Fury as tourist body blanks Belfast Twelfth while boosting Pride and Feile - on Eleventh Night

In a social media post Discover Northern Ireland, a taxpayer-funded arm of Stormont, plugged seven events in Northern Ireland’s capital city that take place over July, August and September, stating: “Belfast’s Summer calendar is packed.”

They included the West Belfast Feile an Phobail, which in the past has been controversial due to booking high-profile shows from republican bands such as Kneecap and the Wolfe Tones, as well as the city’s Pride parade – which this year has barred all five Stormont Executive parties from joining in as part of a row over the banning of puberty blockers for children.

Absent were the city’s huge Twelfth celebrations, and the family-friendly Orangefest designed to be a tourist draw in Belfast.

The post went up shortly after 3pm on Friday, just as the whole of Northern Ireland got ready for the biggest day in the Orange calendar.

Stating “don't miss these seven fantastic events coming up”, Discover NI also plugged an Irish traditional folk music festival and a whiskey week, concluding with the hashtags ‘my giant adventure’ and “embrace a giant spirit’.

The post picked up a host of aggrieved comments pointing out the tourist body had blanked one of the summer’s biggest events, less than 24 hours before it began.

The TUV’s culture spokesman, Mid and East Antrim councillor Matthew Warwick, branded Discover Northern Ireland’s move “an utter disgrace”.

“The post gave prominent billing to a host of other events, including one that is explicitly republican in character, while not finding so much as a word for the Twelfth – the most significant expression of Ulster British identity, attracting tens of thousands of visitors and injecting millions into our local economy,” he said.

“Let’s be clear. Féile an Phobail continues to reflect an overwhelmingly republican ethos, yet this was promoted as part of the ‘giant spirit’ of Northern Ireland while the Twelfth was erased.

“This is not an oversight. It is the inevitable outworking of a devolved administration where the Sinn Fein minister responsible for tourism has zero interest in representing the unionist people or their culture. Under devolution, unionists are expected to fund and facilitate institutions that systematically sideline our identity while promoting events that undermine it.

“The Twelfth is not some fringe parade, it is central to the heritage of the majority community in Northern Ireland and recognised internationally as a major cultural and historical occasion. That a state-funded tourism body can ignore it entirely speaks volumes about the rot at the heart of the system.”

Arguing that a system under which “main cultural expression of the unionist people is ignored by its own tourism board” is “not worth propping up”, Mr Warwick said: “This is yet another reminder that devolution has failed the unionist community.

“What exactly is the point of Stormont if this is how it treats our culture?”

A spokeswoman for Tourism NI, which runs Discover Northern Ireland, said the post was “aimed at those thinking about taking a short break in Northern Ireland in future weeks” and spotlighted “a selection of the events due to take place at that time”.

The spokeswoman added: “The Twelfth of July celebrations were promoted by Tourism NI on our consumer website, Discover Northern Ireland.”