I’VE said it a million times and I’ll say it again: I don’t care if the Shankill wants to close down for a day every September to pay tribute to Brian Robinson. 

Don’t get me wrong, Robinson was a cowardly ne’er-do-well and while I have no doubt that he could have been arrested and was a victim of shoot-to-kill, I can’t say I lost any sleep when he died. But people commemorate people I don’t like all the time. And there isn’t a single person living in this little corner of Paradise who can’t say the same.

Sinn Féin attend commemorations for IRA members who caused incredible suffering in the Protestant and unionist community. Belfast is a British army/royal family mausoleum. Dead loyalist paramilitaries are paid tribute to in every Twelfth of July parade in Belfast. I’m so inured to all of this that I long ago lost the ability to get annoyed about it. And even if I was annoyed about it, I’d still appreciate the very simple fact that no matter how vast my moral superiority, no matter how endless my righteous authority, nobody’s going to stop remembering people they respect, admire and/or love just because I don’t respect, admire and/or love them too. So if the Shankill is en fête for a day to remember someone I hold in contempt, I’m not going to start whingeing and gurning.

The point at which whingeing and gurning becomes not an option for me, but a duty, is the point at which Loyal Ulster demands that republicans obey a moral dictate which they themselves not only don’t obey, but actively deride. Let’s see if I can rustle up a little illustrative scenario, perhaps using the aforementioned UVF feast day as part of the story.
The DUP spent an inordinate amount of time and energy this summer trying and failing to get Kneecap cancelled. It’s a familiar pose for the party of Paisley. I grew up at a time when the DUP would gather regularly in the city centre in their car coats and kipper ties to get movies cancelled because they contained priests, demons, boobs, bad language, drugs – and memorably on one occasion, all five. Now it’s Kneecap they want cancelled. And the Irish language. Two things which are, to the DUP, essentially the same.

The DUP on Belfast City Council was particularly exercised by Kneecap playing the Belfast Vital festival this summer because the event was held at Boucher Road pitches, which are the property of Belfast City Council. The party despises Kneecap full stop, but they decided that the best way to get Kneecap cancelled in this instance was by suggesting that in allowing the band to play on Council land, City Hall was failing the people of the city.

The DUP group leader on the Council, Sarah Bunting, eloquently outlined why the Kneecap Boucher gig should have been cancelled. She said that in letting the band play at Boucher, the Council “risks legitimising and normalising behaviour that should have no place in our society”. Large events, she added, “should be opportunities to promote respect, unity and inclusivity”.

Obviously I didn’t and don’t agree with Sarah; but equally obviously, I respect her desire for her employer not to legitimise bad behaviour in the granting of permission to use its land; and I respect her desire for City Hall-enabled events to promote “respect, unity and inclusivity”.

And then I go online and find another band making use of Council facilities. On Saturday night, Shankill Protestant Boys celebrated the 45th anniversary of their founding with a dicky-bows-and-frocks event – in the City Hall, no less.

Now I have absolutely no doubt that Shankill Protestant Boys have done many things in their 45 years that are well worth celebrating. They’ve likely stopped on the Twelfth and helped old ladies cross the road. They may even have rescued kittens from the many trees in the Field at Shaws Bridge. But what I know them best for is heading up the Brian Robinson Memorial Parade on the Shankill. Something they do every year. Which brings us full circle back to the first paragraph of this lamentable parable. Just as I don’t care that the Shankill spends a day paying tribute to a sectarian killer, I don’t care that Shankill Protestant Boys is the tip of the spear in that annual tribute to a loyalist murderer. I’m not going to lie and say good luck to them, or that I hope the lads had a good day, but I can put my hand on my heart and say I’m happy to look the other way.

I’m even happy to look the other way when Shankill Protestant Boys enter the gilded splendour of our premier public building to celebrate 45 years of their devotion to the reformed faith and a UVF killer.

If the DUP were apoplectic about Kneecap rapping in a Council field because of that Hamas/Hezbollah business, it would be nice to imagine that they could summon up a little light indignation about a band that annually leads a UVF parade taking over City Hall for a Saturday night gala do. Sadly, not a tut of disapproval was heard from the leading unionist party. We were left unadvised by the party on whether allowing Shankill Protestant Boys to party in City Hall “risks legitimising and normalising behaviour that should have no place in our society” the way that they felt Kneecap in a field would have. We were left none the wiser about whether the Shankill Protestant Boys knees-up had promoted “respect, unity and inclusivity”.

Sarah Bunting attended the do, as did DUP Lord Mayor Tracy Kelly, who has also expressed concerns about Kneecap playing on Council property. In this case I’m quite happy to say good luck to Sarah. And to the Lord Mayor too. Why? Because I happen to think that they’re doing important work in giving hard-to-reach loyalist communities a sense of belonging in a city which many of them don’t recognise any more. And I happen to think that the positives brought to the Shankill by the band over nearly half a century will have vastly outweighed the annual social awkwardness occasioned by the band’s participation in the Brian Robinson parade.

But at the same time I do wish that even just occasionally the DUP would stop and smell the flute polish. If I was concerned about the use of Council facilities, if I thought the Council had a duty to ensure “respect, unity and inclusivity” from those using its land and facilities, I’d have been as worried about Shankill Protestant Boys in the City Hall as I was about Kneecap at Boucher.

But is it too much to ask that unionism backs the right of Kneecap to play at a ticketed commercial event, just as it backs the Shankill Protestant Boys’ right to close the heavy wooden doors of the City Hall ballroom behind them and enjoy their birthday celebrations?

With the DUP.