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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— March - April 2012
Paisley doing an FF
The North’s Environment Minister Alex Attwood
has just approved a proposed golf-course near the
Giant’s Causeway in north Antrim. Attwood told
the BBC there are “strong environmental reasons
to refuse and strong economic reasons to say yes”.
The Giant’s Causeway is a World Heritage Site.
Local MP Ian ‘Baby Doc’ Paisley is pro-de-
velopment, and perceived as close to developers.
“This application has been processed for nine
and a half years – it is a terrible advertisement
for people who want to come and do business
in Northern Ireland”, Paisley says,
reminding Red Hand of the attitude
of at least one party down south
that isn’t always regarded as a DUP
bedfellow.
Ian Binnie of the Causeway
Coast Communities Consortium
particularly feared the ancillary
development: a -bedroom
hotel: golf academy; large clubhouse: and self-
catering lodges. “They are large houses, and they
may be sold off when the economy improves”,
Binnie said.
He fears the course may jeopardise the
Causeway’s position as the North’s biggest tour-
ist attraction and a World Heritage Site.“. There
are many sites where they have golf courses, there
is only one Giant’s Causeway”.
Quinn Quarry Questions
Séan “I won’t create another job”
Quinn believed in getting on with
development, often without
bothering with technicalities
such as planning permission.
The receiver to his business
empire has had to sort out some
outstanding matters.
Quinn Cement has applied to
Cavan County Council’s planning
department for permission for retention of a
hectare (approx acre) quarry drainage hole in
the Aughrim Quarry, just outside Ballyconnell.
The quarry has a chequered planning history.
In Quinn was allowed to move a pre-Chris-
tian portal tomb to the grounds of his Slieve
Russell Hotel, to facilitate excavation.
This is the tenth Quinn application for reten-
tion in Cavan in the past years. Among the
developments for which Quinn overlooked plan-
ning application were a . acre quarry and two
office blocks. Elsewhere Quinn’s Messrs Maguire’s
pub in Dublin City was unlawfully raised over its
original Georgian parapet and the Quinn Glass
factory, at Elton in Cheshire, was challenged by
Irish rival Ardagh Glass for lacking planning per-
mission before ultimately being retrospectively
authorised by the English Secretary of State in
. Nevertheless, he kept £ million in
grant aid.
Electric Audrey
A member of Bundoran’s ruling McEniff family
has misbehaved yet again. Audrey McEniff, sec-
retary of McEniff Holyrood, has been convicted
of stealing electricity for the Holyrood Hotel;
unlawfully interfering with an ESB meter; and
failing to take reasonable steps to make sure the
interference was discontinued. She is the wife of
Seánie McEniff, nephew of family Patriarch
Seán who, readers will recall, has been chair-
man of Bundoran Town Council times,
and a member for years. The electricity
news
Red Hand
A regular miscellany from the North
anton mccabe
Quarrying Quinn
stolen was to the value of €,. There was
also damage of € to the meter. Judge Kevin
Kilrane was remarkably lenient. He fined Ms
McEniff €, and ordered her to pay €
damages.
The Holyrood has a colourful planning history.
Since the hotel has applied to planners
five times for retention. The latest accounts, for
, are a colourful red, showing losses of
€,.
Meanwhile, the Donegal Democrat reports:
“Shock as Bundoran mayor is branded an ass-
hole”. Councillor Florence Doherty called mayor
Michael McMahon this mean thing after he
said “this country doesn’t need whistleblowers”.
Clearly, Councillor Doherty demurred.
Shquinn Féin
Even conservative commentators see Seán
Quinn as representing the unacceptable side of
Irish capitalism. Thus it is strange that Socialist
Sinn Féin in Fermanagh issued a statement on
January eulogising him: “For Séan Quinn to
be effectively destroyed by these people is unfair
stupid and disproportionate to what he gave to
this area and the country as a whole. I would like
to see the day when Séan Quinn can take back his
rightful seat in the Quinn Group offices, but until
that day, what’s in place is in place and we must
use peaceful, democratic means to change that
which we don’t like”.
Freestate Gaelgóir coppers
At the end of November Red Hand attended a pub-
lic meeting of the North’s policing board in Newry
– conducted in Irish. Two police officers, one a
Chief Inspector, addressed the meeting which
included a number of Sinn Féin members with
whom it was clear the police had built up a rap-
port, despite some problems.
