SHEA roads chaos: cops stayed away over NEW IRA FEARS
CIARAN BARNES, Sunday Life, May 10th, 2026
BOSSES SPOOKED BY DUNMURRY PSNI STATION BOMBING LET WEST BELFAST RAMPAGE GO AHEAD FORCE STOOD BY AS LAWLESS THUGS WREAKED HAVOC IN CITY
The PSNI took an operational decision not to mount road checkpoints in west Belfast to prevent an illegal car meet-up in memory of a dead drug dealer due to threats from dissident republicans.
Police chiefs believed it was too dangerous for officers to stop hundreds of modified cars and motorbikes wreaking havoc on the Stewartstown Road last Monday night in case it left them vulnerable to attack.
Security sources said this assessment was based on the New IRA bombing of nearby Dunmurry PSNI station nine days earlier.
A device placed in a car hijacked close to the Stewartstown Road exploded outside the base on April 25.
In light of this, senior police took a decision not to use road checkpoints to prevent the meet-up in memory of dead Bangor drug dealer Shea McGreevy because it was deemed too risky.
The PSNI knew earlier that morning that the illegal event, which saw hundreds of modified cars and motorbikes block and tear up the Stewartstown Road, was to take place.
Evidence
However, a call was made not to interfere and instead monitor the meet-up and gather evidence.
A spokeswoman for the PSNI, which has a policy of not commenting on operational matters, said it has nothing to add on the matter.
Sunday Life can reveal that the meet-up's main organiser is a young drug dealer and associate of notorious criminal James McGrogan (39) who, despite being a Catholic from west Belfast, was jailed for selling £100,000 of cocaine for the East Belfast UVF.
Two other local drug dealers aged in their 20s encouraged hundreds of people in modified cars and motorcycles to attend.
Sources said the cocaine these individuals sell throughout west Belfast is supplied by McGrogan, who is linked to The Firm crime cartel.
Shea McGreevy, who died in a jet-ski accident on Lough Neagh last week and in whose memory the car meet-up took place, was a member of the gang.
The north Armagh-based cartel is one of the biggest suppliers of cocaine and cannabis in Northern Ireland and was responsible for the gangland murders of Malcolm McKeown, Shane Whitla and Kevin Conway.
One source told Sunday Life: “The PSNI was informed throughout the day of the planned meet-up involving drug dealers blocking off the Stewartstown Road with cars and motorbikes.
“The TSG (Tactical Support Group) and ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) could have provided back-up to officers from Woodbourne PSNI station to prevent this with checkpoints, but the decision was taken not to because of dissident republican threats and the Dunmurry PSNI station bomb.
Cavalcade
“Drugs were being openly dealt during the meet-up, with drug dealers handing out cocaine and collecting money from their vehicles.”
Two police officers were injured and five vehicles were damaged after youths threw bottles and masonry.
Chief Inspector Kelly Gibson said: “We acknowledge local concern around this incident and will continue to engage with representatives and residents in order to help prevent further instances of this behaviour.”
Sinn Fein West Belfast MLA Danny Baker described the scenes as disgraceful, saying: “Shame on those who brought this to our community.
“Police were made aware of this pre-planned event, and I urged them to deploy preventative measures to stop the cavalcade of cars from entering the area. These concerns fell on deaf ears, and by the time police arrived, it was too late.”
Shea McGreevy was a drug dealer from Bangor with connections to the UDA. He was convicted in 2021 of possessing cocaine with intent to supply.
The 29-year-old was accused of getting pal Rhys Magee hooked on ketamine, which he was high on when he murdered Richard Miskelly in Newtownards in 2017.
McGreevy died last week after falling off a jet-ski on Lough Neagh.
'My husband would have turned 70 this week. His murderer lives down the road'
WIDOW OF RUC MAN SHOT DEAD AFTER VISITING BABY BOY IN MATERNITY UNIT TELLS OF TRAUMA OF ENCOUNTERING KILLER IRA GUNMAN SERVED JUST TWO YEARS IN JAIL FOR HOSPITAL ATTACK
ANGELA DAVISON, Sunday Life, May 10th, 2026
WIDOW OF RUC MAN SHOT DEAD AFTER VISITING BABY BOY IN MATERNITY UNIT TELLS OF TRAUMA OF ENCOUNTERING KILLER IRA GUNMAN SERVED JUST TWO YEARS IN JAIL FOR HOSPITAL ATTACK
A widow whose policeman husband was murdered by the IRA has spoken of the trauma of living “down the road” from his killer.
