Fires lit across Ulster but no conflagration, so far

Fires lit at Eleventh Night celebrations around NI after days of heated controversy

Liam Tunny, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

Bonfires have been set alight across Northern Ireland following days of debate and brinkmanship.

Many pyres were lit following community events in areas across the country, with street parties and band displays taking place at several locations.

While the majority of gatherings remained free from controversy, several drew attention in recent days after issues were raised over suspected racist displays, sectarian posters and safety concerns.

Last night in the Village area of south Belfast, the bonfire at the centre of a safety storm also went ahead as planned despite Belfast City Council's decision to remove material following concerns relating to a nearby substation and the confirmation of loose asbestos at the site.

The NI Environment Agency (NIEA) urged caution and DAERA Minister Andrew Muir made a plea for people not to attend the site, while former Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) leader Brian Ervine said the bonfire should not be lit.

Yesterday morning Rev Mervyn Gibson, the Orange Order's Grand Secretary, said concerns around the bonfire were “clearly political” and he said people should “go and enjoy themselves” at the bonfire.

Despite the warnings, crowds of people turned out to watch the pyre burn. The PSNI had earlier in the week declined to assist the Council in the removal of material from the site, while paramilitaries in the area had warned of “sustained violence” had an attempt been made to do so.

Concerns were also raised following the placing of a number of items on bonfires in various areas of NI. At Eastvale in Dungannon, a poster featuring rap trio Kneecap was placed on a pyre alongside a number of sectarian slogans.

Hate slogans cable tied to bonfire pallets

The banner, which included a photograph of the west Belfast band as its backdrop, had been cable tied to the pallets used to construct the bonfire in the Dungannon area.

It featured the heading 'Kill your local Kneecap', with a further line stating 'The only good one is a dead one'. In the centre of the poster was the acronym 'KAT', with 'Death to Hamas' and 'Destroy all Irish Republicans' also on the banner.

Similar sectarian slogans were also attached to a bonfire in the Highfield area of west Belfast earlier yesterday.

Irish tricolours were placed on the structure, with the 'KAT' slur painted onto one of the flags in block capital letters and hung above a sign reading “stop the boats”.

Another sign with “ATAT” and “HYL” painted on it alongside a crosshair target was also spotted at the site in addition to a sign that warns “PSNI not welcome in loyalist Highfield”.

MP for the area Alex Maskey said the incidents represented “open and sickening displays of sectarian and racist hatred”. “Political unionism must speak out and demand the removal of these offensive materials,” added Mr Maskey.

“Real leadership is needed, although it has been sorely lacking in these communities for some time.”

Stop the Boats slogan in Tigers Bay

The PSNI said reports from both the Highfield and Eastvale bonfires were being treated as “being motivated by hate” and that enquiries were ongoing.

In Londonderry, further items including a Palestinian flag and a notice reading 'Taigs out' were placed on a bonfire in the Waterside area, alongside a banner proclaiming solidarity between Ireland and Palestine.

A 'Stop the Boats' banner was also fixed to a bonfire in the Tigers Bay area of north Belfast. Alongside the message was a picture of the crescent moon and star symbol - which features on the flag of several predominantly Muslim countries - with a line drawn through it.

It comes after a controversial bonfire in Moygashel — which carried a mock-up of migrants travelling on a boat and is being treated by police as a “hate incident” - was lit on Thursday night along with Corcrain bonfire in Portadown.

The Fire Service said it took almost two hours to extinguish the fire in Moygashel, with three appliances attending the scene, while in Corcrain, firefighters took more than two and a half hours and four appliances to put out the blaze.

Co Down man 80 years in Orange: 'I'll be in Kilkeel come Saturday morning without fail'

Mark Bain, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

THERE'S NO STOPPING ANNALONG LOL 342 MEMBER (98) HITTING KILKEEL 'WITHOUT FAIL'

Eighty years is a lifetime by anyone's imagination, but that's how long one Co Down Orangeman has been a member of his local lodge.

Joe McKibbin, who now lives in Aghalee, will be out on the streets again today, with the 98-year-old determined not to miss stepping out at his favourite Twelfth venue in Kilkeel.

It was just as the Second World War was ending when Joe, following his family tradition, joined his father in Annalong LOL 342.

“Yes, I have been doing this for a while,” he said, getting ready for the hour-and-a-half trek to Kilkeel for this year's parade.

“I'll be in Kilkeel come Saturday morning without fail. I can't miss Kilkeel,” he said.”

Earlier this year, Joe was presented with his certificate for 80 years' membership, a special moment for a man who has been involved with the lodge since he was 18.

“I joined in 1945 with a lot of friends, many of them from the forces,” he said.

“It's what we all did back then. We were all mates and we joined up together as soon as we could.”

‘I’m still going’

Eight decades later, Joe is still keeping active and is determined to suit up and hit the road again.

“I'm still going,” he said. “I'm active, and I love a bit of sequence dancing with my partner. That keeps me in decent shape, so I'll be walking. The old legs are not in too bad condition.

“The sandwiches will be packed and I'm raring to go. I just hope we get as good a day as they say we're going to see.”

The Mourne District LOL No6 celebrations promise to be a spectacular showcase of culture, tradition and community pride, set against the dramatic landscape of the Mourne Mountains.

With around 1,700 participants on parade, including 15 local bands, and more than 3,000 spectators expected, this year's event will be one of the highlights of the summer.

Mourne District No6 is the largest district in the Orange Institution, boasting more than 1,100 members. Among its ranks is the largest private lodge in the Order — Ballyvea LOL 343a — with an impressive membership of 162.

This year, the honour of leading the district parade falls to Brunswick LOL 1702, while the largest Junior Lodge in the Order will once again head the procession.

After the parade, crowds will join the brethren in the demonstration field for a complimentary picnic, provided by the lodges. There will be a glass or two raised to Joe for his 80 years of loyalty and dedication.

One man hospitalised after attack on homeless in Belfast

Angela Davison, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

ONE HOSPITALISED DUE TO BEATING DURING ATTACK ON TOUGH SLEEPERS - HOPE HARBOUR

Volunteers helping homeless people in Belfast have said one man needed hospital treatment following an attack on a group of homeless men.

Hope Harbour Belfast said the victim was hospitalised with multiple jaw fractures, severe leg injuries and lost several teeth after being beaten.

After arriving with essential goods to help the vulnerable group who were sleeping rough on waste ground outside the city centre, the volunteers found what they described as “a bomb site”, with tents destroyed and scattered possessions.

They say a terrified, elderly rough sleeper alleged that a group of up to 20 males attacked them during the night last weekend, destroying their tents with knives and forcing the homeless men to flee in terror.

The group are “at a loss” to understand the motivation behind the incident and are supporting the men as they search for another safe place to sleep.

“Our outreach team visits the men at their location three times a week for welfare checks and to deliver hot food, bottled water and other essentials,” the spokesperson said.

“The mobile team also deals with them in the city centre when needed. We also regularly receive some of them at our static feeding station on Tuesday evenings on Waring Street.

“Because we are entering their 'home', we usually ask permission to approach them, out of courtesy, before we enter the waste ground.

“No one was there when we arrived with hot food, but we could immediately tell something very bad had happened. It was a scene of complete devastation.”

The support workers could see that the tents were “destroyed” along with the men's bedding and other possessions, including cooking equipment, strewn across the ground.

12-16 attackers

“One tent had been cut to shreds and flattened. Another had been trampled to the point of being unusable. A third tent had the roof cut open and the sides slashed with a razor-sharp blade,” added the spokesperson.

“We were approached by one resident, a 70-year-old, who was hiding nearby and told that approximately 12-16 men entered the waste ground in the middle of the night and physically attacked the tents and residents, forcing them to flee.

“He said no one else had come back. Two days later, the resident who had to receive hospital treatment for a fractured jaw, multiple lost teeth, bruised gums, and a leg injury told us he thought the number of attackers was about 20.

“He said everyone was fast asleep when the attack began. He was woken by being kicked in the head through the tent wall and the roof of the tent being cut open.

“He said the attack continued after he escaped the tent, with punches and kicks being thrown before he and the other residents fled as the attacker continued to demolish their camp.”

The spokesperson for Hope Harbour Belfast said that another resident sustained facial injuries which he claimed were caused by being punched and kicked in the head.

The support group said that the men are “in a state of shock”.

