I did not know Michael McGoldrick, though I will never forget him.
In the summer of 1996, we graduated from Queen’s University on the same day, and his name is included with my own and many others on the t-shirt provided to those who graduated together that July afternoon.
The picture of him smiling whilst wearing his graduation gown has been shared widely throughout the years. A young father who had completed a degree whilst maintaining a job as a taxi driver, with the ambition to continue his studies to join the teaching vocation.
He was murdered only days after his graduation, a victim of loyalist paramilitaries intent on committing murder and creating mayhem to force an Orange Order parade through the overwhelmingly Catholic Garvaghy Road area of Portadown. The three Quinn children would later become victims of loyalists pursuing the same cause two years later.
The Orange Order has never recovered from Drumcree. Such is the arrogance and lack of any sense of shame that typifies too many within its ranks that, to this day, the Portadown Lodge still applies to parade down the Garvaghy Road every week, purportedly to complete their 1998 parade. They stopped for a while due to Covid but have since recommenced their weekly applications.
The establishment of the Parades Commission in 1998 proved to be the most significant step in defusing tensions every summer. Whilst some parades continued to cause difficulty over subsequent years, the number dwindled after being resolved locally and within parameters encouraged by the commission.
The absence of conflict and contention makes everyone a winner, not least members of the order and their supporters for whom the day can be of particular significance for reasons personal and cultural.
In spite of this, unionist politicians continue to bitterly oppose the existence of the Parades Commission and the very notion of loyalist celebrations and commemorations being subject to any form of regulation.
Opposition to regulation is rooted in a deeply held perception within unionism that ‘the people’ retain an inalienable right to assert their Britishness without any form of constraint. One time DUP and then TUV councillor, Mel Lucas, expressed the sentiment perfectly more than a decade ago when rejecting criticism of flags erected outside a Catholic Church in Antrim on the grounds that “it’s all British - even the bits outside the chapel.”
This mindset led to parading controversies over many generations and is also behind the fierce opposition to regulations being in place to restrict the flying of loyalist flags in mixed communities and to end the anarchic scenes which unfold every summer around bonfires.
The excuse trotted out these days is that loyalists believe they are facing a cultural war which has as its purpose the eradication of Britishness from this part of Ireland.
As ever, facts are freely available to confirm the absurd nature of these allegations.
In 2019, the last complete calendar year not impacted by the pandemic, the Parades Commission reported some 2,300 loyalist parades having been held across the north of Ireland. That’s an average of six parades per day. This year, it was reported that there were in the region of 250 loyalist bonfires lit to mark the Eleventh night, including a bonfire in Larne which was almost 150 feet in height.
No sensible person would object to laws being enacted and enforced with the intention of compelling bonfire builders to be accountable for protecting those building and gathering to watch the fires burn and to protect local residents by ensuring fires are sited appropriately so that homes – never mind fire stations - do not need boarded up and hosed down whilst the fire rages.
The horrific injuries sustained by a teenager at a bonfire in Ballysillan would not have happened if these fires were appropriately regulated and stewarded, and the number of other near-misses this summer at bonfires confirms the need for clear and firm action to avoid fatalities in the future. Regulation would also make builders responsible and accountable for the toxic sectarian aspect of bonfire culture which was widely in evidence once again this year.
As each year passes, an increasing number of people from all backgrounds believe the police and public authorities must rein in the nonsense and act decisively in defence of what are vulnerable shared communities (in the case of intimidatory flags) and in defence of basic public safety expectations and decency in relation to these bonfires.
Don’t expect unionist politicians to take a lead. It will be up to the PSNI to finally fulfil their duties and responsibilities, having repeatedly failed that test over flags and bonfires up to this point.
We will all be the better for it if and when they do, including those for whom the Eleventh night and Twelfth mean the most.