June McMullin's partner Johnnie Proctor was shot dead leaving the maternity unit at Magherafelt Hospital in 1981 after visiting his newborn baby boy.
She has encountered his killer Seamus 'Scotchie' Kearney (70) on several occasions.
Kearney was convicted of murder and jailed for life in 2013 but served just two years in prison under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
Johnnie would have celebrated his 70th birthday last Wednesday had he not been gunned down aged 25.
June recalled: “He (Johnnie) came up, saw the baby and stayed through visiting time.
“He had to go, so I left him down to the front door. I came up the corridor and was standing at the window as he walked past the corner to the car park.
“I was still at the window when I heard the gunfire. I was still at the window when the (getaway) car drove up past.
“From the fact there had been so many shots, you knew it wasn't a car backfiring or anything like that. We knew something had gone on. The alarm had been raised.
“At that stage, I was still standing at the window, waiting on Johnnie coming up past (in the car) to wave goodnight, but instead of that, the gunman came up past.”
Witnesses saw a white Ford Escort in the hospital car park with at least two men, including one armed with a rifle.
The vehicle was found later that night on the Tobermore to Draperstown road.
June said: “I knew right away it was Johnnie (from) the fact that (UDR member and neighbour) Alan Clarke had been killed a couple of days earlier. Other than that, you wouldn't have thought much of it.
“It's just my opinion, but I think he was set up. (They knew) he would be the only person that would be up visiting that night and that he would have to go home when visiting was over.”
June was immediately taken to casualty, where she was informed her husband had died.
She recalled: “I had to ring Johnnie's mummy and tell them to get up, and then I had to ring a neighbour to tell mummy and daddy as we didn't have a phone. They went around to get Johnnie's sister and bring her up.
DNA
“It was hectic and the place was buzzing with police.”
Her five-day-old son, also called Johnnie, remained in the maternity ward and wasn't brought home until the day after the funeral.
“You look at Upperlands, and you think it's a remote, peaceful place,” said June.
“You have plenty of good, Catholic neighbours. You never for one minute thought there would be trouble.”
In the early days following her husband's funeral, June and her two young boys stayed with her mum before she returned home.
The IRA claimed responsibility for the murder, with Kearney immediately identified as a suspect.
He is also believed to have been involved in the murder of Alan Clarke and the attempted shooting of a former UDR man in Upperlands six weeks prior to Johnnie's killing.
“We were aware of his name at that time, and he only lives a mile-and-a-half up the road,” said June.
“We always suspected it was him but could never prove it until the HET (Historical Enquiries Team) was set up and a group called Wave contacted (the HET) and asked if it would open our case as Johnnie's mother was getting old and would have liked some answers.
“They opened it and came back to say they'd found a cigarette butt. That went to forensics, and it came back with Kearney's DNA on it. We had him.
“It made me feel good that we'd actually got him, though on the other hand, (we thought) 'If we go to court and he's found guilty, he'll do no more than two years'. We thought 'You know what? We'll put a name on it and make him out to be the murderer that he is', and that's what we did.
“To us, it was no justice for what he did. He got life, but because of the Good Friday Agreement, it was two years. Because he was a lifer, after a year, he was getting paroled out once a month, so he did a year and then he was out.”
June believes Johnnie was targeted because he had carried Alan Clarke's coffin.
She said: “Our baby was born on the Thursday, Alan was shot on the Saturday, Alan was buried on the Monday, and my husband Johnnie was shot on the Monday night.”
Living so close to her husband's killer is hard on June, as is the fact that the getaway driver has never been caught.
She said: “Kearney wasn't on his own. We still don't know who the driver was.
“I don't think I could accept an apology from him (Kearney). I saw him in court, faced him and thought 'You're one evil man'.