“They are confused as to why someone would attack them without warning in this way when they live discreetly and quietly, causing no inconvenience to anyone else,” said the spokesperson.

“They feel overwhelmed that they have lost the few possessions they've worked to gather up, especially their tents that are the most valuable thing they have.

Tents were their most valuable possessions

“They don't know where to go, or where is even safe for them to sleep. They feel traumatised and more vulnerable than ever. The residents returned to their camp on Wednesday to salvage and collect whatever possessions that hadn't been destroyed.”

No reports of criminal damage or any injuries have been made to police.

According to a report published by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive in March, an estimated 51 people were living rough in Belfast last year, a rise from 32 the previous year.

The report also states a total of 72 people were rough sleeping across NI, a 60% increase from the 2023 figure of 45.

The Belfast Telegraph understands that there is a video circulating online alleging that the men who were attacked are a group of “undocumented males from Somalia”, which the homeless group say is untrue, adding that some of the men have been living here for years and are just unable to get housing.

Police confirmed they received a report on July 5 that a number of males attended the Bridge End area of east Belfast and made threats to other males there. A further report was received hours later of a verbal argument taking place between two groups.

Enquiries are ongoing and police are appealing for information.

Half a century on, family tradition continues as band leads Belfast parade

Niamh Campbell, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

CONDUCTOR KENNY TELLS OF HIS LOVE FOR THE TWELFTH... AND WANTS MORE YOUNG PEOPLE TO JOIN UP

For almost half a century the Millar Memorial Flute Band has led the Twelfth parade in Belfast — and conductor Kenny Green (72) has taken part in every one of them.

With a history spanning 114 years, the Finaghy man has been with the band for 65 of them, joining at the age of seven.

Kenny has only missed one big July 12 event to date.

“When I was about 14, I went to BB (Boys' Brigade) camp and it broke my heart,” he recalled.

“I went away with my friends and put their heads away the whole day.

“We [the band] weren't leading the parade at that time.

“But every half an hour I was saying 'the band's going to be here now, they're going to be there, they're going to be somewhere else'.

“They kept saying 'shut up!' They weren't in the bands, so they didn't realise how much it meant to me.”

Kenny hasn't missed a Twelfth celebration since.

And his favourite part of the day's festivities now?

“Being first!” he laughed.

“It's absolutely unbelievable. Plus, it is the best position to be in.”

But it's not all about being ahead of the crowd for Kenny — it's the camaraderie and being able to bring spectators joy that are among his favourite memories from over the years.

He said: “It's really hard to pick out an outstanding part of it; starting off in the morning, playing the hymn outside the hall, the short service at the City Hall, where we take part in it, and play the national anthem.

“You're walking up there, you see all your friends, and not just your friends, but everybody's standing about and seem to be enjoying themselves.

“So it's really good to know that you're bringing pleasure to so many people in one day.

1916 Somme Veteran

“Every bandsman, bandswoman, Orangeman and Orangewoman look forward to the Twelfth.

“It's a great feeling being in Belfast Orange Hall at Clifton Street on the Twelfth morning having a cup of tea with all the Orange dignitaries from around the world prior to the short religious service before going outside to commence the parade.”

The Millar Memorial Flute Band was formed in 1911 as Milltown Flute Band.

It met, as it still does to this day, in its hall near Shaw's Bridge.

In 1976, the County Grand Lodge of Belfast appointed the Millar Memorial Band to lead the Twelfth parade, a role it has proudly maintained since.

That same day, the then deputy county grand master, Worshipful Brother William Murdie, presented the band with a ceremonial sword in tribute to his father, a veteran of the 1916 Battle of the Somme.

Since then, the sword, has become a distinguished part of the drum major's uniform in the band.

The Millar Memorial Flute Band is also proud to be the first winners of the Queen's Silver Jubilee Shield, an award open to all groups of bands for the best overall band in the Belfast Twelfth parade.

The band has won the shield 10 times and is the current holder.

For many, being part of the band is a family affair, and it's no different for Kenny and his relatives.

His father was also a conductor for four decades and his 77-year-old brother is currently the oldest member of Millar Memorial.

Kenny's two sons and two grandsons are also part of the band.

He hopes that younger people will be encouraged to join because of the sense of community and direction the band brings.

Last weekend, Kenny and the band travelled to Scotland to accompany the Lights of Glasgow No Surrender LOL 440 at the Glasgow Boyne celebrations.

“We were just back from a weekend in Scotland there. We were in Glasgow for their walk on Saturday and had three of our junior boys with us,” he explained.

“One was nine, my grandson is 13, and another guy's son, this is his first year and he's 14. Their dads are all in the band and took them all to the bowling alley on Saturday night. They all get on really well and it gives them something else to look forward to.

“The one difficulty now is attracting new members. I think, overall, the band scene in Belfast is phasing out a wee bit, especially for melody bands, because a lot of people want to join these what they call 'blood and thunder bands'.

“You have your ups and downs and that's it. We can give kids expert one-on-one tuition… and it's all about discipline with your marching, and you're being part of a team, you're being part of a team with camaraderie.”

Council's 'half-baked' removal plan for bonfire is slammed

Allison Morris, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

'TOPPLING' OF WOOD ON SITE FILLED WITH ASBESTOS QUICKLY DISMISSED

Contractors hired by Belfast City Council to remove a controversial bonfire proposed “toppling” the structure onto the site where asbestos was located.

It came as police sources claimed an early decision was made not to intervene, amid claims the council plans were “half-baked”.

On Thursday the PSNI refused the council's request to remove the bonfire at Meridi Street, close to the Donegall Road.

The pyre is on a site where asbestos has been located in five different locations and is close to an electricity substation that services the city's two main hospitals.

The bonfire was declared a major incident this week and a Tactical Coordination Group was set up to discuss options to minimise its risk.

A senior source said the PSNI's decision not to assist removal of the bonfire came after a meeting of the coordination group during which the contractor's plans were set out.

Also present were the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland Electricity, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service and council officials.

“Police had to consider should we, and then could we, remove the bonfire, and it was only then that the impact (of removing it) would have come into play,” one source said.

‘Horse never left the stable’

“We never got that far, in fact the horse never got out of the stable, because the plan was so half-baked and would have made matters considerably worse.”

According to sources, the private contractor proposed toppling the bonfire and then trying to remove as much of the material as possible in an allocated time frame, guarded by the PSNI.

However, the majority of the material would have been left on site.

A senior police source said the plan was never going to work, adding: “This was before we learned about other asbestos on the site.”

It is the first year that a fire has been built at the south Belfast site, which belongs to a private landowner and was earmarked for redevelopment.

The asbestos is thought to have been at the site for many years.

“The consensus of the meeting was that the risk of the bonfire proceeding as planned was lower and more manageable than the intervention of contractors and the proposed methodology of dismantling the bonfire,” the PSNI said.

Police sources say the risk of paramilitary-organised violence did not feature in their decision-making.

“We didn't even get that far because the contractor's plan was ruled out before we even assessed what the impact might be,” one said.

The NIEA confirmed approximately 20kg of suspected asbestos material was identified at five separate locations around the site and immediately removed on Thursday.

“The agency was first alerted to the issues around the bonfire on May 16, 2025,” a spokesperson said.

“Responsibility for removing the asbestos primarily lies with the landowner. Given the circumstances, an enforcement investigation was initiated, and a direction was issued requiring the landowner to remove the asbestos waste.

Landowner to remove asbestos waste next week

“When it became clear that the circumstances did not allow for the safe and controlled removal of the asbestos prior to July 11, 2025, NIEA worked with the landowner and Belfast City Council to agree mitigating measures to reduce the risk to public health.”

The organisation said those mitigating measures included plastic sheeting over an asbestos pile weighed down with “significant quantities of quarry dust, with a layer of fire retardant sheets on top covered by a further layer of quarry dust”.

Signage has been erected along with double fencing around the affected area.

“In addition to this, further security measures and daily walk-overs of the site have been conducted to inspect, monitor and assess risk,” added the spokesperson.

“The risk assessment that NIEA has provided to partners has consistently indicated that there was a strong possibility that fragments of asbestos could be elsewhere on the site.

“NIEA understands the landowner is due to arrange the removal of all of the asbestos from the site next week, commencing on July 16, 2025, but it is important to note that removing the asbestos will be a highly specialised, complex and delicate operation that will require the site to be fully vacated. Indeed, the work is of such complexity that the full removal will take a number of weeks”.

