The Five Demands

Love Ulster plans another protest in Dublin – outside the GPO at Easter (NewsHound)
Dublin is bracing itself for another loyalist invasion. Hundreds of Love Ulster demonstrators plan to hold a controversial parade on southern soil.
Fierce rioting followed their last attempt to march as more than 1,000 republican protestors took to the streets.
The city centre was brought to a standstill as republican youth fought running battles with gardai who were attacked with rocks, bottles and fireworks.
Businesses were smashed and cars set on fire in an orgy of violence which cost €10million.
The Love Ulster organisers’ latest plans will raise republican fury even further. They want to parade past the GPO at Easter, a hallowed date in the nationalist calendar.
Loyalists bands will be invited to take part and some of the marchers will wear Orange sashes. The organisers have already notified gardai of their intentions.
Willie Frazer, head of IRA victims’ group FAIR, said the rally was to highlight the Irish state’s “collusion” with the IRA during the Troubles.
FAIR has compiled “a damning catalogue of evidence” showing the Southern authorities either actively colluding with the Provos or turning a blind eye to their activities, Frazer claimed.
“We’ve repeatedly asked for a meeting with Enda Kenny to discuss this matter. The Taoiseach hasn’t even graced us with a reply.
“He won’t meet us so we’re bringing our case to him on the streets of Dublin,” the IRA victims’ campaigner said.
He accused the Irish government of hypocrisy for supporting an independent public inquiry into solicitor Pat Finucane’s murder while “ignoring collusion in its own back yard”.
Evidence at the Smithwick tribunal that rogue gardai helped the IRA was “only the tip of the iceberg”, Frazer said.
He agreed that holding the march on Easter Saturday would be seen as deliberately provocative but said it was a desperate move because nobody listened to Protestant victims.
“The only way to get an audience in this country is to kill people or do something controversial – and we’re not prepared to kill people. Staying quiet and being good boys and girls doesn’t work,” he added.
Love Ulster’s last attempt to parade in February 2006 had to be abandoned as the rioting erupted and loyalist demonstrators were bussed to the Border with a gardai escort for protection.
Frazer said IRA victims couldn’t be held responsible if there was serious violence again.
“We’re not setting out to cause trouble. If republicans react violently to our democratic right to march, that’s their business,” he added.
Frazer said FAIR’s dossier on alleged Irish state collusion with the IRA showed that the IRA was given 400 weapons from an army barracks in Dublin in 1970.
He said it also included evidence that the Southern state funded the Provos at the start of the troubles and set up training camps for them.
He claimed the Republic had been “a safe haven for terrorists” throughout the conflict and failed to provide proper Border security.
Frazer said in 1975 when the IRA shot dead his father Robert, a UDR man, a British army helicopter followed the killers to the Border but then had to stop because it lacked permission to enter Irish airspace. “How despicable is that,” he added.
The Love Ulster march is supported by South Armagh pastor Barrie Halliday. “The Queen went to Dublin in person to deliver an apology for the perceived wrong of hundreds of years of British rule.
“We want an apology from the Irish state for the injustice inflicted on us,” he said.