Themselves alone

"You had something that was working and now its not" - that's how Kevin Myers summed up the tragic sectarianisation of the Saint Patrick's Day parade in Downpatrick on today's edition of Talkback on Radio Ulster. Whatever your view of Myers when it comes to other matters it is hard to fault him on this one. Downpatrick has for many years now been an example for how we can have a successful event in Northern Ireland which genuinely unites everyone and one of the ways in which this success was secured was the exclusion of flags which were considered contentious (in short, no Union Jacks or tricolours).

Congratulations then must go to Sinn Fein councillor Eamon McConvey for finding a way to bugger it all up. He insisted marching with the Irish tricolour this year as, in his opinion, the Saint Patrick's Cross which was being distributed by the local council was a symbol of the Protestant ascendancy. The Saint Patrick's Flag certainly has a strange history (it has been used by everyone from Eoin O'Duffy's Fine Gael forerunners in the Blueshirts to the Police Service of Northern Ireland) however it has rarely been looked upon as a particularly contentious symbol. If anything I would imagine most people in Northern Ireland, if not the island as a whole, would view it with indifference. Apart from Eamon McConvey.

If I could ask the councillor one question it would be this: why now? Why after all these years - 25 to be exact - has the Saint Patrick's Flag suddenly become something to be offended by? Could he not have been offended by it before now? Or has he simply decided to develop his offence eight weeks before an election? The only other time McConvey seems to have got a tad upset was in 2003 when he objected to a Comic Relief campaign operating in the town during the Saint Paddy's Day parade (something which in itself sounds like the synopsis for an episode of Give My Head Peace). Eamonn O'Neill of the SDLP has accused the Shinner of dishonouring the flag by using it as a "taunt." Quite right too, though then again we tend to enjoy using flags as taunts in this part of the world.

If councillor McConvey really does desire the Saint Patrick's festival in his town to be an inclusive day out for everyone then he is clearly going about it the wrong way. On the other hand if he would like to transform it into little more than a Taig version of the Twelfth then he is probably heading down the right route. This is, however, not naivety; this is classic Provo politics. You sometimes wonder how they plan on uniting Ireland when men like Eamon McConvey's only goal appears to be to keep places like Downpatrick partitioned along sectarian lines.