Sinn Féin MLA Pat Sheehan said he was deeply concerned.

“What was already a high risk situation has been amplified by the recent discovery of even more toxic asbestos on site,” he said.

“There is a lack of decisive action and leadership around this issue because political unionism is failing.

“This would not be allowed to happen anywhere else; I certainly would not be letting my children anywhere near this hazard. There are questions for the PSNI on how they have come to a decision not to intervene. All steps should be taken to protect public health.

“A factual assessment is urgently needed to determine the extent of asbestos on this site and the dangers it presents.”

Belfast City Council was contacted for comment.

So, just how dangerous is asbestos at pyre site?

Andrew Madden, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

News of the presence of asbestos at the Village bonfire site in south Belfast has sparked serious public health concerns, but what exactly is this material and why is it so serious?

Asbestos is a fibrous material that was commonly used in construction for decades due to its heat-resistant properties. It was used for the likes of insulation and floor tiles until it was banned in 1999 when it emerged that inhaling its fibres can cause cancer.

Dr Joseph Guy, a physics lecturer at Belfast Metropolitan College, said the presence of asbestos poses a serious risk which could extend far beyond the vicinity of the bonfire site if the wind changes direction.

“Asbestos poses the greatest risk when it's damaged, disturbed, or combusted because this can release microscopic asbestos fibres into the air,” he explained.

“These crystalline fibres, once inhaled, can become lodged in the lungs. They're effectively microscopic knives that get stuck inside your body.

“While some adverse effects may be immediate, there is a decades-long latency period for the deadlier effects, including mesothelioma or lung cancer. Mesothelioma, for example, is a death sentence.”

Asbestos is only considered dangerous if moved or disturbed, which is why it is still present in thousands of buildings across NI that were built or refurbished during the second half of the 20th century, from schools to hospitals.

If it's disturbed, the fibres can be released into the air and inhaled.

Once they enter the lungs, the fibres can gradually damage the organs over time and lead to major health problems.

Dr Guy warned that the burning of the bonfire could increase the already existing risk at the site.

“Although 20kg of undisclosed hazardous material has been removed, residual contamination embedded in soil, cracks, or beneath any adjacent structures may still be there,” he said.

Intense heat can turn asbestos into a fine spray

“The intense heat of a bonfire, which can routinely exceed 500C at the core, could dislodge or aerosolise fine asbestos fibres.

“In other words, you turn the asbestos into a fine spray.”

Exposure can result in four serious conditions: asbestosis; asbestos-related lung cancer; mesothelioma; and pleural thickening.

Asbestosis is scarring of the lungs that can cause shortness of breath and heart enlargement.

Mesothelioma is a cancer which affects the lining of the lungs and the lining surrounding the lower digestive tract. It is almost exclusively related to asbestos exposure. By the time it is diagnosed, it is almost always fatal.

Pleural thickening is when the lining of the lung thickens and swells, causing chest discomfort and shortness of breath.

Many workers who were exposed to asbestos decades ago and later became ill went on to receive compensation after filing claims.

Since the beginning of the 2010/11 financial year, the Department for the Economy has issued payments to 1,803 people for asbestos-related disease claims, amounting to a combined £39.6m in compensation.

Why exactly is the Orange Order marching today?

Patrick Murphy, Irish News, July 12th, 2025

WHAT’S the point in the Twelfth of July?

That’s right – what’s the point in marches, banners and bands, tower of Babel bonfires, feeder parades, the mini-Twelfth (whatever that means), arches, the cutting of ribbons to open the arches, the re-enactment of the Boyne at Scarva, and indeed the whole ridiculous idea of “the marching season”?

Is it harmless fun, some form of cultural expression, sectarian provocation, or just a case of the Old Testament meets an accordion band?

The Orange Order says it is committed to two causes: the principles of the Protestant Reformation and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The first is worth celebrating. The second might politely be described as rubbish.

The Reformation challenged the absolute authority of the Catholic Church, which was badly in need of reform in the 1500s.

However, since the Church does not easily do reform and transparency (and if it did, it would not be in the weakened state it is in Ireland today), a new religion arose based, among other things, on the right to individual thought.

That effectively marked the beginning of a new era in European ideas, which ultimately led to what is known as the period of enlightenment in the 1600s. Its key ideas were reason, liberty, tolerance and constitutional government.

So there is good reason for everyone to celebrate the Reformation, whatever their religious beliefs.

However, the Reformation has nothing to do with the Twelfth of July.

Martin Luther began the process of reform by nailing his 95 theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31 1517. (Luther presumably did not realise that the marching season is over by October – or is it?)

The Orange Order’s claim that the 1688 Glorious Revolution “enshrined civil and religious liberty for all” is just plain wrong.

The “revolution” refers to the replacement of the Catholic James II with the Protestant William III on the English throne, a process which included the Battle of the Boyne.

The Orange Order does not acknowledge that the Boyne was followed by the Penal Laws, which denied civil and religious liberty to Catholics and Presbyterians.

Today thousands of Presbyterians will march to celebrate an event which ironically deprived them of civil and religious liberty. Ignorance of history can bring you to the oddest places.

Orangemen take part in a Twelfth of July parade in Belfast

“ Today thousands of Presbyterians will march to celebrate an event which ironically deprived them of civil and religious liberty. Ignorance of history can bring you to the oddest places “

 One Penal Law ended only in February this year, when the 1737 Administration of Justice (Language) Act was repealed. It denied the use of Irish in the courts.

How many Presbyterians marching today will know of the key role their church played in preserving the Irish language? For example, while Presbyterian Minister William Neilson was writing his book on Irish grammar (published in 1808), the Catholic Church was agreeing to the British government’s founding of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth in 1795 for training priests in English.

The Irish language owes a lot to the Presbyterian Church.

Of course, some Penal Laws remain. The 1701 Act of Settlement still bans Catholics from the British monarchy. (Would it be impolite to say the King holds his position through bigotry?)

The monarch is also head of the state’s official religion, the Church of England. In fairness to the Orangemen, they have royal-based, religious discrimination on their side.

Twenty-six archbishops and bishops of the Church of England have seats in the House of Lords, solely on the basis of their religion.

Iran is only other country where religious leaders are legislators

Iran is the only other country in which religious leaders make civil law. (That’s the same Iran which Trump bombed for being “evil”.)

Meanwhile, as the Orangemen sing in Irish, “Lilli buaill léir ó, ba linn an lá” (‘the day was ours’).

They claim to be celebrating a victory for Protestantism, even though William was supported by Pope Alexander VIII. If the Orange Order wishes to celebrate history, it might at least get it right.

The Order claims that this week’s activities can be classified as culture.

Building a bonfire in Moygashel which advocates stopping immigrants arriving by boat can hardly be considered culture. It is just a mindset and a sad one at that. (I have been unable to find statistics showing the number of migrants arriving in Tyrone by boat in recent years.)

History is an academic subject which too many here use as an opportunity to have their prejudices confirmed.

So, dear Orangemen and Orange women, by all means march today, but before you take a single step, you might consider that your claimed reason for marching does not quite tally with history.

So why are you marching?

As a child, 12th meant trips to Donegal... as a reporter, it’s given me scars to last lifetime

Allison Morris, Belfast Telegraph and Irish Independent, July 12th, 2025

RIOTS, PEACE WALLS, AND HOPE... I HAVE SEEN IT ALL COVERING ORANGE MARCHES

The Twelfth means different things to people, especially those outside the unionist community.

Growing up, like thousands of other nationalists, the Twelfth fortnight meant going on holiday, most likely to a caravan in Bundoran.

I had never watched or attended an Orange march until my first year working as a journalist.

Back then, the peace dividend, with streams of EU and American philanthropy funding and investment, was already making a difference to people's lives — including my own.

It was only when I started to work in the interface areas of north Belfast that I realised the peace process was about more than securing paramilitary ceasefires. Ending the sectarian war was going to be a much more difficult process.

I spent one Twelfth week calling to homes along the interface for a feature — families with peace walls in their gardens, who would never know or speak to the neighbours who lived on the other side.

The Holy Cross blackade

The summer of 2001 was volatile. That September, the Holy Cross blockade of a girls' primary school brought back the international press pack that had left after the Good Friday Agreement.

They stayed for less than two weeks; the September 11 terror attacks in America were a much bigger story.

There were nightly riots every summer along interfaces at Ardoyne, North Queen Street and the Springfield Road. People lived in boarded up homes with no daylight.

