Parades Commission rules on march through mixed town by republican band whose Facebook is filled with IRA postings

Banna Fliuit Naoimh Phadraig (simply St Patrick’s Flute Band in Irish) plans to march through Kilkeel in Co Down this Sunday.

The parade would take its 30-or-so members from Newcastle Street at 11.30am to the Town Hall (also known as the old Vogue Cinema) via Bridge Street, Greencastle Street, and Newry Street, stopping along the route “for a 10 minute display”, according to the 11/1 form.

The march is to “celebrate St Patrick’s Day,” according to the organisers.

The commission said the parade “may cause community tensions”, particularly the route alone Greencastle Street, where there is a churchyard – Mourne Presbyterian Church – where members of the security forces are buried (and which has a large statue of a soldier outside in tribute to the men killed in the two World Wars).

Co-incidentally, it was where the funeral was held on Tuesday for Maynard Hanna, a former RUC man, chairman of the town’s Schomberg Society, and organiser of its 11th Night festivities, following his death last Saturday.

Local clergy and politicians expressed concerns about the timing of the parade too, with the potential for it to clash with church attendance.

The commission has ruled that the band must only play a single side drum beat along Greencastle Street.

The band will be restricted to playing only hymns outside Kilkeel Presbyterian Church on Newcastle Street, and outside Christ Church Church of Ireland on Newry Street.

The remaining conditions were the usual standard ones the commission always issues: the band must have “due regard for the rights, traditions and feelings” of people in the area, must not be “sectarian, provocative, or threatening”, and no paramilitary clothes or banners should be on display.

Parts of the town centre (through which the parade will pass) display unionist bunting during marching season, along with an Orange arch.

However, Kilkeel as a whole is religiously mixed.

The 2021 census found that out of 6,633 residents of the town, 2,514 were Catholic (38%), whilst 3,136 belonged to one of the main Protestant churches, or listed themselves as “other Christian” (47%).

The Facebook of the band carries repeated postings about the IRA.

Posts include:

“Remember Ireland’s patriot dead – south Down remembers” (next to a picture of two men with AK47-style assault rifles and the message “wear your lily with pride”);

An image of a memorial stone and a teatowel honouring H-block prisoners;

A picture a bodhran with IRA riflemen on it and the phrases “unfinished revolution” and “Portlaoise jail”;

An image of IRA convict Bobby Sands;

What appears to be a paperweight bearing the infamous image of the IRA’s “sniper at work” signs;

A framed photo of a gunman in a balaclava, alongside a quote from the IRA Army Council’s 1984 New Year statement promising to oust “the British” from Ireland, along with the words “victory or death” in Irish.

That last item was actually a prize in a raffle.

"The band is doing a bonus ball for this lovely framed picture,” a post next to it said

“Numbers are £2.50 each. Once again thanks for your support and good luck” (59 people bought tickets).