Those who fund the West Belfast Festival, whether public or private, should be challenged on seemingly annual IRA concert chants

A letter from Ron McDowell:
The closing concert at the West Belfast Festival on Sunday August 15 2021The closing concert at the West Belfast Festival on Sunday August 15 2021
The closing concert at the West Belfast Festival on Sunday August 15 2021

It seems to be an annual event for the West Belfast Festival to close with a concert with thousands of young people being lead in chants supporting a bloodthirsty terrorist organisation.

This is highly offensive to the majority of people in Northern Ireland who have always repudiated violence.

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It is particularly sickening because of the reminder we have had in recent days of what the IRA actually did.

Letter to the editorLetter to the editor
Letter to the editor

Attention rightly turned to the case of Yvonne Dunlop following tweets from Sinn Fein celebrating the man convicted of her murder.

How ironic that while the Western World is gripped with concern about what us likely to happen the women of Afghanistan, people in West Belfast celebrate the exploits of those who incinerated a young woman as part of their campaign!

Every year we have a repeat of the reprehensible behaviour.

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Every year we have the same calls to stop the funding to this concert. Every year the fuss dies down after a few days. This isn’t good enough.

Media outlets who regularly give lots of positive coverage to the festival need to force organisers to face up to the issues raised by this concern.

Those who fund the festival — whether public or private — need to be challenged on why they are associated with an event which has had this consent as the climax for many years.

The reality is that no one is surprised by what happened last night.

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We have come to expect it. That says a lot about the situation in which our country is in.

We owe it to the innocent victims of the IRA to take a stand on this. It is time to get serious when it comes to the West Belfast Festival’s celebration of terror.

Ron McDowell, TUV party secretary and North Belfast Assembly candidate

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