The increase in the use of prescription medication is still being felt over 20 years later. It was a baptism of fire for a rookie reporter.

My 'season' started every year with the Tour of the North parade and ended with the Last Saturday.

The Army was still assisting the RUC back then. After 2001, it was the Army and the PSNI, and then after 2007, when Operation Banner ended, responsibility fell on the PSNI alone.

The Whiterock parade could be particularly volatile.

Water cannon

It was the first time water cannon was used in Northern Ireland.

The PSNI had borrowed a vehicle from Belgium that could have lifted the roof off of a house.

They later invested in their own water cannon, a much less powerful piece of kit, with rioters delighting in dancing in front of it.

Ardoyne and the Crumlin Road return parade on the Twelfth was verging on a war zone.

Attempts to resolve the dispute failed, the Parades Commission's interventions at times made the situation immeasurably worse.

On one occasion, it permitted a return leg of the Orange march, a nationalist protest, a separate 'dissident' protest and march around the streets.

And as if that wasn't enough, a second loyalist protest at Twaddell, against the dissident protest, was green-lighted.

The result — as you can imagine — was chaos with hand-to-hand fighting and three days of street disorder.

I could fill the pages of this paper from cover to cover with stories from that time.

Everyone who covered those riots has a story of an injury or near-death experience.

I have a scar on my lip from a piece of slate thrown by a rioter from a shop roof on the Crumlin Road towards a police Land Rover during a riot at the Twelfth in 2010.

While lying on a hospital bed waiting for a surgeon to stitch my lip back together, I got an admission of responsibility with a recognised codeword for an attack on police and had to ask the hospital staff to give me 10 minutes to ring it through.

Teenage girl dragged under car

Also among those awful memories is the year a teenager was trapped and dragged under the wheels of a car.

Orangeman John Aughey was later jailed for two counts of actual bodily harm, as well as causing the teenage girl grievous bodily harm by dangerous driving.

I watched as TSG cops lifted the vehicle from her and remember fearing the worst. Fortunately, she survived.

One year, during a particularly heavy bout of rioting with plastic baton rounds flying and petrol bombs crashing, my daughter messaged me to say, 'will you put your helmet on before you're killed'.

I looked around thinking, surely she wouldn't be stupid enough to have driven into the middle of this

No, she was at home watching a Russia Today feed — our conflict was being livestreamed for the first time thanks to modern technology and the social media age.

I would work from morning until the early hours of the 13th and drive home exhausted, the noise of the helicopter slowly fading in the distance.

I was living in Crumlin at the time. It was hosting the mini Twelfth and a deal had been made with residents to minimise disruption.

As I drove down the main street at 2am, people were up ladders removing the Union flags, as had been previously agreed.

Earlier that day, the parade was voluntarily rerouted, as a local Catholic family had experienced a tragedy, so as not to walk past their home. The respect among neighbours was a far cry from the violence a few miles down the road.

Donegall Street was deemed contentious in the summer of 2012 after one band played the Famine Song and marched in a circle outside St Patrick's church.

During a Royal Black Institution parade past the church a few weeks later, there were ugly scenes.

Bands played sectarian songs outside the church in defiance of a Parades Commission ruling, but it was the hundreds of supporters who followed along who caused the greatest offence, shouting sexual and sectarian abuse at the parish priest who was standing at the door of the church. It all seemed so hopeless.

However, within days, an act of reciprocal diplomacy by two men would solve the dispute.

Neither were funded, neither were government officials or paid interlocutors or negotiators.

Retired journalist and priest peace makers

One was the former BBC journalist and News Letter editor Austin Hunter. He was retired at this stage and was volunteering as a media adviser to the Royal Black Institution. The second was Fr Michael Sheehan, parish priest of St Patrick's.

In an unprecedented move, the Royal Black, under Mr Hunter's advice, released a statement apologising for any offence caused.

They said: “We have always had good lines of communication with the Roman Catholic church and we would intend to continue to maintain and consolidate these, away from the public gaze.”

Fr Sheehan responded that he and his parishioners were not opposed to parades passing their church as long as they did so in a respectful manner.

Tragically, Mr Hunter was killed in a traffic accident in Bahrain, where he had been working, four years later.

He leaves a legacy of helping to resolve a dangerous parading dispute, not with legal determinations or riot police, but a simple apology.

In more recent years, I have been home at a reasonable hour, with the contentious parades now all but resolved.

My 'riot helmet' is now in a cupboard gathering dust, where hopefully it will remain.

Bonfires lit across Northern Ireland after days of debate and brinkmanship.

Liam Tunny, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

Many pyres were lit following community events in areas across the country, with street parties and band displays taking place at several locations.

While the majority of gatherings remained free from controversy, several drew attention in recent days after issues were raised over suspected racist displays, sectarian posters and safety concerns.

Last night in the Village area of south Belfast, the bonfire at the centre of a safety storm also went ahead as planned despite Belfast City Council's decision to remove material following concerns relating to a nearby substation and the confirmation of loose asbestos at the site.

The NI Environment Agency (NIEA) urged caution and DAERA Minister Andrew Muir made a plea for people not to attend the site, while former Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) leader Brian Ervine said the bonfire should not be lit.

Yesterday morning Rev Mervyn Gibson, the Orange Order's Grand Secretary, said concerns around the bonfire were “clearly political” and he said people should “go and enjoy themselves” at the bonfire.

Despite the warnings, crowds of people turned out to watch the pyre burn. The PSNI had earlier in the week declined to assist the Council in the removal of material from the site, while paramilitaries in the area had warned of “sustained violence” had an attempt been made to do so.

Concerns were also raised following the placing of a number of items on bonfires in various areas of NI. At Eastvale in Dungannon, a poster featuring rap trio Kneecap was placed on a pyre alongside a number of sectarian slogans.

The banner, which included a photograph of the west Belfast band as its backdrop, had been cable tied to the pallets used to construct the bonfire in the Dungannon area.

‘Kneecap’ joins bonfire hate vocabulary

It featured the heading 'Kill your local Kneecap', with a further line stating 'The only good one is a dead one'. In the centre of the poster was the acronym 'KAT', with 'Death to Hamas' and 'Destroy all Irish Republicans' also on the banner.

Similar sectarian slogans were also attached to a bonfire in the Highfield area of west Belfast earlier yesterday.

Irish tricolours were placed on the structure, with the 'KAT' slur painted onto one of the flags in block capital letters and hung above a sign reading “stop the boats”.

Another sign with “ATAT” and “HYL” painted on it alongside a crosshair target was also spotted at the site in addition to a sign that warns “PSNI not welcome in loyalist Highfield”.

MP for the area Alex Maskey said the incidents represented “open and sickening displays of sectarian and racist hatred”. “Political unionism must speak out and demand the removal of these offensive materials,” added Mr Maskey.

“Real leadership is needed, although it has been sorely lacking in these communities for some time.”

The PSNI said reports from both the Highfield and Eastvale bonfires were being treated as “being motivated by hate” and that enquiries were ongoing.

In Londonderry, further items including a Palestinian flag and a notice reading 'Taigs out' were placed on a bonfire in the Waterside area, alongside a banner proclaiming solidarity between Ireland and Palestine.

A 'Stop the Boats' banner was also fixed to a bonfire in the Tigers Bay area of north Belfast. Alongside the message was a picture of the crescent moon and star symbol - which features on the flag of several predominantly Muslim countries - with a line drawn through it.

It comes after a controversial bonfire in Moygashel — which carried a mock-up of migrants travelling on a boat and is being treated by police as a “hate incident” - was lit on Thursday night along with Corcrain bonfire in Portadown.

The Fire Service said it took almost two hours to extinguish the fire in Moygashel, with three appliances attending the scene, while in Corcrain, firefighters took more than two and a half hours and four appliances to put out the blaze.

Christianity is under attack, Orange Order resolutions

By Adam Kula, Belfast News Letter, July 12th, 2025

​The Orange Institution has released the three resolutions which are to be delivered at today’s Twelfth celebrations – and which begin with the theme of “Christianity under attack”.

The resultions then go on to mark the 80th anniversary of WWII’s end, and to condemn the Irish Sea border and the “revisionism” of Troubles history.

Resolution one is titled “The Faith”.

It states: “In our increasingly secular society, where Christianity is under attack, we boldly declare that the foundation of the Orange Institution is the Bible, which serves as our only infallible rule of faith and practice.