After life of a survivor
“I don't think there's any remorse in him. I know he did do something with one of the universities about how much he felt bad, but (was) thinking 'You're so full of s**t'.”
June has encountered Kearney “quite a few times” because they live so close to each other.
“He's driven past in the car and seen me,” she said.
“I haven't seen him now for a while, but you don't know. You could say that and run into the b*****d tomorrow. He still lives up the road. He hasn't been taken yet.”
June was 15 when she met Johnnie at a dance in an Orange Hall in Boveedy, near Kilrea.
She married the Garvagh man in 1977, when she was just 18, and they had two sons, Adrian and Johnnie.
Her husband, a mechanic by trade, worked in TBF Thompsons and was a part-time UDR member before joining the RUC.
He was murdered at a tumultuous time in Northern Ireland, with his shooting following the death of Bobby Sands on hunger strike.
Last year, June and her second husband Tony visited London's National Portrait Gallery to see Belfast-born artist Colin Davidson's Silent Testimony exhibition. Her son Johnnie's portrait was featured in the show.
She believes her late husband would be proud of how the family have coped.
“I think he'd be smiling down on me and thinking 'You didn't do too bad. You survived. You weren't a victim, you were a survivor',” said June. “I think he still would still have been the kind person he was.
“He was Manchester United-crazy and he loved a wee game of darts in the British Legion. I'm not sure he would have been much of a gardener, but his mother would have kept him right.”
Migrants pour in to modern Ireland because it's a great place to live
SAM MCBRIDE, Sunday Independent and Sunday Life, May 10th, 2026
As humans, we've never been more aware of what's happening in this instant. We've also rarely been less able to appreciate the news we consume in its true context. This is leading to a dangerous disconnect between the reality of our lives and how we perceive our lives.
The phones that are seldom far from our hands convey breaking news from around the globe. We know what's happening in Dublin, Belfast, London and Washington — and, if we're interested, in Laos, Libya and Kazakhstan. But, as someone who works in the business that delivers this instant news, I know our obsession with the immediate can mask the context that helps us understand what has just happened.
The rise of the smartphone has coincided with — and almost certainly caused — a collapse in our ability to read widely, and especially to read books. AI is promising easy answers to hard questions and, across the western world, as the writer James Marriott has alarmingly chronicled, even those who once read books now often find it a challenge.
It is easy to scroll through endless TikToks or tweets or internet forums and quickly form the belief that the world is in an almost relentlessly bleak era.
Poor us. If we're not oppressed by some zealot, locked up by some authoritarian president, killed by some missile, prevented from ever owning a home, or impoverished by some billionaire, we'll probably grow old on an Earth made almost uninhabitable by climate change. Even the roads are full of potholes. Doesn't anything work any more?
Start of slide
We're still probably quite high up the slippery slope, but we have started to slide.
As a journalist, I've contributed to informing readers about the darker elements of life — corruption, criminality and incompetence — and I don't for a second intend to stop. Journalism is essential in a democratic society. At its heart is exposing abuses of power, whether by a government official or a thug with a gun.
To understand the news, however, it's essential to have some basic media literacy.
Today on this island, hundreds of thousands of people will travel by car. Almost everyone will reach their destination safely. That they do so isn't news, because it's what we expect to happen. If one of them is killed, that will be news because we don't expect it to happen. It doesn't mean that every car journey is likely to end in carnage, any more than a story about a corrupt politician means they've all got their hand in the till. Yet this fundamental misunderstanding is widespread.
There are two ways to understand it: looking back and looking around.
The first involves the past. Even a basic knowledge of history is a rejoinder to the doomerist zeitgeist that is helping to propel populists to power. If everything is broken, then it's rational to blame the old order for having broken what once worked — and quite logical for people to think they've little to lose by taking a bet on someone who gives alluringly simple answers to hard questions.
We have huge problems. There are politicians and civil servants and parties who deserve to be held to account for mismanagement and worse. We should strive to fix the problems and aspire to be a better society than one in which too many people lose out. But we also need to appreciate what we have so we don't squander it. That's where looking around comes into the picture.
