Responding to the Sinn Fein/IRA leader Mary Lou McDonald’s comments on Orange parades in a united Ireland TUV Ballymena Councillor Matthew Armstrong said:
“The Orange community will treat McDonald’s comments with the contempt they deserve. The PR disaster which the Dublin Government suffered after the mere suggestion that the Royal Irish Constabulary might be recognised told Unionists all they needed to know about how they would be viewed in Sinn Fein’s utopian united Ireland.
“McDonald’s claim that there would be space for Orange parades in a united Ireland raises three issues. Firstly, does she really expect that Unionists should be grateful that their history and traditions would be recognised one day a year? Why wouldn’t freedom of assembly be a given in any modern society? Secondly, how does this claim that we would be allowed to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne square with Sinn Fein orchestrated opposition to Orange culture across Northern Ireland?
“But the biggest question McDonald has to answer is this – if she believes Orange parades would have a place in a united Ireland why was she involved in the 2000 protest which caused the cancellation of Dublin and Wicklow Orange plans to hold a parade and plaque unveiling in Dawson Street to commemorate the first meeting of the Grand Lodge of Ireland held in April 1798?”