The Orange Order's three resolutions for the Twelfth 2025 will be read out today

“We publicly affirm the Biblical truth that the sole King and Head of the Church is the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and man. Therefore, we reject anyone who claims titles and honours that rightfully belong only to Him.

“We believe that the only solution to society’s problems is for individuals to repent of their sins against God, and embrace the Biblical gospel taught by Christ, the apostles, the early church, and reemphasised by the Protestant Reformers.

“The message of the Gospel is that we are saved not because of what we do, but because of what God has accomplished for us through the Cross of Christ.

“Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.”

Resolution Two ‘Loyalty’

The second is titled “Loyalty”, and reads: "That we, the members of the Loyal Orange Institution of Ireland, gathered together to commemorate the 335th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, do hereby affirm our devotion and loyalty to the Throne and Person of His Most Gracious Majesty King Charles III, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and His other Realms, Defender of The Faith.

"As we remember the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, we give thanks for the service and sacrifice of all those who fought in the struggle for liberty over tyranny between 1939 and 1945.

“We especially honour the contribution of our Orange Brethren and Sisters from across the globe who served and died, so that future generations might live in peace.”

Resolution Three - ‘The State’

And the third and final resolution – “The State” – says the following: “The members of the Orange Institution reaffirm their opposition to the Irish Sea Border which continues to constitutionally and economically damage Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.

“We call upon the Government to robustly defend and restore the rights of all its citizens, and to urgently address the outstanding offensive trade and customs regulations which continue to place Northern Ireland under the control of the European Union.

"The history of the decades-long terrorist campaign continues to be rewritten by those who seek to deflect attention from their central role in the murder and mayhem of that time.

"Society must never be allowed to forget the cost paid by our community – including 344 members of the Orange family murdered at the hands of terrorists.

"We therefore restate our continued opposition to the ongoing distortion and revisionism being peddled by those who seek to rewrite the true legacy of those years.”

Leading UDA figure laments lurch to far-right amid uncertain future for loyalism

Gerry Moriarty, Irish Times, July 12th, 2015

Loyalist paramilitaries have not gone away and shouldn’t, says south Belfast Ulster Defence Association leader Jackie McDonald.

Jackie McDonald, the influential south Belfast Ulster Defence Association (UDA) leader, listened recently to former Alliance leader John Alderdice’s complaints that loyalist paramilitaries have not gone away, and will not do so.

“Lord Alderdice says nothing is happening, but you don’t know the hard work that goes into making nothing happen,” McDonald says from the Taughmonagh community offices in south Belfast.

McDonald’s line about Alderdice is sharp. In a world where few agree on much, there is general agreement that whatever about other loyalist leaders, McDonald has put in the hard yards in his own terrain to maintain discipline and order.

The plan by the Irish and British governments to appoint an interlocutor to establish whether loyalist paramilitaries, and republican dissidents, can be persuaded to fade away is “a good thing”, he says.

However, he opposes the central aim of the idea first put forward by the Independent Reporting Commission of disbandment: to bring about the disbandment of all paramilitary organisations.

Such a course makes no sense, says McDonald, who has been involved in the UDA since the early 1970s. “For loyalist paramilitaries to go away would leave a void that would be filled within minutes,” he says.

“If the UVF, the UDA, the Red Hand Commando, whatever, were to say, ‘We’re leaving the stage at 12 o’clock tonight’, at 12.05 there’d be the new UDA, or another version of the UVF or Red Hand.”

Criminal elements would “fill that void”, though in the view of many observers in Northern Ireland large elements of loyalist paramilitarism have long been involved in drug-dealing, prostitution and extortion.

“There’s no paramilitary activity here, but there’s paramilitary influence.” And that, he believes, is needed.

“The drug dealers and the criminals have to know that it’s there, that you can’t mess about, that the community comes first. The same exists in republican areas.”

He also argues that the threat posed by dissident republicans still offers reasons why loyalist paramilitaries cannot quit the stage.

Twelfth of July weekend

Union flags fly proudly outside the Taughmonagh offices – one visited by his long-time friend and former president of Ireland Mary McAleese and her husband, Martin. Everything looks ready for this Twelfth of July weekend.

This and other parts of south Belfast such as Sandy Row and the Village area have been McDonald’s bailiwick for decades. He joined the UDA in July 1972, immediately after the Bloody Friday bombings in the city, when the Provisional IRA exploded at least 20 bombs in Belfast, killing nine and injuring more than 130.

“Bloody Sunday or internment did it for young republicans, Bloody Friday did it for me,” says McDonald.

He rose steadily, ending up as one of the UDA’s six brigadiers, his turf south Belfast. He will be 78 next month, but is still in great shape, five weekly visits to the gym keeping him energetic and trim.

McDonald has a reputation as “a hard man”, but one many politicians and officials believe they can do business with. When Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair’s reign caused mayhem in the Lower Shankill, it was McDonald who brought him to heel, forcing him to flee to Scotland in 2003. In the years since, McDonald has managed to keep the south Belfast UDA people “fairly sensible and steady”, in the words of one, including during the internecine loyalist feuds that have flared from time to time.

Throughout, McDonald insists that he is speaking only for his own patch, but accepts that he knows of the charges made linking loyalists to criminality of all hues. However, he will not comment.

“I hear the same stories, but I don’t get involved. We’re still very close with our colleagues. I don’t know who’s doing what, or if the allegations are true, or if the allegations are exaggerated.”

Drug dealing happens in south Belfast, like elsewhere, but his members are not involved, he says. “It’s not about being a community worker by day and a terrorist or a paramilitary by night. It’s nothing like that here,” he says while acknowledging that “unfortunately” that is not the case everywhere. He refers with disdain to those whose lifestyle is one of “Rolexes, 4x4s and three holidays a year”.

More than a decade ago, he told loyalists gathered on Remembrance Sunday on Sandy Row: “There’s no such thing as a loyalist drug dealer. If you’re a loyalist, you wouldn’t want to be a drug dealer, and if you’re a drug dealer, you can’t be a loyalist.”

Tougher action

Favouring a quasi-local policing role for paramilitaries, he sees no contradiction in arguing for tougher action by the courts and police against drug dealers and other forms of criminality.

“People get caught and they get a slap on the wrist, they get suspended sentences. If you’re a young adult caught selling drugs at this time of year, you say to yourself, ‘I’ll not be in court now until about October/November. The winter’s coming. The cold nights are coming. I do three months, or I do six months over the winter, and I won’t have to worry about paying for the heat or electric or anything.’ This is the way they think.”

Too many young loyalists “think they missed out on the conflict”, he says. “They’re saying, ‘We’ll not be told what to do by grey-haired old men. We’ll do a better job than you.’ A better job on who?

“Republicans are not a physical threat any more. It’s the drug dealers who are a threat. But some of them want to build up some sort of notoriety, get themselves a reputation. They get involved in protests and if it’s about flags, about immigration, about any protest at all, it always ends up with the police getting hammered. And that takes away from everything. That makes us all look like Neanderthals, it doesn’t do the reputation of loyalism any good at all.”

A 40-minute drive west from Taughmonagh is Moygashel, the centre of controversy this week when loyalists placed effigies of migrants in a boat on a bonfire with anti-immigration banners. It came as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a counter-extremism organisation, published a new report showing anti-migrant far-right figures in the Republic are increasing their co-operation with loyalist groups in Northern Ireland. The report said such groups were entering a “more organised phase”.

Asked about last month’s rioting in Ballymena, McDonald said he was “totally against” the street violence that erupted after two Romanian-speaking teenagers were charged with the attempted rape and sexual assault of a teenage girl.

However, he says a “tipping point” on immigration has been reached, with many having genuine concerns. “There is a feeling that these people are getting priority and preference over some of our people.”

McDonald admits his paramilitary past, including a 1989 racketeering sentence. “I got 10 years for extortion, yeah, but that was to buy guns, to look after prisoners’ families, to buy explosives. It was something that I hated doing.

“I’d been doing all sorts of things for many, many years, and I got away with it, but I knew that getting involved in that sort of thing was going to get me 10 years, and it did. But now we don’t need the criminality.

“We don’t need to buy guns any more. We haven’t got prisoners any more. What’s the money for? Where does the money go?” says McDonald, who acknowledges the record of loyalist paramilitaries carrying out sectarian killings during The Troubles. “On many occasions that was true.” But republican paramilitaries must own their sins, too: “I’ve had this argument with IRA members. They’d say they were fighting for ‘Brits out’. There were at least 50,000 people in uniform here, between the British army, the RUC, prison officers, etc.