Most of our ancestors would have been stampeding over one other to swap places with us. Very few in today's Ireland are starving, or without clothing. About half the population has a third-level education. Healthcare has never been better. We are able to travel in comfort. Almost everyone can find work if they want it. Minority rights are respected, our society operates under the rule of law in a legal system that is overwhelmingly fair, we all have a democratic say in how our lives are ordered, and there is tolerance for those who in the past were persecuted or derided.
One of the best places on earth
We live in one of the best places there has ever been to be alive in the history of humanity, but we insufficiently appreciate the privilege it is to have entered the world on this small island.
The UN Human Development Index, which measures quality of life, rates Ireland as the 11th best country in the world in which to live. The UK is joint 13th. Whichever side of the Border we live on, our lot is living through a period of unique peace, prosperity and progress.
The countries at the bottom of that list — South Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Mali, Burundi and Yemen — emphasise our extraordinary privilege. They are places where war, famine, pestilence or cataclysmic disasters have engendered mass suffering of a kind unimaginable to us.
While migrants once poured out of Ireland in search of survival, they now pour in. They know this is a great place to live and they have been central to making modern Ireland the success it is.
So yes, the rain is falling in May. Yes, prices are going up. Yes, one of the world's superpowers is run by a madman. But we've never had it so good. Unlike most of our forebears, we have a lot to lose if we fail to appreciate what we've got.
Loyalist band snubs bizarre anti-migrant mural
ANGELA DAVISON, Sunday Life, May 10th, 2026
EVEN THE UDA WANTS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS, SUNDAY LIFE TOLD
A UDA-supporting band has refused to endorse a race-hate mural officially launched in Newtownabbey this weekend.
Cloughfern Young Conquerors, which carries the terror gang's flags, turned down an invitation to play at a 'family fun day' organised by a group styling itself as Concerned Parents Newtownabbey.
In a statement released on social media, band chairman and leading loyalist David 'Dodo' McCrea said: “The band will not be attending Friday night's parade in Newtownabbey.”
The bizarre AI mural has been criticised for being racist and promoting division. The PSNI described it as “offensive”.
The mural shows a Second World War veteran keeling at graves bearing Crusader crosses. Crusaders were Catholic knights sent by the pope to reclaim the Holy Land in the 11th century.
Satanists
Looking over him are figures dressed in shrouds and carrying the flag of Pakistan, which did not become an independent country until 1947, two years after the Second World War ended.
Tens of thousands of people from the region were killed fighting for the British army during the war.
This sacrifice appeared lost on many of the supporters who showed up in Cloughfern on Friday night for the launch of the mural.
Local man Andrew McCallion, who made strange claims about politicians being Satanists, told Sunday Life it was a case of “kill or be killed”.
He said the mural represented those who fought in world wars, claiming they had “died for nothing” because Islam had been allowed to enter Northern Ireland.
According to the last census in 2021, less than 1 per cent of people living in Northern Ireland are Muslim.
Mr McCallion said: “I don't think it (the mural) is anti-immigration. I think it's to protect our land, the country that we live in. (It's to) protect our Christian heritage and the rights of the people that work here and live here. It's not just about the area you're in because it's mostly Protestant people. The Catholic people are against this as well, the ideology. They're going to be affected.
“Okay, they stand by the Palestinian flags and all that there, (but) that's a totally different issue. This is Islamic ideology, and it's kill or be killed.”
Around 150 people, including families with children, gathered in support of the mural.
Local loyalists told Sunday Life the display was not endorsed by paramilitaries, who are currently working with government agencies to have murals of masked gunmen in Newtownabbey replaced with images of the royal family.
Cautioned
Two UDA murals in the nearby Monkstown and Rathcoole estates have recently been replaced with images of King Charles and the late Queen Elizabeth II.
One loyalist said: “It says a lot about the people behind this anti-immigration mural when the UDA wants nothing to do with it.”
A crowdfunding effort by individuals connected to the mural raised more than £1,000, which was spent on a memorial garden at its base.
This has been described as “a place for the community to pause and reflect”.
Police were on the ground at Friday night's launch, which also attended by the far-right political party Advance UK.
After the mural appeared in Cloughfern last week, two men were cautioned for causing criminal damage and displaying offensive material under the Public Order Act.
