TWO of three bands awarded £10,000 each by the Arts Council for new instruments despite their participation in a UVF parade were slated to appear at another UVF commemoration at the weekend.
Monkstown YCV and Freeman Memorial were among 25 bands listed on the Parades Commission website to play at a parade which paid tribute to notorious UVF killer Trevor King in the Shankill/Woodvale area on Saturday. Our photographer was able to confirm that Monkstown YCV took part in the parade, but it’s not known whether Freeman Memorial took part or whether they pulled out because of controversy over their participation in a UVF parade last September.
LIST: Monkstown YCV and Freeman Memorial were slated to play at the Shankill UVF parade
Trevor ‘Kingso’ King was a feared commander of the UVF in the Shankill/Woodvale area, presiding over a reign of sectarian terror before being shot dead by the INLA on the Shankill in June 1994 in an attack which also claimed the lives of UVF men Colin ‘Crazy’ Craig and David Hamilton.
Monkstown and Freeman were two of three bands awarded a total of £30,000 for new instruments by the Arts Council despite the fact that they had taken part in a parade paying tribute to UVF gunman Brian Robinson – information that the Arts Council says the bands withheld from their funding applications.
On Saturday, Monkstown YCV showed off their shiny new instruments at the Trevor King parade, which kicked off and ended in Disraeli Street after marching through a number of streets in the Shankill area.
The Arts Council told us in February that they would be reviewing the decision to award funding to the bands, but in May they said that the second and final tranche of the instrument funding would be paid to the bands despite their participation in a parade paying tribute to an illegal group and despite the arts body revealing that crucial information had been withheld.
An Arts Council spokesperson told us then: “The bands have confirmed their continuing commitment to good relations and grants have been allocated in line with their Letters of Offer.”
But that pledge to commit to “good relations” has been thrown back in the Arts Council’s face as the instruments they paid for were used in a tribute to a sectarian killer.
Red-faced Arts Council chiefs told us in a statement in the wake of Saturday’s parade: “The Arts Council of Northern Ireland does ask each applicant to the Musical Instruments for Bands programme to list the band’s planned performances, as known at the time of application. To date, the Arts Council has not received any reports or evidence of breaches of good relations commitments on the part of any awardee in relation to the parade in question.”
