By John Coulter, Irish political journalist
Religious sectarianism is alive and well and breeding viciously again in the North.
As the North this month commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Omagh bomb massacre by the dissident Real IRA in west Tyrone which claimed the lives of 29 civilians plus unborn twins, religious hatred began to rear its ugly head once more.
While pundits and politicians have been focusing on the internal conflicts within republicanism and unionism, the traditional Catholic/Protestant tensions which have dogged Ireland for eight centuries once more crept steadily into the headlines.
Already this month, republican memorials to the 1981 IRA and INLA hunger strikers in Derry and Newry have been vandalised, the latter having its crosses painted red, white and blue with the letters ‘UVF’ – referring to the loyalist death squad – daubed on the memorial.
This was followed by attacks on halls belonging to the exclusively Protestant marching organisation, the Orange Order.
The Order’s ruling body, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, has condemned overnight attacks on five Orange Halls in Co Armagh when offensive and political slogans were daubed on the outside of the buildings.
The slogans were painted on halls at Ballyreagh, Tamnaghill, Tassagh, Crosskeys and Aghavilly.
A spokesman for the Grand Lodge described the attacks as blatantly sectarian. He said: ‘The attacks on five halls within a five mile radius point to a concerted campaign against the Order.
‘We condemn these attacks which are clearly designed to create tension in the local community. The best way to deal with this is to report any information to the police so they can find the culprits.’
The attacks on the memorials and halls come as the traditional loyalist marching season prepares to officially conclude later this month with a series of parades known as Black Saturday.
These are held on the last Saturday in August by the marching orders’ senior member, the Royal Black Institution which, like the Orange Order, was formed in the late 18th century as a Protestant working class alternative to the aristocratic and upper middle class dominated secret society, Irish Freemasonry.
The Royal Black Institution is organised in preceptories and its estimated 30,000 members in Ireland wear Black instead of Orange sashes. Like the Orange, the Black is exclusively Protestant, but unlike the Orange its members do not allow female members and refer to each other as ‘Sir Knights’.
Black Saturday is the institution’s commemoration of the Relief of the siege of the Protestant city of Londonderry during the Williamite war in Ireland in 1689 – a year before King Billy’s victory at the Boyne.
Since the signing of the St Andrews Agreement in 2006 and the re-establishment of the power-sharing Executive at Stormont in May 2007, the loyalist marching seasons have passed relatively peacefully, reflecting the success of the peace process.
However, the memorial and hall attacks could trigger a new wave of sectarian conflict across the North, not witnessed since the Drumcree parade disputes of the late 1990s.
Tensions were heightened in recent days following a new row over British Army advertising in Ireland.
Sinn Fein has criticised the decision by the main nationalist newspaper in the North, the Irish News, to carry recruitment advertisements for the British Army.
Sinn Féin Councillor Johnny McGibbon has criticised the paper for what he called ‘their promotion of the British Army through several advertisements contained in the paper’.
Cllr McGibbon added: ‘I have contacted the Irish News to highlight my opposition to these adverts. The Irish News has always claimed to be editorially opposed to violence, yet in the paper I have seen several examples of hypocrisy.
‘Promoting education through the British Army, or ‘Back to School: ARMY STYLE’, is surely not the most appropriate avenue for young people to re-enter education.
‘There are many avenues available to young people to continue their education, without being involved in an Army that has a long and violent history in Ireland.
‘I am disappointed that the Irish News feels it is acceptable to promote British Army recruitment to people as young as 16 considering their history, and current practices in Iraq and Afghanistan.’
The row widened when a former Sinn Fein Belfast Lord Mayor Alex Maskey criticised a British Army billboard recruitment campaign in the city.
The South Belfast Assembly member and City Councillor Maskey said that an Army recruitment billboard should not have been erected on Balfour Avenue in South Belfast and has welcomed its removal.
Cllr Maskey added: ‘I have contacted the company with responsibility for these billboards and urged for the removal of this particular advertisement. I welcome the fact that it will be taken down and that the vicinity will be restricted in terms of the erection of these offensive adverts.
‘People in the community here have a very real experience of the brutality and oppression of the British Army and there is no place for glorifying their current antics overseas as well as suggestion it is in some way an excellent career choice.’
Already this month, an equally vicious war of words has erupted between unionists and republicans over plans to stage ‘home coming parades’ for Irish regiments in Northern towns and cities when troops return from the conflict zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unionists have called for towns to stage such events, while they are bitterly opposed by republicans.
The current sectarian disputes have deflected attention away from severe internal problems within unionism and republicanism in recent days.
Tensions have already been rising between dissident republicans opposed to the peace process and mainstream republicanism as represented by Sinn Fein. It has already resulted in one alleged confrontation between Sinn Fein representatives and ‘young republicans’ in North Antrim.
The unionist family is already at loggerheads over power-sharing with a key council by-election in the border county of Fermanagh looming next month.