Interestingly, a report on - recruiting
(under which % of recruits are to be Catholic)
showed that fifty percent of those Catholics
recruited were from the Republic not from the
Catholic working-class areas that have tradition-
ally rejected policing.
The PSNI has clearly got a good rapport with
some senior members of Sinn Féin. The old RUC
had built a relationship with those many nation-
alists called ‘Castle Catholics’, and mistook them
for the Catholic community. Could it be that it too
will start mistaking them for the wider Catholic
community – particularly those in alienated
working-class areas?
Special attention for Wong
A young Armagh City man, William Wong, has
been sentenced to an unusual ‘indefinite’ prison
term, with a minimum five years, for possess-
ing a crude explosive device of dubious viability.
Wong had pleaded guilty: such a plea usually
means a reduced sentence. Indefinite sentences
are usually imposed on sex offenders perceived
as incorrigible.
Wong is typical of young working-class
Catholic male in the estates on the west side of
Armagh. His family is concerned that, because
his father was Malaysian, he is being singled out
for special attention.
Careful with that poaching
The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) is
approaching Northern players from a perceived
Catholic background, seeking to persuade them
to declare for the Republic.
However, poaching players from the North is
more serious than poaching from England.
Sectarianism in football has mirrored soci-
ety. Latterly both have eased significantly. Now
even Linfield, the team that symbolised Loyalism,
has many Catholic players, the team most sup-
ported among its players is Celtic: and its captain
is Catholic.
Because of the historical background, the
Northern Ireland support has been overwhelm-
ingly Protestant – despite the team always being
very mixed. The popular manager, Michael
O’Neill, is a Catholic.
The FAI needs to tread sensitively. Its tac-
tics could lead to Protestant and Catholic teams
North and South of the border, respectively.
On the Bus
The Northern Executive’s announcement of
funding for the A dual carriageway was done
with a cuteness of news management that would
make the cutest hoor in Fianna Fáil envious.
In the Assembly, Finance Minister Sammy
Wilson announced he had found £mil-
lion (€.million) to build two sections:
Newbuildings (outside Derry) to Strabane, Co
Tyrone: and Omagh to Ballygawley, Co Tyrone.
The Irish Government is making a contribution
of £million (€.million). Even those sec-
tions depend on the result of a public inquiry, to
be released by the summer.
With the announcement, Wilson promised
, construction jobs with the road and other
projects.
Wilson made his announcement on th
February. That day it was announced jobs
to be lost in two call centres, in Armagh City and
Belfast. That evening, a report from Office of First
and Deputy First Minister on work of Executive
posted on the OFMDFM website. It found the
Executive had only achieved % of its targets
for implementation. Both pieces of bad news
were buried by Wilson’s announcement.
The A is to be the Northern part of a road
from Dublin to Derry and North Donegal. It was
to cost £million (€million), with each
government paying % of the cost. Objectors
have queried its viability. However, neither Bus
Éireann nor Translink (the North’s state-owned
transport company) is making public transport
more attractive.
Passengers, including peripatetic Red Hand,
travelling from the North on cross-Border
express bus services cannot buy tickets on-line.
Thus they cannot, for example, benefit from
reduced mid-week fares available on the rest of
the island”.
A Bus Éireann spokesperson said that this was
not possible because “Each company has a unique
IT system. Both companies are working together
to address this”.
Contrariwise, a Translink spokesperson said
the company “has not been approached by Bus
Éireann regarding the provision of special mid-
week fares”
Because of geography, buses and trains on
cross-Border routes pass through the North.
Because of an EU Regulation, they cannot carry
passengers between two points in the North.
Furious dumping
Last month, there was a reminder that illegal
dumping has eased, but not gone away. Graham
Furey, former president of the Ulster Farmers’
Union (UFU), was fined £, (€,)
for illegal dumping on land he owned outside of
Downpatrick. If he is compelled to remove the
waste, he will face a bill of ten times as much. The
waste was from the demolished Downe Hospital.
Convicted with him was the colourful skip hire
operator Elvis Kirk. Kirk was fined £,
(€,.). Furey is not a fringe figure. He
was an Ulster Unionist Party candidate in last
year’s local government elections, and narrowly
missed election.
Ulster says Yes to % of
planning applications
Statistics from the Planning Service show how
the Northern economy has eased drastically. The
statistics cover the second quarter of -
and show a % fall in the total number of appli-
cations including a % fall in applications for
single dwellings in rural areas.
There was a % fall in the number of deci-
sions made. Of these, % were approved, as
opposed to % a year earlier.
Linfield: many Catholic players
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