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Home Page > News > Far-right British group hurl racist anti Irish abuse during Liverpool parade

Far-right British group hurl racist anti Irish abuse during Liverpool parade

James Larkin march ends with 23 arrests

HILDA HIGGINS,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, July 24, 2012, 8:12 AM

Updated Tuesday, July 24, 2012, 8:12 AM

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Sit down protest by far-right groups attempting to stop the march on Park Road, Liverpool.

Photo by David Colbran

Up to 23 people were arrested in Liverpool last Saturday after a British extremist group crashed a parade to commemorate the life of James Larkin, an Irish trade union leader and socialist activist.

The anti racism and fascism march was organized by the James Larkin Society and was led by the Liverpool Irish Patriots Republican Flute Band.

In the days leading up to the march, the far right group had branded the parade as an IRA march and urged protesters to oppose and confront “Irish republicanism in the city of Liverpool.”

“Over the past several years the city of Liverpool and north west england has seen the rise of anti-British feeling projected on them by immigrant families from the Republic of Ireland,” the poster read.

The Irish Times reports that the majority of the protesters were young, male, and tattooed. Some of them were locals, others appeared to have travelled especially for the day.

“F*** off back to Ireland, ye murdering bastards,” one male protestor screamed, before he was later arrested.

At a further point in the parade a group chanted, “Rule Britannia”, or “No surrender to the IRA”.

Despite the anti-Irish sentiment, the majority of those participating in the parade were not Irish.

“One Muslim man in his early 20s sighed in despair as he was accused by an obese black teenager of being “an IRA murdering scum,”” the newspaper reported.

Jane Calveley, a member of the UK’s largest public sector union, Unison, told The Irish Times: “This has come as a bit of a shock, it was always such a peaceful event. It has nothing to do with the IRA. I’m actually Jewish, anyway.”

Alec McFadden, president of the Merseyside Trade Union Congress (TUC) and anti-fascist campaigner, told the Liverpool Echo: “Today was all about celebrating one of the main trade unionists James Larkin.

“What shocked us was the number of people who came from outside Merseyside with the idea it was something to do with the IRA, it wasn’t.

“The police did a very good job in very difficult circumstances to ensure the march went ahead peacefully.

“I intend to write a report to the leaders of the council because of the influx of people from outside Merseyside who came to try to interfere with the march.”

Merseyside Police told the newspaper that 23 men and three women were arrested for minor public order offences.

Nster.com

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37 Comments

15 - 37 | See all comments

curtisjohnson | Aug 04, 2012, 11:48 PM EDT

Westbrits like ciaradexy only have an objection when people don't like the british.

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ciaradexy | Jul 31, 2012, 03:16 PM EDT

Who really cares? Some people dont like the Irish, some dont like Muslims, some dont like Jews and some dont like Americans. Get over yourselves!

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seanomelb | Jul 26, 2012, 09:11 PM EDT

I have read a number of articles on Gortz and never heard derogatory remark made by him. The Irish government took him and the IRA very seriously during ww2. Imprisoning him Mountjoy from where he escaped and was hidden by the IRA.BTW his second contact in Ireland was the daughter of Maude Gonne.

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citizen69 | Jul 26, 2012, 06:08 PM EDT

@sirpeter: Major Hermann Goertz was the chief Nazi spy parachuted into Ireland. In his reports discovered in Germany he describes the IRA as: "Rotten at its roots … an occasionally willing but generally unreliable guerrilla movement that caused more concern to the Irish government that it did to the British... riddled with informers and led by drunks".

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sirpeter | Jul 26, 2012, 04:24 PM EDT

citizen69.Let's be having your source????I'm aware of the plan "Kathleen" by IRA Chief of Staff,Sean Russell.I'm not aware that the German high command considered them unreliable drunks though.Can you furnish me with those exact words?Or are you a liar?

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sirpeter | Jul 26, 2012, 03:33 PM EDT

FallsRNat.Seamus I know I didn't keep your imagination in order for a while.But "genocide against border protestants?"lolololol.It's winter in Aussieland at the moment where you are now.You're going to lose your mind completely when the heat of the Aussie summer comes.

