McGuinness calls proposed loyalist march provocative

THERE have been calls for the banning of a planned loyalist band parade outside a Catholic church in Harryville, in Ballymena, Co Antrim, at the weekend.

The Alliance party's deputy leader, Mr Seamus Close, said it was "fanning the flame of bigotry" while Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein described it as "a deliberate act of provocation".

Some 22 loyalist bands are preparing to take, part in the parade at Our Lady's Church and are understood to want to time it to coincide with the end of the Mass on Saturday evening.

The RUC has yet to make a formal announcement about whether it will allow the march to go ahead.

However, sources within the RUC have already indicated that permission will be given for the march on the basis that Harryville is an overwhelmingly Protestant area of Ballymena.

The Harryville Residents' Association has applied for RUC permission for the parade, which follows five months of picketing outside the church.

Loyalists are protesting against nationalists who blocked Orange marches in the village of Dunloy, Co Antrim, last summer.

Mr Close called the planned parade "unadulterated provocation and incitement". He called on the police to refuse permission, a view echoed by his party colleagues in the Ballymena area.

The Workers' Party has called for the banning of the parade, which it described as "blatantly sectarian".

The party's Northern Ireland secretary, Mr Tommy Owens, said that "no matter what the rights or wrongs of the Dunloy situation, the intimidation and sectarian provocation of the Roman Catholic congregation at the church in Harryville, cannot be justified in any way.

The congregation, he said, has not been responsible for any decisions at Dunloy and should not be used as a scapegoat and made to undergo this nightmarish gauntlet of blatant bigotry and sectarian hatred".

The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, has appealed to the demonstrators to hold their parade after the Mass is over or to pass the church "quietly".

The SDLP has said the parade will inevitably increase sectarian tension in the town.