The PSNI said it was investigating threats made to UUP councillor Robert Foster, who engaged with police to have the mural removed.
The organisers of Friday's fun day asked Sunday Life to leave before the speeches began, claiming they did not trust traditional media outlets.
United Ireland still nowhere in sight: DUP
JOHN TONER, Sunday Life, May 10th, 2026
NATIONALIST GAINS IN ELECTIONS HAVE NO IMPACT ON NI, CLAIMS ROBINSON
DUP Leader Gavin Robinson has poured scorn on renewed hopes of a united Ireland in the wake of nationalist victories in the British local elections.
Reform, the SNP and Plaid Cymru were the big winners across the Irish Sea, with the Greens also making historic gains.
The surge of Nigel Farage's hard-right Reform party in England and the prospect of nationalist first ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has led to renewed talk of constitutional change.
First Minister Michelle O'Neill said yesterday: “Historic change is happening. The demand for independence is growing.”
SDLP leader Claire Hanna added: “We need to prepare for a different constitutional future.”
But Mr Robinson (below) scoffed at the idea of imminent constitutional change and said the vote reflected the Labour Party's “failure to tackle illegal immigration”.
He told Sunday Life: “People are fed up with non-delivery and being asked to pay more. Labour has been punished for its failure to tackle illegal immigration and the consequences flowing from it, for failing to reward hard work.
“Results in Scotland and Wales will inevitably be seized upon by those who seek constitutional change, but the success of the SNP and Plaid Cymru was primarily a vehicle for voters to register dissatisfaction with Labour.
“In reality, it does not mean constitutional change is any further advanced.”
Mr Robinson said that Sinn Fein had been promising a united Ireland “for decades”, only to continually “move the goalposts”.
He continued: “Their timeline for the destruction of Northern Ireland is not advancing.
“Whilst Sinn Fein remains obsessed with chasing headlines and ever-changing promises around border polls, our focus is on making Northern Ireland work within the United Kingdom for the benefit of everyone.”
Unprecedented
The unprecedented shift in the political landscape in England led Green leader Zack Polanski to declare two-party politics was “dead”.
Speaking on Friday, Ms Hanna said: “The UK is changing, so we can either decide to be passengers in wherever Reform or Labour, or whoever, want to take us, or we can build something new and better together.
“This is a structural shift, it isn't a flash in the pan. The next occupant of No. 10 after Keir Starmer could be a roll of the dice.
“So those parties who want to criticise this government, the last government, the next one, need to really think about the constitutional future.”
After losing almost 1,500 councillors in England, the Labour Party has been plunged into crisis.
Yesterday afternoon, former shadow Foreign Office minister and MP for Hornsey and Wood Green Catherine West issued Keir Starmer's cabinet with an ultimatum, saying she would challenge his leadership tomorrow.
It is highly unlikely Ms West would get the 81 MPs required for there to be a full ballot of party members, but the move could fire the starting gun on a leadership battle.
Coalition governments can be chaotic and full of contradictions
CONOR SKEHAN, Sunday Independent, May 10th, 2026
The upcoming Dublin Central by-election has drawn attention — not just for who might win, but for how many are joining the fight. A crowded field of 14 candidates, from established parties to Independents, will appear on the ballot.
At the same time, national opinion polls show support spreading across a widening range of parties. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin now compete in a tighter space, while smaller parties and Independents retain a durable share of support.
Similar patterns are emerging across the United Kingdom and many European democracies as old political certainties weaken and new parties emerge. This is often anxiously described as "fragmentation”.
The world has been here before.
In 1919, WB Yeats wrote in The Second Coming: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...”
But what if this is not collapse, but adaptation? What if we are witnessing not the weakening of politics, but the expression of stronger and more clearly defined convictions?
Voters are not retreating from politics. They are asserting themselves within it. The real question is not how many voices are heard, but what happens when those voices must govern together.
In 1994, I learned about adaptation when I participated in the formation of what became known as the Rainbow Coalition, bringing together Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left.
At the time, it looked improbable.
The differences between the parties were real and deeply held. There was no natural ideological alignment, and no easy consensus waiting to be uncovered.