“Fifty-thousand uniforms and the IRA still planted bombs on the Shankill Road and in the pubs and the clubs and in the Sandy Row. What was that? That was to terrorise the people. That was pure sectarianism.”

Faced with talk of Irish unity and Sinn Féin successes, McDonald emphasises that unionist politicians and loyalists must unite, although complaining how little the former has ever delivered for the latter.

“Unionists are in the castle. When they see us loyalists coming, they lift up the drawbridge. They’ll say, ‘You can stay out there and we’ll look after you and we’ll feed you and so on but you’re not getting in here’.”

That must change, especially since “Britain would dump us in the morning”: “I want unionism to be united. The word loyalist is always followed by some derogatory word, and it shouldn’t be like that.

“Somehow, we have to get unionism united and get genuine loyalists into a position where they can close that gap between unionism and loyalism. But we have to widen the gap between genuine loyalism and criminality. That’s the key.”

A united Ireland will not happen in his lifetime, he believes. But if it were ever to happen, he asks: “Where would the Orange Order go? Where would the 30,000 bandsmen go? Where would ex-loyalist prisoners go?

“Are we going to be like the Apaches or the Indians put away in a reservation somewhere?” asks McDonald, who has a good working relationship with senior republicans across Belfast, and elsewhere.

Volatile situations

During tense periods – and this weekend is one – a network of republican-loyalist contacts – largely unrecognised and unnoticed – defuse many volatile situations.

Though he lost friends during the Troubles, he displays no bitterness. Recalling a conversation with former IRA prisoner Sean “Spike” Murray, he noted how Murray said they “probably would have tried to kill each other” in the past, but now they can even share car lifts.

For a number of years, former loyalist and republican paramilitaries visited schools to talk about the real cost of the conflict, the coffins of fathers and sons carried, the pain, not the imagined past of heroic actions. “We wanted to deromanticise paramilitarism.

“‘Do you want to go to prison?’ we told them, ‘Your life’s ruined. When you come out your wife’s divorced you and married somebody else and has children with somebody else.’ I think we did a great job of deglamourising paramilitarism.”

Today, McDonald keeps in touch with the McAleeses. “Mary changed things for us,” he says. “The politicians didn’t want to know us. The police wanted to arrest us. She made it easier for politicians up here to talk to us. Mary played a vital role. She is a great woman.”

McDonald has no notion of stepping down. “It wouldn’t matter what plans I had, people are telling me, ‘You are not retiring.’ I want to keep going as long as I can.”

Why MLAs may be forced to make unpopular decisions

Sam McBride, Northern Ireland Editor, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

STORMONT SET REMARKABLY TOUGH CLIMATE CHANGE TARGETS - BUT IS BELATEDLY REALISING THESE ARE LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE AND ARE GOING TO REBOUND ON THE VERY PARTIES WHICH CHAMPIONED THEM

“Why do my actions have consequences?” the hapless Homer Simpson once lamented. It's a question some senior Stormont figures must be asking themselves as they've stumbled into another fine mess of their own making.

What's happened is that MLAs have accidentally tied their own hands.

For years, most Stormont politicians have behaved with populist abandon. They want to spend vastly more money, but they don't want to raise vastly more money and so they invariably blame London for not sending them enough money.

This policy of blaming the Brits for not sending an even bigger cheque is a cross-community pursuit: It takes in unionists, nationalists and — to a lesser but growing extent, centrist parties. Almost no one stands outside the easy consensus.

Yet one of Stormont's enduring paradoxes is that a system which strains so hard to be popular is so thoroughly unpopular.

Now MLAs have mistakenly forced themselves into taking unpopular decisions by voting for a law they didn't understand.

The new Aughnacloy check point

Last month, Mr Justice McAlinden threw into turmoil the Executive's plan to build the A5 dual carriageway from Aughnacloy to outside Londonderry when he ruled that the plan conflicts with the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022.

His judgment has far wider implications because it represents the first major test of this legislation and how the courts will interpret it.

In 2022, this law was seen as a feel-good piece of legislation which matched the environmentalist Zeitgeist. For some MLAs, it was a bonus that it represented a chance to embarrass the DUP, whose minister Edwin Poots was responsible for this area but was opposed to tough targets restricting farmers.

The law is complex, and perhaps that explains why so few grasped its true significance. But its core involves stringent targets.

Adopting emissions levels in 1990 as the baseline level (for most greenhouse gasses), it requires that the Executive ensure by 2050 — now just 25 years away — that net emissions of those gasses (mostly carbon dioxide) are cut 100%.

To get to this point, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) must publish 'Climate Action Plans' and a carbon budget for various budgetary periods between now and 2050.

As Mr Justice McAlinden summarised it: “When developing proposals and policies, each department must ensure that they are consistent with the targets set out in the relevant carbon budget.”

This will pervade every area and will have a ratchet effect — with each year that we fall behind, the targets get harder to reach and so the measures necessary to credibly say we're trying to reach them become more extreme. This is not some external imposition by an activist judge; the judiciary are simply implementing what MLAs told them to do.

Missing targets

The judge noted that if Stormont's own current estimate is accurate, then the very first target in the Act — the comparatively modest 2030 target — will be missed.

The new law also forces the Executive to appoint a 'Climate Commissioner' — which it pointedly hasn't yet done. That person's role will be to oversee how ministers are performing. As if the courts weren't a sufficient deterrent to ignoring their own law, they have created a specialised rod for their own backs.

The reason we can be sure that most MLAs never understood this is that these applause-hungry legislators would simply never have voluntarily forced their ministerial colleagues into taking unpopular decisions.

By putting 'carbon budgeting' into law, suddenly ministers are at risk of being sued if they fail to take unpopular decisions.

The judge emphasised that the act doesn't stop Stormont building the A5.

But if they want to use lots of carbon to build the A5, then something has to be sacrificed.

In a normal government, spending £50 million means that £50 million must either be raised in taxes or borrowed. Stormont has never operated like that, spending hand over fist and then batting away complaints about not spending more by blaming the Treasury.

With a carbon budget, there's no one else to blame. These are Stormont's decisions.

Casement Park may be caught in Carbon Trap

I asked the Department for Communities, for instance, whether it had made a carbon estimate for building Casement Park. The department said it “has not yet” done so but it will be “considered in due course”.

At its worst, this will involve another layer of sluggish bureaucracy and yet more delays due to legal challenges.

At its best, it could force mature political considerations on this broken system.

The Executive can 'spend' carbon in one area only if it has a clear budget for this in place across all of government.

That could make ministers work together because if they don't then nobody can build anything of any significance.

Yet that carbon budget has not yet been set.

There is an obvious incentive for ministers not to put the carbon budget in place. If they do so and want huge infrastructure projects like the A5, the York Street Interchange or Casement Park, then they would have to accept unpopular trade-offs.

One former senior MLA said: “The populism is rife — enough Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU)-organised letters to MLAs and they will do exactly as they're told…but giving the UFU exactly what they want — the status quo and a licence to pollute — will not marry with the Climate Change Act for much longer.”

DAERA itself states that a carbon budget “provides a limit on the maximum total greenhouse gas emissions which should not be exceeded for a defined budgetary period”.

The significance of the A5 judgment is that the courts are indicating they won't accept Stormont's excuses and will simply quash decisions.

Stormont's Draft Climate Strategy for 2023-2027 — part of its obligations under the new law — was published a few weeks ago. That's right: A strategy on what to do in the future covers two and a half years which are in the past.

At 280 pages, it feels substantial and no doubt cost a fortune to produce. But the weight is deceptive. Much of what's in those pages is pure waffle or vaguely aspirational.

Parts of it haven't even been proofread.

The Belfast Telegraph spotted that in three places the document says household recycling rates were about 10% in 2010 and have increased to around 50% — in fact, DAERA's own figures show they were 31% in 2010, more than three times higher. When contacted, DAERA admitted it was an error.

Just four pages after saying “Tackling transport sector emissions will require a clear, strategic, focused approach,” the document says: “Tackling transport sector emissions will require a clear, strategic, focused approach.”

In several key areas, Northern Ireland is now going backwards. Renewable electricity is now declining after years where the island of Ireland was ahead of most of the western world.

