A DISSIE active service unit carried out a daring strike on crown forces in Derry at the weekend, capturing a heavily defended bus stop and taking one poster hostage. All volunteers returned safely to base.
Such was the furore created by the removal of a prison service recruitment poster that the SDLP, the DUP, the Alliance Party and the UUP issued a joint statement hitting out at the outrage. The failure of Sinn Féin to sign up to the statement (instead issuing a solo defence of the right of public servants to go about their business unhindered) didn’t impress the Biggest Woe in the Country, which spent an hour on Monday morning frothing about this being the biggest SF scandal since the one last week.
In a place where parties can’t agree that penniless pensioners riding around on buses all day long to keep warm is A Bad Thing and where they remain perpetually at odds over whether schools should teach children that Moses literally parted the Red Sea, a joint statement is no small thing. In fact, it might even be considered a breakthrough. After all, when’s the last time the SDLP joined forces with the main unionist parties to speak with one powerful voice? Squinter thinks it might have been to welcome the end of the Vietnam War. Or maybe it was to condemn the decision of Michael Jackson to leave the Jackson Five. Whatever the case, it’s fair to say that such inspirational displays of joint passion are rare things, and all the more welcome for it.
The naysayers, of course, will say that unlocking a bus shelter display and case and removing the poster is not exactly a crime for which those responsible might at some time in the future find themselves facing a court in the Hague. They may also point out that at the very same time as the prison service poster was coming down a hell of a lot of stuff was going up on walls and lampposts all over Loyal Ulster as the Marching Season drum beats ever faster. The tinfoil hat brigade, meanwhile, will claim that the joint statement was a ploy to isolate Sinn Féin, creating another Monday morning media round of furious fury that would set the agenda for the week.
All cynical nonsense, needless to say. For while a Shankill Butcher marching with the Orange Order and putting up UVF flags on the Shankill over the same weekend might at first glance appear equally worthy of a joint statement, that line of thought fails to take into consideration the fact that the UVF is currently transitioning with government funding from murder to mere pimping to drug-dealing and the Shankill Butchers are now an Ulster-Scots sword-dancing club.
As for the ‘Clonduff Rocket Team’ banner, ‘Kill All Taigs’ graffiti and swastika at an East Belfast bonfire, it’s only fair to point out that the bonfire is in the grounds of City Hall’s Lisnasharragh Leisure Centre and is part of the Council’s citywide ‘Run the Boneys’ trail, encouraging leisure centres users to get fit and healthy while drinking in the fascinating history of Belfast’s most notorious loyalist killers. It’s third on Runner’s World magazine’s list of the world’s most challenging runs, behind the Mariupol Marathon and the Khartoum 5K.
The ballad of brave King Billy and his battle with the gear
NEWS that the UDA is knocking drugs out at a Carrick boney has shocked many, but it is in fact a nod to a traditional and little-known aspect of the Boyne story – King Billy’s passion for something a little more potent than a glass of port...
At the Carrickfergus boney there’s a little caravan,
A place that warms the heart and soul of every loyal man.
Where folk can buy wee union jacks and Loyal Ulster mugs
And a UDA enforcer knocks out loyal class A drugs.
It’s a part of Orange culture that stretches back in time,
A story that’s passed on to us in song and book and rhyme.
It’s about how proud King William first set foot on Ulster soil
With plans to fight the Papist James, his evil aims to foil.
TRADITION: A Carrick bonfire caravan celebrates a little-known King Billy passion
When William placed a buckled shoe upon the dock at Carrick,
The cheers rang out from troops lined up outside the castle barrack.
A gentle wind caressed the flags and teased the Kingly quiff
As William nodded regally and lit a massive spliff.
His ship had sailed from Hoylake, pushed by a Godly breeze,
While William passed the time in his bunk with Buckfast and two Es.
And he cursed the Papes and hotly cried “King Jamesy you’re a ballix!”
Then he raised his glass and proposed a toast to his backer good Pope Alex.
For years the King had scoffed at those who claimed that he was gay,
Because he rode a big white horse and enjoyed a cabaret.
But all in court knew full well what William made so clear,
The Monarch lived to party and he loved the feckin’ gear.
He smoked skunk as he travelled southward to do battle at the Boyne,
And when he couldn’t find a vein in his arm he found one in his groin.
And in his tent on the river bank as he waited for the morn,
He did a dozen poppers and watched a bit of porn.
The sun rose on a battlefield that was eerily calm and placid
But William’s squire had found his Liege was off his head on acid.
So he gave the King some coffee and draught of honey mead,
Dressed him up for battle and set him on his steed.
The rest we know is history as William won the day
And the Orange rose triumphant from that bloody Boyneside fray.
James took to his Papist heels and sailed away to France,
While William did some ketamine to techno, house and trance.
Each summer since that fateful day brave Ulster it remembers,
And pride and joy rise with the smoke from every bonfire’s embers.
And they dance and sing and beat the drum in all our loyal places,
And pay tribute to bold William by getting off their faces.
Now in a Carrick boney hut yards from where it started,
Sits a band of William’s heirs undaunted and stout-hearted.
On Loyal Ulster’s ramparts they’re a brave and shining sentinel,
As they spread good cheer and fellowship and ten-quid wraps of fentanyl.
