parades. The way to do this, I said, is through dialogue based upon equality and mutual respect. That work continues even as the airwaves are filled with talk of the weekend's events.