There is a hopeless target to have 80% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030. That's just four and a half years away, yet with green electricity falling and Stormont failing to follow the rest of the UK in having a support scheme in this area, there isn't the slightest chance of meeting the target.

Much of Stormont's plan is vulnerable to a single key failure derailing the entire strategy.

The Department for Infrastructure, for instance, has centred its decarbonisation plan around electric vehicles — but if the electricity those vehicles are using comes from a dirty source then the whole concept falls.

On heating, one of Stormont's big ideas is to switch from oil to natural gas — in other words, switching from one fossil fuel to another.

It hopes that this will eventually be replaced by biomethane produced from rotting manure, but that's no more than a vague aspiration. It has no idea whether it will ever happen. In another part of the document, it says it might be better not to put biomethane into the gas network. Which is it?

The new law sets a target of recycling at least 70% of waste by 2030. But our recycling figures are hovering around 50% and have been going backwards.

It's not that everything's hopelessly doomed — most sectors have been gradually cutting emissions and some have been doing so dramatically.

Since 2019, 63% of Translink's 1,400-strong bus fleet has been replaced with low or zero emission vehicles — an amazing example which tens of thousands of people (yours truly included) recognise every day as they go to work.

That some of those buses come from Wrightbus in Ballymena where they're creating skilled jobs is a bonus which could be used to convey how these changes benefit wider society.

Taking so many belching diesel vehicles off the roads — especially in cities — is also of benefit to those with lung conditions.

Credibility gap has become a gulf

But there is a gulf between what Stormont says it will do, and what it credibly might achieve.

Overall, transport carbon emissions have risen since 1990.

There has been one other major increase in emissions. The elephant in the room is in fact a large herd of cows, several million Moy Park chickens and large industrial facilities where pigs live out their days without seeing a field.

So many of our problems — from Lough Neagh's pollution to low economic productivity — stem from Stormont's failed policies in this area.

Cutting agricultural emissions means cutting animal numbers. That would be controversial anywhere.

But whereas in the UK as a whole, agriculture is responsible for 12% of emissions, here agriculture is responsible for 29% of the problem.

The UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) — given key roles in policing the legislation — set out in 2023 three options for Northern Ireland to reach net zero by 2050. Its 'balanced pathway' was described by the committee as “very ambitious”, involving a cut in livestock numbers by a third, all new car and van sales to be zero-emissions by the early 2030s and all new heaters to be zero-carbon by 2033.

Yet even if that happened — which it won't in a situation where agriculture is still expanding and after the RHI debacle Stormont still doesn't have a green heat incentive — it would only get us 83% of the way to Stormont's target.

The next option is the CCC's 'stretch ambition pathway' which would also involve engineered removal of carbon, sequestering carbon from solid biomass and increasing new forest planting to reach 3,100 hectares by 2035 and 4,100 from 2039

In 2023-2024, Northern Ireland's newly-planted forestry actually fell to 433 hectares. Yet even if those targets were reached, they'd only get Northern Ireland 93% of the way to Stormont's targets.

The final option proposed by the CCC was a 'speculative options pathway', whose name alludes to how unrealistic it regards this to be. It would involve direct air capture of carbon to be stored, halving livestock numbers, and “major dietary changes across the UK”.

The DUP now blames other parties for setting overly-tough targets. But even the DUP preference — an 82% cut in emissions — would have involved drastic pain.

Vintage Stormont - still on the road to nowhere

Already, First Minister Michelle O'Neill is talking about a new law to get around this so the A5 can be built.

She wants to build a road, so stuff the law she voted for just three years ago.

This is vintage Stormont, lurching from the latest thing to the latest thing: What was popular then was passing a bells and whistles climate law; what's popular now is building a road. If it was popular next week to rip up the road, Sinn Féin and lots of other parties would push themselves to the front of the campaign.

It won't be that easy. Even if a law was passed to exempt the A5, the DUP will presumably insist on one of its pet projects also getting exempted.

Doing so just makes it harder for other things to get passed because the emissions from the exempted schemes would still have to be taken into consideration.

If that doesn't happen, then the Climate Change Act becomes utterly pointless.

To put this into context, greenhouse gas emissions in Northern Ireland dropped just 7.7% between 1990 and 2022. With all the environmental improvements in that time, the dial has barely moved over more than three decades — yet Stormont claims to believe that in what is now a shorter time of just 25 years we can drastically cut emissions beyond what even the rest of the UK or Ireland can do. This is hubris.

It's one thing to be ambitious, but this isn't ambition because they've no intention of accepting the pain necessary to succeed.

It's the equivalent of someone who tells everyone loudly that they want to be an Olympic athlete while sitting on the sofa eating pizza every day.

Actions, it turns out, do have consequences.

Bryson only half-right — it's tough for working classes on both sides of sectarian divide

Gail Walker, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

JAMIE Bryson is not someone with whom I would instinctively agree on just about anything and this is equally true of the comments he made on the Nolan Show about middle-class attitudes — though the disagreement isn't as complete as usual. It's just the reality is more complicated.

The loyalist activist said that “a number of barristers from a middle-class Protestant background” did not want him to progress in his own legal career towards qualification as a barrister. There was a conversation about how to “make sure that nobody will take him as a pupil to stop him getting in”.

Mr Bryson expressed how different the attitude towards “social mobility” is among Catholic and nationalist communities, affirming he had received an important vote of confidence in taking the educational steps that he has done.

He said: “The one person who stood up and said, if you are going to get on like that, I'll take him, [was] Joe Brolly, the person most politically opposed to me in the world.”

Much of this plays to some old stereotypes — some of which are actually true of course.

Part of the population embarrassed by and antagonistic towards the Twelfth demonstrations remains a certain type of Ulster Protestant middle-class who will also rival the most diehard republican in their disdain for Mr Bryson.

These are the people who bail out of this place for the July fortnight, loudly telling everyone they are doing so. It's a very public disassociation from, and disapproval of Orange culture and a brand of unionism they regard as unsophisticated.

Annual bonfire controversies only entrench these attitudes, embarrassing many, including those who enjoy the Twelfth. Given the public health concerns over one bonfire and the outcry over a 'stop the boats' display at another, they regard Mr Bryson's justifications this week as defending the indefensible. For most taking part, the damaging headlines do not reflect their experiences of a day about family and tradition and they want them to stop.

But the idea of a support network within the Catholic/nationalist community for those who climb the social ladder is not quite the reality Mr Bryson supposes.

A traumatic and challenging journey

Across the board the picture is complicated but one thing remains crystal clear — working-class people find it very difficult to move through the gears of our society, regardless of background, nationalist, unionist or neither.

The working-class journey is traumatic and challenging — in speech, vocabulary, dress, self-confidence, networks, customs and culture. Middle-class kids are more likely to be comfortable in certain workplace scenarios. It's not so much entitlement as growing up around people who do jobs like that. It's knowing how to play the game.

Working-class people will find themselves making concessions every single day if they want to “get on”. No doubt that's why some newly-minted middle-class Protestants deride the Twelfth because it 'sends the right signal'.

Comments about the hurdles faced by the working class are not what people want to hear because they indict the very things we regard as the keys to personal progress, progress for our children and progress for our communities.

For a start, education does not solve the class problem. And here's the rub — a decent salary will not solve the class problem, either. Your background, speech, clothing, demeanour, family — all will characterise your adult life.

People constantly make value judgements. In job interviews they might ponder 'Is this the type of person overall that fits with the company?' 'Do their values align with ours?' Or: 'His dad was a great… blah blah blah…'

Of course, those questions and considerations are against the law in Northern Ireland but often do come into play in one form or another.

Many things help to divide working class people too — sectarianism being one of them. When it comes to destroying solidarity it's like Domestos — quick, effective and long-lasting.

Your sex, of course, is another one. Perhaps a story for another day, but Bryson's comments become clearer in the context of what is very easily understood in sex discrimination.

Many recall a time before 'body art' when people with visible tattoos were at a disadvantage in job interviews because they were seen as a clear indicator of class.

Nicotine-stained fingertips and nails bitten to the quick have their modern counterparts as indicators of “not the ideal background” — scuffed shoes, frayed shirt collar, shiny elbows in the suit jacket.

These are all instant signals to people in positions of influence over your life. Prospective employers, solicitors, mortgage lenders.

Working-class Protestants feel abandoned by political leaders whose missteps have left them submerged in negativity. It's ok to sneer at them about 'flegs'.