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citizen69 | Jul 26, 2012, 01:50 PM EDT

... (cont.) The intercepted report contained a diagram of the Short & Harland aircraft factory, a plan of Sydenham aerodrome, details on the British army, the names and addresses of British officers, and a scheme for sabotaging the Belfast telephone system. The map also showed RUC police barracks and it was commented by the IRA that ‘in this occupied area, they are really a military rather than a civilian force’. A ‘special note’ from the IRA explained: ’Re the symbol coloured light blue, it may be noted that the road thus marked, is the Falls Road, the chief site of Nationalism, while the square is the Prison, where some 300 to 400 Irish Republican soldiers are imprisoned.’. What they were saying here was; Please dont bomb the Falls or the prison but have a field day with everything else. A vetran IRA member was featured in a 1998 documentary where he confessed of the IRA's involvement with the Belfast Blitz and how he was now so ashamed of it. Around 300 northern IRA members were involved with intelligence gathering for the Nazis. After the war further Nazi documents were uncovered in Germany revealing the full extent their involvement with the IRA (whom they considered unreliable drunks), including 'Operation Kathleen', the IRA plan for a Nazi invasion of Ireland... Who's feeling stupid now?

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citizen69 | Jul 26, 2012, 01:47 PM EDT

@seanomelb: After the first Nazi bombing raid on Belfast, the IRA produced a fourteen page survey of the damage caused by the German Luftwaffe and provided information and advice for the Nazis. The typescript IRA document was entitled Comprehensive Military Report on Belfast and was ‘issued by the DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE in cooperation with the MILITARY INTELLIGENCE OFFICER of NORTHERN COMMAND’. It came to light on 20 October 1941 when Helena Kelly, an IRA courier, was arrested in Dublin by Irish authorities and the document was found in her handbag. It was clearly intended for the Nazis. The IRA report gave a detailed account of the damage caused by the Luftwaffe and identified targets that had escaped destruction. There was also a map on which the IRA had marked ‘the remaining and most outstanding objects of military significance, as yet unblitzed.’ The IRA suggested that if these objectives were ‘bombed by the Luftwaffe as thoroughly as the other areas in recent raids’, Belfast would ‘be rendered a negative quantity in Britain’s war effort’....

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Kilsally | Jul 26, 2012, 11:11 AM EDT

If this was a genuine Larkin event they would have invited the Orange Order as during the Belfast Dockers Strike in 1908(ish) the leader of the Independent Orange Order and trade unionist worked with Larkin and indeed there was a collection taken up on the Twelfth for Larkins work.

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Kilsally | Jul 26, 2012, 11:09 AM EDT

IrelandNorth - indeed they did, guns which were used to fight the Germans shortly afterwards. Seems to me the protestors were anti IRA not anti Irish.

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KilkennyCats | Jul 26, 2012, 10:00 AM EDT

One word: bigots.

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seanomelb | Jul 26, 2012, 03:37 AM EDT

Prove me wrong sad man. Well said Curtis,remember Falls is an ex British army grunt (and hasn't stopped grunting)posing as an Irish nationalist he took the side of the stickies(official IRA).They were the communist cadres planted in Sinn Fein and made a balls of their takeover bid and he calls himself a nationalist the temerity of the joker.A nationalist and a serving member of the British army sounds like an oxymoron LOL

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DanOLoingsigh | Jul 26, 2012, 01:58 AM EDT

Of course Seano and Knee miss the point of my posts…again!! What is the point? Before getting on that ‘high horse’ and ‘looking down’ at the ‘historical illiteracy’ of others…better to check your own facts…that’s all…

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curtisjohnson | Jul 25, 2012, 08:25 PM EDT

I also do not recall anything comparable to the triumphal marches into indigenous neighborhoods - including the banging of war drums, etc.

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curtisjohnson | Jul 25, 2012, 08:22 PM EDT

@FallsRNat - sure you are. "a war of almost genocide against border protestants during the troubles" [!] That's an hilarious fiction. Please provide your evidence of "genocide" as defined by the United Nations or World Court. I assume you have evidence comparable to the types of massive and regular pogroms unleashed by the northern supremacist statelet on the indigenous population? How about the murder and assassination of Irish civilian non-combatants by the british state as documented in the O'Loan report (for which she received multiple death threats)?

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