CONCERN is growing that more loyalist bands with connections to loyalist paramilitaries will benefit from the next tranche of musical instruments money from the Department for Communities.
The Department called for bands based in the North to apply for a slice of the £750,000 in funding on offer for the year 2026/27. Applications for funding closed last week.
Last year we reported that the Arts Council-administered scheme provided tens of thousands of funding for new instruments to bands who took part in the North’s largest UVF tribute event. The Brian Robinson Memorial Parade takes place every September and the Shankill area is closed while scores of bands and thousands of local people pay tribute to a loyalist killer who murdered an innocent Catholic in Ardoyne.
Paddy McKenna was gunned down outside local shops in September 1989 by UVF gunman Robinson. The sectarian killer was himself shot dead by a British army undercover unit which intercepted the motorcycle on which he was pillion passenger as it made its way along the Crumlin Road.
After we informed the Arts Council of some bands’ participation in the city’s biggest UVF commemoration, a review of the decision to fund was launched. The Arts Council found that some bands had omitted their participation in the Shankill UVF parade from their application forms. Despite this, the Arts Council decided that the failure to provide information about the UVF parade on the application forms was not disqualifying and it would be going ahead and releasing the second tranche of the instrument funding to the bands.
In a desperate effort to save face, embarrassed Arts Council chiefs told us they had sought and received an assurance from the bands of their future commitment to “good relations”. But that commitment was trashed when the bands again took part in the annual Brian Robinson parade through the Shankill/Woodvale area using their shiny new Arts Council instruments.
Hopes that the Department and the Arts Council would finally get a grip on funding for bands supporting illegal paramilitary groups were dealt a blow when the Department for Communities featured a band paying tribute to two dead UVF men in its promotional material for the funding scheme.
The Loyal from East Belfast pay tribute to two late UVF men named by the East Belfast Memorial Committee as members of the killer group. On its main drum (above) the band has the words ‘In memory of Ian Ogle and Gareth Keys.’
The decision by the Department and the Arts Council to feature The Loyal prominently in publicising the musical instruments scheme suggests strongly that links to illegal loyalist paramilitaries will again prove not to be a barrier to public funding.
Asked whether bands who pay tribute to illegal paramilitary groups will be eligible for funding this time around, the Department for Communities referred us to the Arts Council.
The Arts Council said: “The Arts Council of NI applies the same eligibility screening to all applications to the Musical Instruments for Bands Programme. Eligibility includes completion of a commitment to good relations and equality of opportunity which must be adopted by every successful band applicant.
“In this process of screening for good relations, the Arts Council will search the content of news, websites and other documents to establish that the band is acting within the ethos of good relations. Where evidence is found that an applicant is not acting in the interests of good relations, applications will be considered ineligible or, if evidence is found after an award is made, funding will be withdrawn. ACNI checks the eligibility of all submissions on receipt of each application with reference to the named applicant band only.”
The Department and the Arts Council have come under fire on another front over the musical instruments scheme. After the news that an increasing number of bands had cut ties with the police and the Parades Commission in the wake of the Drumcree stand-off, the Arts Council refused to comment on whether those bands would be eligible for instrument funding.
