Statement by North Belfast TUV Assembly candidate Ron McDowell:
“The Decade of Centenaries program announced by Dublin underscores the fact that for all the talk of a new, progressive Ireland with room for all views and everyone the reality is that there is a whole group in Irish society who the Republic give no thought to. The total absence of any reference to the Orange tradition in the three documents released by Dublin – which in total run to well over 100 pages – is telling. Nor does the word Protestant appear even once.
“Yet this was a time of huge challenges for the minority community in the Free State. Many thousands left with the Protestant population declining from around 10% to little more than 2%. Long established traditional Orange parades had to stop in the Free State as a community and a tradition were forced underground, sometimes by the threat of violence, an issue which was particularly stark in 1931 where a number of sinister incidents resulted in all Orange parades apart from Rossnowlagh ceasing.
“Where is the commemoration of the wanton destruction in the 1920s which saw Ireland lose much of its rich architectural heritage at the hands of the IRA?
“Why is there no mention of the Dunmanway Massacre of April 1922 when 13 Protestants were murdered, three of whom where disappeared in a chilling foretaste of what their blood brothers in Provisional movement would do half a century later?
“It is telling that while the Republic is so vocal about the alleged misdeeds of the security forces in Northern Ireland during 30 years of a terrorist campaign they still studiously avoid important issues about their own treatment of a minority community even after a century.”