4 June 1998 Edition
Editor's desk
A former schoolfriend of dissident Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson tells me that the little chap had an appropriate dramatic persona when he was younger. In a performance of the musical Oliver, young Jeffrey played the Artful Dodger.
The prospect of peace has caused consternation within the ranks of the RUC. There are, experts tell us, three times as many of them as a peaceful society would need. That means a lot of RUC men and women are sitting around twiddling their thumbs (or adding up their sizeable pension contributions).
But ways are being found to occupy them - at the expense of those other worthy public servants, traffic wardens.
In Newry the traffic wardens have been told that their overtime is to be cut and the slack is to be taken up by the highly trained, professional RUC.
Another little time-filler for them has been funeral duties. In Newry now, funerals appear to be accompanied by a full scale security operation. Armed RUC personnel seal off side roads, divert traffic away from the funeral route and solemnly salute as the cortege passes. The irony, of course, is that the RUC now show far more respect for Newry's dead than they have ever done for the living.
Many people in high places will be breathing a sigh of relief that Loyalist killer Robin Jackson - known as The Jackal - went to his grave last weekend without spilling the beans on his links with British Intelligence. For twenty years his contacts supplied him with information to kill nationalists. He organised the Dublin and Monaghan bombings with the help of British Intelligence and he killed Sam Marshall in Lurgan at the behest of a senior RUC Special Branch officer.
You can read all about him in The Committee, Sean McPhilemy's book on collusion between loyalist death squads and the RUC/British Intelligence. It is not published here but is available in the US.
Poor old Gazza. As Oscar Wilde would have said, you would need to have a heart of stone not to laugh your head off.
Big Jack Charlton wasn't laughing. He did feel sorry for Gazza. ``There are times when he infuriates you,'' Jack said on Tuesday, ``but apart from hurting himself, he has done very little damage to other people.''
Jack forgot Gazza's wife, Sheryl, whom Gazza hospitalised after beating her up. Not funny at all.
There has been a little furore over the Sinn Féin Youth logo. Some Alliance and SDLP young fogeys are outraged that it resembles an Easter lily coming out of a petrol bomb. They are, to borrow a word, calling for it to be decommissioned.
This is always the way. Those who are temperamentally inclined towards outrage - and that very much includes members of the SDLP and Alliance - will always find something to annoy them. They have got as worked up about the logo as they used to over IRA operations. Even the language is the same. Which makes me think that everything threatens their cosy little world.
I think it's a great logo. Very artistic altogether. Indeed, a thing to be proud of.
The prospect of peace has caused consternation within the ranks of the RUC. There are, experts tell us, three times as many of them as a peaceful society would need. That means a lot of RUC men and women are sitting around twiddling their thumbs (or adding up their sizeable pension contributions).
But ways are being found to occupy them - at the expense of those other worthy public servants, traffic wardens.
In Newry the traffic wardens have been told that their overtime is to be cut and the slack is to be taken up by the highly trained, professional RUC.
Another little time-filler for them has been funeral duties. In Newry now, funerals appear to be accompanied by a full scale security operation. Armed RUC personnel seal off side roads, divert traffic away from the funeral route and solemnly salute as the cortege passes. The irony, of course, is that the RUC now show far more respect for Newry's dead than they have ever done for the living.
Many people in high places will be breathing a sigh of relief that Loyalist killer Robin Jackson - known as The Jackal - went to his grave last weekend without spilling the beans on his links with British Intelligence. For twenty years his contacts supplied him with information to kill nationalists. He organised the Dublin and Monaghan bombings with the help of British Intelligence and he killed Sam Marshall in Lurgan at the behest of a senior RUC Special Branch officer.
You can read all about him in The Committee, Sean McPhilemy's book on collusion between loyalist death squads and the RUC/British Intelligence. It is not published here but is available in the US.
Poor old Gazza. As Oscar Wilde would have said, you would need to have a heart of stone not to laugh your head off.
Big Jack Charlton wasn't laughing. He did feel sorry for Gazza. ``There are times when he infuriates you,'' Jack said on Tuesday, ``but apart from hurting himself, he has done very little damage to other people.''
Jack forgot Gazza's wife, Sheryl, whom Gazza hospitalised after beating her up. Not funny at all.
There has been a little furore over the Sinn Féin Youth logo. Some Alliance and SDLP young fogeys are outraged that it resembles an Easter lily coming out of a petrol bomb. They are, to borrow a word, calling for it to be decommissioned.
This is always the way. Those who are temperamentally inclined towards outrage - and that very much includes members of the SDLP and Alliance - will always find something to annoy them. They have got as worked up about the logo as they used to over IRA operations. Even the language is the same. Which makes me think that everything threatens their cosy little world.
I think it's a great logo. Very artistic altogether. Indeed, a thing to be proud of.