Church pickets held again despite settlement attempt

THE Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, has called for an end to loyalist pickets of Catholic church services and nationalist boycotts of Protestant shops in the North.

"I think we ought to get away from this narrow sectarian approach," he said after loyalist protesters again picketed worshippers attending Mass.

Mr Trimble, speaking in Loughgall, Co Armagh, said one was a manifestation of the other and both were bad. "The cause and the effect are both wrong, I think we ought to get away from this narrow sectarian approach."

The demonstrations outside Catholic churches in north Antrim continued for a second weekend despite talks on Friday between the SDLP, DUP and local clergy, aimed at preventing the pickets.

The Orange Order has already condemned the protests.

On Saturday, about 70 loyalist protesters, mostly young men, lined the footpath across the street from the Ballymena church before 6 p.m. Mass. It was a smaller protest than the previous week when over 200 demonstrators blockaded the church. Nine people out of a normal congregation of 600 heard Mass then.

This time, RUC officers lined the street in front of the protesters, preventing them moving towards the church or the 150 Massgoers at whom they jeered

Protesters carried loyalist flags and sang The Sash during the Mass and afterwards as parishioners left the church. They jostled police and shouted abuse at Mr Declan O'Loan, one of two SDLP representatives on the 24 member local council. The protesters also carried placards with the messages "Blame the residents of Dunloy", "Don't re route parades but deroute priests" and "United we'll stand, O'Loan we'll fall".

As the protesters began jeering again Father Frank Mullan described it as "naked savagery".

The curate, who has spent 10 years in Africa, said he was "more frightened here in July (because of Drumcree) than I ever was in Nigeria during the Biafran war".

Mr Ian Paisley Jnr read a statement to journalists from the newly formed Ballymena Loyalist Residents' Association. He denied repeated reports that the protest was organised by the UVF.

"If the UVF organised this I would not be welcome here," he said.

The protesters were not trying to stop Catholics getting to church, he said. If it were the other way around and Protestants were trying to walk to a church in a Catholic town like Dunloy, the nationalist residents "would be out on the streets with hurley sticks attacking men and women and stopping them getting into their church. That's what makes this community ethnically different from the nationalist community in Northern Ireland".

Another demonstration by about 75 people was held outside the small Catholic church of St Mary, in the village of Bushmills, on Saturday and yesterday morning about 20 demonstrators protested in the village of Dervock. Both of these were quiet and orderly. The local DUP councillor, Mr David McAllister, said he wanted to keep it peaceful and did not want people from outside geltins involved.

After the Mass in Bushmills on Saturday, Father Seamus Clenaghan (75) approached the demonstrators and spoke to Mr McAllister. He said yesterday he had discouraged parishioners last week from attending Mass in Bushmills, but they kept coming. He also felt that if there was no media presence the protests would peter out.