Row blows up over New York parade theme

Two members of Mayo County Council disassociated themselves from a call by the authority on the organisers of the event to reconsider the theme of this year's parade.

Mr. Sean McEvoy had tabled a motion calling on the organisers to reconsider the theme of the parade which is 'British genocide during the Famine.'

The motion was seconded by Labour councillor Mr. Johnny Mee.

However Castlebar Fianna Fail councillors Mr. Al McDonnell and Ms. Beverley Cooper-Flynn requested that they be recorded as dissenting from the decision.

Mr. McEvoy said he did not think it appropriate that a very long established parade such as that in New York should add to the heat of the Northern Ireland situation by adopting the 'genocide' theme.

"All it is doing is inflaming passions that are already over-heated," he said.

He pointed out that the economy of the North was way ahead of that of Ireland and that while Connaught could only sustain one third of a million people, the North, which was similar in size, supported 1.5 million.

"That is the reality. The Northern Ireland infrastructure has been built with millions from the UK and that compares with the difficulty we have in getting funds for our meagre infrastructure," he said.

He pointed out that they had ethnic cleansing, murder and mayhem, barbaric beating and mindless vandalism which could only result in a loyalist backlash.

"Everyone should refrain from saying or doing anything which will inflame the present tense situation," he added.

NATIONALIST VIEWS

"We have been a downtrodden nation. The famine was a great tragedy and not all of the blame could be laid on the British government and British landlords, but a lot of it could," he said.

Mr. Mee said it was a noble aspiration to want a united Ireland but that aspiration was not worth the spilling of a single drop of blood.

His thoughts went out to the man who was run out of his business because of a boycott. That was a form of ethnic cleansing.

However they also had to remember that discrimination was practised against nationalists as well.

He paid tribute to John Hume 'who was a voice of sanity in a morass of insanity, hatred and bigotry' and felt confident that Mr. Hume would not want the New York parade to be used to inflame the current tense situation.

"We should be very careful of the type of terminology we use," he said.

"There are plenty of people who appear to be oblivious to all pleas for sanity. We should not say or do anything that would encourage them."

Mr. Pat McHugh, chairman, said the term 'genocide' was a very emotive one and could prove damaging to the efforts of the many people trying to find a solution to the present difficulties.