Crumlin Road

Stephen, can you tell me this?

this?Why is it that the people of Garvaghy Road are protesting? And the ne- Republican, National Republicans on the Crumlin Road on the 12th of July, a parade can walk down the road, banners, bands, whatever, with no trouble.

Now, granted there's a minimal protest, but there's no trouble.

Why, why is the Garvaghy Road residents different to the Republicans on the Crumlin Road?

Well, you know the, you know the background, you know the history of what happened on the Garvaghy Road.

You know all about it, don't you?

But up at home, there's not a big huge amount of rugby.

In saying that, where the team at, the club I first started going to, Malone Rugby Club is on, uh, the Crumlin Road, which would be quite a working class area in Belfast.

Yeah.

Um, but it's very, very rare.

And then add to that the political implications of all of that.

And do you really think in, in Northern Ireland, we have a long history, both on nationalism and unionism, of leading figures going to jail for public order offenses, right? Ian Paisley went to or, to jail in Crumlin Road for a public order offense.

And if history is any guide to these things, guys, it will not be a big problem politically for the people who get a conviction in these cases, right? Some will wear it as a badge of honor.

"I was there defending this community, and this is, this is what I got for doing so." That's just the history of Northern Ireland, isn't it? Let me take some calls.

So, uh, Mary Lou McDonald came from a different country to tell people in Portadown-

All right, Jason-

... that they would never be able to walk down the Crumlin Road

I haven't got time to get into that as well.

It's just such a waste.

And I remember even the parade, that time that we were stopping the parade coming up through the Ardoyne, or not through the Ardoyne, but going up the Crumlin anyway at the shop fronts when it was coming back that Saturday evening.

I think it was a Saturday evening.

coming up the shankle then we started getting we were up at the shop fronts but we started getting information coming up through that look these guys are coming back from the field they're completely tanked up they're off their heads on whatever they're totally intoxicated and they're shouting that they're gonna basically march through any police line they encounter You know, and that's what kind of, obviously, that's what they tried to do when they reached our lines.

Tusla, if you're listening, I was only messing

... banging, banging down every door on the Crumlin Road.

[laughs] Where does she live?

[laughs]

Uh, the police had an assessment 20 year, years later, given that, you know, Twaddell Avenue and the Ardoyne shops had been reconciled.

The Crumlin Road parade last year took place under very similar restricted circumstances.

Um, the Ormeau Road has been reconciled, and of course, the Apprentice Boys in Derry.

So the police, you know, had a lot of, of, of reference material to go on, and nearly 30 years later, a lot of the police officers won't have, uh, the corporate memory, uh, you know, of just how bad it was in the past, where the whole thing is, is toxified, uh, by people in, in the margins on, on both sides.

You're talking there about water cannons, right? I'm going to give you an instance.

If you remember the parade coming down the Crumlin Road, you can buy the shops that are doing.

The very first year it was banned to come up.

The Protestants and the Orange Men and the Bonds were attacked Well, I can't, if I'm not mistaken.

He was in prison.

Burnhouse which is the working out place on the Crumlin Road where life sentence prisoners go to be rehabilitated back into society.

He had failed a drug test so was pretty sure he was going to be returned back to prison again and instead went on the run and sparked a huge manhunt and when he was eventually caught it took 10 months for him even to be prosecuted for that and when he was given six months a sentence of six months which if you are serving a life sentence that will just run concurrently along with your sentence though it's nothing, you're sentenced to nothing basically.

And you have to ask then where is the incentive to return and where is the deterrent to not go on the run if you're going to be such a late and almost non-existent punishment in relation for that.