Drumcree: The Hill Unionism Will Die Upon?

Now, I suppose with the whole, as I say, that cliche, if they haven't gone away, you know, et cetera, et cetera, and numerous other cliches.

Over the years, you know, throughout the Troubles and post-Troubles, where we're in the, you know, so-called brittle peace, as it were.

There has been the legacy of all that, really has been the normalisation of killing, of sectarianism, of outrage, of hatred.

And on the back of that as well, we've seen the emergence, the very, very strong emergence of all our organised crime groupings.

And I suppose even when I think back to when I first joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary, I was only just 18 and I was put out of my home.

I've talked about this before in previous episodes.

I was put out of my family home by loyalists because it was at the time of the whole...

You know, the Anglo-Irish agreement and such was put out of my home by loyalists.

And then one of the first duties was actually parades because I think I passed out and then was stationed somewhere.

I think it was after kind of April, May time.

But anyway, the first kind of initial duties were orange parades.

And throughout that time, as you know, if you've listened to the podcast before, I'm not really a great friend of orangism, as it were, unionism.

And equally, I'm no great fanboy of Irish republicanism, especially the type of Irish republicanism that's happy to murder women and children.

But I think, and I guess it's just, obviously, it's just throwing my own tuppence in.

You know, how we've sort of came to this position is because, well, obviously, this is something that just reiterate that I have talked about before in previous podcasts.

And it is the reason, as I say, why I'm sort of binning, or not binning, but, you know, putting an end to the podcast as such.

But you will have – I've talked about loyalism slash unionism and the way it sees itself as facing this existential crisis with, I suppose, the looming calls for border poles, for the possibility of a United Ireland even within our lifetime.

And the way that unionism slash loyalism ties itself so closely to not so much Westminster, but to the crown, to the throne.

And with that, to the shadow, I suppose, of colonialism and the hegemony that was enjoyed by unionism from the establishment of the state up until the Troubles.

And I guess just up to the Good Friday Agreement where things were turned around.

But in saying that, I think unionism slash loyalism has always, especially during the Troubles and especially when it kind of splintered or fractured in the early part of the Troubles, because of the amount of, I guess, narcissism, with unionists, especially unionist leaders, as it were, or unionist politicians, and a lot of ego as such, that unionism has become extremely vulnerable to, I guess, infiltration, for want of a better word, by fascist groups, by right-wing groups, by right-wing think tanks.

And also, as I've said before, about, you know, the combat 18 movement, um association with the uvf and the uda and there's still sort of an intermingling of those far-right groups those neo-nazi groups with uh within loyalism and naturally they're all kind of um they would be um highly anti-catholic they would associate with um organizations such as the orange order and also they would see you know align themselves also uh i suppose for one of better with the plight of unionist Northern Ireland at the moment, the whole existential crisis that it's going through.

So I suppose in that sense, we shouldn't really be that surprised with John Cree.

It's almost like, you know, Alas, Stan, you know, this is the hell I'll die on now.