The past week has witnessed worrying and frustrating developments in the North. The start of the Orange marching season has been marked by an orgy of violence directed at the nationalist community. The attacks have been made possible by the stance of the Orange Order in attempting to force the issue of parading through nationalist communities and denying the need for dialogue with residents. The Order has been backed to the hilt in all of this by the DUP. What is of most serious concern has been the willingness of the British Government to accommodate the worst excesses of Orange and unionist intransigence, with the outrageous and totally unjust arrest of Belfast republican Seán Kelly. Free article

Is the DUP attempting to re-assert the Orange state? To northern nationalists the signs currently emanating from unionism and its political leadership are sadly familiar. Even more worrying is the apparent willingness of the British and their administration to accommodate it. It comes as no surprise to republicans that the most reactionary elements of unionism have rallied behind the banner of Ian Paisley's DUP. It is, of course, their natural home. It comes as little surprise that the DUP is attempting to use the annual mobilisation of those reactionary forces, the Orange marching season, to assert its ascendancy within the unionist family. Free article

North Belfast was plunged into a weekend of sectarian violence in the aftermath of the Orange Order's 'Tour of the North' last Friday, when the PSNI forced bandsmen and loyalist paramilitary hangers-on past nationalist homes on Belfast's Crumlin Road. Free article

Members of the family of the late Eddie Fullerton, accompanied by Sinn Féin elected representatives, travelled to Dublin from Donegal last Thursday to bring to Leinster House their demand for a full, independent public inquiry into the May 1991 assassination of the popular Sinn Féin elected representative. Free article

The PSNI say they are pursuing new lines of inquiry after a reconstruction of the LVF killing of GAA official Seán Brown appeared on the British television programme Crimewatch. According to the PSNI, more than 30 callers contacted them on Wednesday night 15 June after the programme was broadcast. Free article

Republicans from throughout Ireland gathered in glorious sunshine last Sunday at Sallins, County Kildare, for the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration at nearby Bodenstown. Sinn Féin's first Údarás member, Donegal's Gráinne Mhic Géidigh, chaired the proceedings. The day's main speaker was recently-elected Sinn Féin MP for Newry/Armagh, Conor Murphy. He said there should be no doubt that Sinn Féin's primary aim is the unity and independence of Ireland as a sovereign state. Free article