Blair voices Drumcree frustration
THE leader of Portadown's Orangemen has backed Tony Blair's claim that Garvaghy Road residents' chief Brendan McKenna "took unreasonableness to an art form".
Darryl Hewitt, the worshipful master of Portadown District No 1, said: “I can’t even get the man to sit round a table to discuss the Drumcree parade issue.
“In the days that the Portadown District shunned talks, it was Brendan McKenna who said ‘No talk, no walk’, but when we changed our minds, he continued to act like the elusive Pimpernel and we simply can’t pin him down to discuss the issue.
“He keeps changing the rules and moving the goal posts.”
In his 700-page book A Journey, Mr Blair writes: “This guy MacCionnaith took unreasonableness to an art form. He conceded nothing, and I mean nothing.
“I’m not just talking about the substances of meetings. I mean where a meeting should be held. Who should be there. When it began. When it ended. What its purpose was. Who spoke first. Who spoke last. Who spoke in between first and last.”
Mr Blair added that Drumcree “people” in general “were the unreasonable of the unreasonable of the unreasonable, in the premier league of unreasonableness, who left every other faction, in every other dispute, gasping in their wake”.
And generally of Drumcree, he wrote: “The whole thing was a nightmare.”
Mr McKenna said last night he wasn’t concerned about anything in the Blair book.
“He has admitted publicly that he lied to move on the peace process in the north,” he added. “I’m not too bothered what he says about me or the residents’ coalition. He isn’t a man to be trusted.”
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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