The coalition programme reflected that reality in its early stages. At first, it was quite literally a cut-and-paste exercise. Drafts were assembled, priorities inserted, language negotiated line by line. It felt contrived, implausible, even faintly absurd.
And yet, something happened.
By the end, the document had assumed a coherence of its own. It was no longer a list of concessions, but a shared framework. In a quiet way, it had come alive — something apart from those of us who had assembled it. What begins as compromise can end as creation.
There is a persistent belief, amplified by today's politics of instant outrage, that government should be tidy. Clear choices. Coherent mandates. Decisive outcomes.
First-past-the-post systems such as those in the United Kingdom or United States appear to offer that. Until they don't. And when they fracture, they do so sharply and often bitterly.
Ireland's proportional representation system, based on the single transferable vote, looks untidy by comparison. Voters distribute their preferences. No party dominates. Governments must be assembled rather than declared.
But what looks messy is often more resilient. Politics does not end on election day. It continues in negotiation. Parties come together — not because they are naturally aligned, but because they must find a way to be.
They learn that the route to power runs through agreement.
There is a cynical view that coalitions are held together by the naked desire for power. And there is truth in that. But it misses the point.
In proportional systems, ambition can only be realised through cooperation. Self-interest is not removed, but it is redirected.
Positions that sound absolute in opposition must become workable in government. Priorities are ranked. Language is adjusted. Edges are softened.
Take Proinsias De Rossa of Democratic Left. Viewed at the time by some as a radical, he became an important voice within social partnership, helping shape its social dimension through negotiation between unions, employers and the State. His work on anti-poverty policy helped make redistribution more deliberate and more visible.
In retrospect, the Rainbow Government looks less like an improbable coalition, and more like an early expression of a changing Ireland. Many now see it as an important stage in the more socially progressive and inclusive direction that the country would later take.
This is what coalition does. It forces ideas to survive contact with other ideas.
We have long oscillated between two instincts in politics. One, that society must be reshaped to fit a set of principles. The other, that it must be preserved largely as it is. Both contain truths. Both carry risks.
In practice, societies change neither by rupture nor by stasis, but by negotiation. Not by purity, but by accommodation.
Otto von Bismarck warned that those who love sausages and laws should not watch either being made. There is truth in that, too. Coalition politics is rarely elegant. It can look awkward, even chaotic. The compromises are visible. The contradictions apparent.
But that is not failure. It is the work itself. Under pressure, something else can emerge. Not just compromise, but creation.
We are often distracted by arguments about who governs, left or right. The deeper issue is how we are governed, and whether our political systems can accommodate change without breaking.
The test is whether strong convictions are allowed to collide destructively, or are shaped into something that can endure.
Yes, there is strength in political purity. But only if it is properly cradled.
That is what coalition does. It takes conviction and makes it liveable — for everybody, no matter how many voices must be heard.
Anti-migrant rioter given meeting with council boss
STAFF REPORTER, Sunday Life, May 10th, 2026
FAR-RIGHT ONIV GROUP SET FOR TEA AND BISCUITS WITH CHIEF EXECUTIVE
A far-right group led by a convicted loyalist rioter has been given an audience with a top council official.
Our Northern Ireland Voice (ONIV), which was founded by ex-jailbird Dan Grundle, will sit down for tea and biscuits with Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council chief executive David Jackson (below) on Wednesday.
The summit was granted after members of the anti-immigration group showed up in council chambers , demanding talks.
Several councillors are understood to be uneasy about the get-together and believe the council should not be appeasing ONIV, which also includes former members of the racist National Front.
The council said: “Following two peaceful protests at council offices by ONIV, and in line with standing orders, arrangements were made for the group's concerns regarding houses of multiple occupancy to be heard directly at a meeting.
“Council officers will meet representatives of the group to listen to the issues raised. The council remains committed to constructive engagement with residents and ensuring public meetings can continue in an orderly, respectful manner.”
ONIV said it wanted to meet council officials to discuss concerns around immigration.
The group holds regular protests outside the Magherabuoy House Hotel in Portrush, which has housed asylum seekers.
It plans to increase these after an incident in the Ballysally estate in Coleraine last weekend which led to the arrest of an African national for disorderly behaviour.
