Outrage after sectarian song played outside church again

Bishop Donal McKeown has said Northern Ireland is still a place where “confrontation rather than conciliation is the name of the game”.

The last Orange parade of this year’s marching season caused outrage last Saturday, when the sectarian Famine Song was once again played outside a Catholic church in Belfast.

Eyewitnesses reported that a loyalist band taking part in the Royal Black Institution parade ignored a Parades Commission determination and played the sectarian song as it arrived at St Patrick’s Church on Donegall Street.

In 2012, violence erupted when the Young Conway Volunteers marched in a circle directly outside St Patrick’s while playing the Famine Song, and this led to an apology from the Royal Black Institution.

The parade on Saturday passed off without incident, but Sinn Féin culture minister Caral Ní Chuilín, who stood with a group of protesters opposite St Patrick’s church, said the playing of the song was “a real provocation” and called for dialogue on the issue of parades in the area.

Meanwhile, Bishop Donal McKeown has said Northern Ireland is still a place where “confrontation rather than conciliation is the name of the game”.

Speaking at the weekend, the Bishop of Derry said “political attempts to deal with the past and with how we celebrate it have failed to deliver much progress”.

Referring to the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the 1994 ceasefire in Northern Ireland, he stated: “We are still not a society at peace with itself.”