More factually incorrect Unionist propaganda from David Adams and the Irish Times
Today's Irish Times (our alleged "Paper of Record" on this island) carries an extraordinary article by David Adams, which has the headline - "Bringing loyalists in from the cold", and which accuses Northern Politicians (ie moderate or non Unionist politicians in particular) of "sleepwalking" their way through the Peace Process.
David Adams - a former close associate of UFF commander Ray Smallwoods
There are basic factual errors in this article, which can be read here:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2013/0117/1224328950154.html
Chief amongst these errors is the assertion by Adams that the 40,000 incendiary leaflets about the flag issue that were distributed by the mainstream Unionist parties were only distributed AFTER the democratic vote to only fly the Union Jack on designated days. In fact, and as even those famous Belfast "dogs in the street" know, the leaflets that lit the torch for what was to follow by calling on loyalists to show their anger were distributed in the weeks BEFORE the democratic vote.
How could David Adams and the Irish Times get this basic and crucial fact so wrong?
I can only assume that their wish for a fact to be true actually blinds them to the awful reality. This article shows more evidence of a seemingly wilful blindness. There is no mention that the UVF was the major organiser behind the flag protests, nor that many of them have been deliberately staged at flashpoint interfaces. Instead Adams asks rhetorically whether politicians were unaware that loyalists would be "enraged" by their decision. Is neither Adams nor the Irish Times aware that the expunging of the old apartheid message that the Six Counties is purely British territory is a key element of the Good Friday Agreement? Moreover, is it beyond their grasp that Unionists are now a minority, not just in Belfast but in "Northern Ireland" as a whole?
This one eyed blindness is a perennial feature of Unionist responses to change as evidenced by last nights feral (and clearly loyalist weighted) Nolan Show audience. Republican violence is always in focus even when it no longer exists and loyalist violence is accepted as essentially being understandable. (What an irony - if a simple equality measure were to prove too much for Unionism and be the thing that brought their house down.)
But what is going on at the Irish Times? Does anyone in an editorial capacity actually read Adams's copy before it is published.?
Sleepwalking indeed.
Paul Larkin
Carrick, Gaoth Dobhair
Mí Eanáir 2013