Mohammad Manai, with an address on the Antrim Road in Newtownabbey, appeared in Coleraine Magistrates Court on May 2.
He was remanded in custody to appear again via video-link on May 18.
Manai was arrested after being detained by members of the public at a bus stop.
Video footage of angry locals, some of whom can be seen punching him several times, has been shared widely online.
Following his arrest, a woman claiming to be his mother appealed for information about his whereabouts.
She wrote on Facebook: “I lost contact with him five days (ago) and his phone is (switched) off. I need any information about him.”
Encouraging supporters to turn up outside Causeway Coast council offices ahead of its meeting with the chief executive, ONIV said: “This is a defining moment for our community.
“Our representatives will sit across the table from the council leader to demand answers. Come out, stand together and be seen.”
MOB
Convicted rioter Grundle, who also uses the surname Douglas, has confirmed he will be at the meeting.
Coleraine community worker and self-confessed ex-National Front member Stephen O'Hara is also expected to attend.
Grundle was jailed for three years in 2023 for taking part in loyalist riots against the Northern Ireland Protocol in Coleraine.
He cut himself throwing a toilet at the PSNI, with DNA recovered from the scene used to identify him.
It was revealed in court that the 31-year-old has previous convictions for disorderly behaviour and assaulting police.
In an online biography, Grundle claimed to have turned his life around after becoming a father.
He admitted that before this, he was a habitual drug user and former glue-sniffer.
Sectarian thug Aaron Beech (41) is also linked to ONIV. He served seven years behind bars for a loyalist mob attack on community worker Kevin McDaid, who later died from his injuries.
Beech was convicted of GBH and causing actual bodily harm.
Trump-loving street preacher drops immigrant attack appeal
JOHN TONER, Sunday Life, May 10th, 2026
A street preacher and failed politician convicted of body-slamming an immigrant while wearing a Maga hat has dropped his appeal.
Colin Houston was found guilty of assault, resisting police and disorderly behaviour in February.
The 61-year-old immediately launched an appeal following his conviction at Laganside Magistrates Court.
The case was due to be heard at the same courthouse on Thursday, but his representatives abandoned the appeal at the eleventh hour.
Asked outside court why he had dropped the matter, he told Sunday Life: “Why would I talk to you? You didn't print anything I said the last time. It's a twisted system, that's why. Now go away.”
Houston, of the Upper Newtownards Road in east Belfast, was handed a suspended sentence following his convictions in February.
Distressed
He claimed that Saied Nemeti, his victim, had approached him five days before the run-in and described him “a racist c***”.
Mr Nemeti, who became visibly distressed while watching video evidence in court, denied the allegation.
Footage of the incident showed both men in a heated exchange before Houston put his arm Mr Nemeti's neck, threw him to the ground and held him there with the help of two other men.
The victim, a father of two who described himself as a Persian, told the court he had lived in Northern Ireland for 25 years.
He said the street preacher “tortures” the public and had told him to “go back where you came from” in a previous encounter.
A PSNI officer said both men were arrested outside Sports Direct in Belfast city centre, but Houston resisted.
The defendant admitted the situation had spiralled “out of control” and said he had phoned police to tell them he had made a citizen's arrest.
A prosecutor asked him: “Did you tell him to go back to his own country?” Houston replied he had not.
He also denied preaching racial hatred and said he worked closely with two black women.
After the prosecutor said his Maga hat was likely to annoy people, the pastor replied: “In your opinion because you are a liberal.”
Convicting Houston of the offences, District Judge Anne Marshall said she was “astounded” he thought he had a defence to the charges.
She told the court there was “no reason whatsoever for a citizen's arrest” and she had “no hesitation” finding him guilty.
Houston has 43 previous convictions, the most recent in 2004.
Judge Marshall ruled out probation, telling his barrister: “I don't get the sense he's going to comply.”
Houston screamed “I don't recognise this court” before being warned he would be taken to the cells if he continued.
He was sentenced to five months in prison suspended, for three years.
In 2014, he stood for election to Belfast City Council for the Ulster Unionist Party but failed to gather enough votes.