There may be a sense now in which nationalists feel on the front foot as regards social mobility and recognition, but don't let anybody be fooled that it's somehow easier for a teenager sitting in their bedroom in a working-class nationalist estate to break through than for his unionist counterpart.

For most working-class kids, it's still a grind. All those barriers are still there.There is no lucky highway. No-one is going to put in a call for them to the company boss who is an old pal. Many kids intuit how unfair it is. They feel a gnawing hopelessness.

Mr Bryson's account of how Mr Brolly spoke up for him is good to hear — incidentally, I wouldn't agree with Mr Brolly on anything either. But Mr Bryson has studied, passed exams, and Mr Brolly is right to recognise that.

However, the idea there is a favoured grouping of working-class people anywhere in these islands is a fantasy. You only have to look at the make-up of boards and government bodies. Those from a working-class background are still the minority — even though they are the vast majority of the population.

Most people here will have had experiences — or know people who have had experiences — where they have been knocked back “by their own”. They'll also have had at least one experience — or know someone who has — of a bit of encouragement from “the other side”.

There are still good people in public life who, out of a sense of civic duty and a desire to give something back, like to help someone else.

While a law lecturer at Queen's University Belfast, the late Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble went to Long Kesh to teach a Catholic student of his who had been interned there.

Mr Bryson reckoned that in unionist communities once people get into the professional class they tend to “become almost embarrassed of the underclass they came from, and they don't want to know them”.

An acclaimed Protestant author made the same point to me, bothered by how upwardly mobile Protestants shun cultural affiliations like the Orange Order while upwardly mobile Catholics retain links with, say, the GAA.

But my nationalist friends have also frequently told me they never felt especially loved and supported by their middle class. A parent's political career was thwarted because they weren't in the professional classes; favouritism by the Catholic Church to wealthier families; people getting above themselves — “wouldn't look at you now”.

And I know successful public figures from unionist working-class backgrounds who never forget how hard it was and anonymously financially support children through school.

Mr Bryson raises an important point about middle-class attitudes, but the truth is more nuanced. They used to talk about a glass ceiling in the workplace, where you could see others progress but couldn't find a way through the barrier yourself. It affected women certainly, but also other minority groups.

The irony is for the working class that ceiling actually keeps the majority of the population out, and it appears to be made of concrete with no visibility at all.

Van Morrison childhood home 'to become museum' to Belfast music legend

John Mulgrew, Belfast Telegraph, July 12th, 2025

PLANNING BID IS MADE TO TRANSFORM FAMOUS PROPERTY

The childhood home of Sir Van Morrison is being converted into a museum dedicated to the singer.

Sir Van grew up in a terraced house at 125 Hyndford Street in east Belfast.

A plaque detailing that the star lived there adorns the wall of the property, while tourists and taxi tours frequently stop outside it for a picture.

This week, work was under way inside the house. It is understood the previous occupant passed away some time ago. The plans, if successful, could see small groups of pre-booked tourists arriving by mini-bus, according to those behind the scheme.

“The museum will be operational during the day only, therefore when demand for on-street parking is lowest,” they said.

The plans have been made by Richard Waring, with the application submitted by planning consultancy Bell Rolston.

Mr Waring is listed as a director of The Van Morrison Official Belfast Rhythm and Blues Foundation, while Sir Van's daughter, Shana, is also a director of the organisation, according to Companies House.

Shana has followed in her father's footsteps and is also an acclaimed singer-songwriter.

The two-storey building is around 730 sq ft in size, located close to the Comber Greenway, and not far from Cyprus Avenue, the title of one of his most famous songs from the classic 1968 album Astral Weeks.

Planners are seeking permission for a change of use from residential to museum use.

In supporting documents, developers state that the operational hours could be between 9am and 6.30pm, Monday to Saturday.

“While there is on-street parking, the proposal does not rely on same — the museum will be used by appointment only and comprise a drop-off and pick-up arrangement,” they said.

Sir Van received his knighthood in 2016 and recently announced he will return to the stage in Belfast this summer, just weeks after a run of concerts marking his 80th birthday.

Originally announced as a single show on Sunday, August 31, a second date — August 30 — was added last month after the first sold out.

They will take place in the Waterfront Hall.

Ardoyne residents considering protest at ‘extra’ Orange march

‘Unacceptable’ parade day after Twelfth causing friction as green light given for what organisers say is ‘homeward walk’

Conor Coyle, Irish News, July 12th, 2025

RESIDENTS groups in north Belfast are understood to be considering a protest in response to what some have called an “unacceptable” Orange Order parade through Ardoyne.

The Parades Commission gave the green light for Orangemen to march past Ardoyne shops tomorrow, the day after a band’s main parade on the Twelfth.

Organisers have said the march represents the ‘homeward’ part of its Twelfth parade, and will take place from 8.30am until around 10am when it is due to finish at Ligoniel Orange Hall.

The parade has been a contentious one in the past, with an agreement reached in 2016 on an accepted route for the parade, which some residents say has been broken by tomorrow’s parade.

As part of conditions set down by the Parades Commission, no supporters will accompany the lodges and band of around 50 members, while only hymn music is to be played.

No parade-related protest was notified to the Commission by last night, but The Irish News understands residents groups in the area are considering a decision to hold one.

An Orange Order parade down the Crumlin Road past the Ardoyne shops in north Belfast on the Twelfth morning

Residents are reported to be unhappy with the lack of consultation over the decision to hold the parade.

Those opposed to the parade described it as “unacceptable” and “harmful to community relations”.

“Representations opposed to the parade focused on the 2016 Ardoyne Agreement (‘the 2016 Agreement’), which imposed a moratorium on return parades in the area, other than those specifically referred to in it,” a Parades Commission determination on the march noted.

“They emphasised the need for continued negotiations to work towards a mutually agreeable permanent solution to parading in the area.

“In the absence of such negotiations, it is their view that any return parade is not acceptable and would harm community relations.”

The area has previously witnessed serious loyalist and republican rioting when tensions linked to parading boiled over on the main date in the loyal order calendar – the Twelfth of July.

“ It is their view that any return parade is not acceptable and would harm community relations”. Parades Commission determination

A 24/7 loyalist protest camp was set up at the sectarian interface in 2013 when the Parades Commission prevented Orangemen belonging to the three Orange lodges from passing the Ardoyne shops as they returned from traditional Twelfth commemorations.

As part of the 2016 deal between Orange lodges and residents group Crumlin and Ardoyne Residents Association (Cara), outward parades were able to proceed along the road passing the Ardoyne shops on the morning of July 12 each year, but without return parades to the Orange Hall in the evening.

Mural of Hooded Man Hannaway seized

Irish News, July 12th, 2025,

A MURAL of Hooded Man Kevin Hannaway was seized by the PSNI from a house in west Belfast yesterday, alongside what the force says was a number of items, including a small quantity of Class A drugs.

The seizure came at a house in the Rodney Drive area of the city in a “proactive” search linked to dissident republican group, the New IRA.

A man was arrested and later charged with possession of a class A controlled drug and offering to supply a class C controlled drug.

The man (52) will appear at Belfast Magistrates Court on August 8.

Mr Hannaway died in January after a short illness. He was one of 14 Catholic men who were subjected to state-sanctioned torture when they were interned in 1971.

A life-long republican, Mr Hannaway was convicted of knowingly rendering assistance to the ‘IRA’, and assisting in interviewing people involved in ‘IRA’-organised activities in 2015.

It’s understood the mural was to be unveiled in Belfast tomorrow.

“Detectives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Serious Crime Branch, supported by district police officers, conducted a proactive search of a property in west Belfast this morning, Friday 11th July,” a PSNI statement said.

“A number of items were seized, including a small quantity of suspected controlled drugs.

“A man aged 52 was arrested on suspicion of possession of a class A controlled drug and being concerned in the supply of a class C controlled drug.

“He was detained at an address in Rodney Drive and remains in custody at this time.

“The search was part of an investigation into criminality linked to the New IRA.”

A statement released yesterday by hardline republican party Saoradh said the seizure was an example of “hypocrisy” by the PSNI after it refused to assist Belfast City Council with the dismantling of a bonfire in the loyalist Village area of south Belfast.

“While they mobilise to remove a republican mural from a private home, they refuse to act against loyalist mobs erecting racist and sectarian hate displays in places like Moygashel and loyalist parts of Belfast, where bonfires endangering lives and entire communities took place unhindered,” it said.