| Culzie | Date: Monday, 2012-04-23, 10:07 PM | Message # 1 |
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| Belfast's mayor Niall O Donnghaile to quit post early to avoid meeting Queen on Jubilee visit
By Lesley-Anne McKeown
Monday, 23 April 2012
Belfast's Lord Mayor is to stand down from his office early to avoid meeting the Queen.
Sinn Fein’s Niall O Donnghaile is to stand aside and let the DUP take up the First Citizen position in time for the diamond Jubilee celebrations at the start of June.
City Hall sources have confirmed that, for the first time, standing orders have been changed to allow the new Lord Mayor — tipped to be the DUP’s Gavin Robinson — to be elected at a meeting on Friday, June 1, ahead of festivities marking the Queen’s 60 years on the throne.
Normally, only special meetings are held on Fridays.
Jim McVeigh, Sinn Fein group party leader on Belfast City Council, said: “We knew that the Jubilee celebrations were coming up and had a discussion with the DUP about that. We were happy to come out of that role and they were happy to come in a little bit early because of the issue of the anniversary.”
But unionists have described the Sinn Fein move as a snub.
Buckingham Palace has declined to release dates for the Queen’s visit to Northern Ireland for security reasons.
However, last year Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said he would meet the Queen if he was elected President of Ireland.
By contrast, however, Mr O Donnghaile — an avid GAA fan and fluent Irish speaker from the Short Strand district of Belfast — refused to be drawn on the matter.
It is understood the decision to appoint a new Mayor a week early came after a mutual agreement between unionists and nationalists in Belfast.
In February, Sinn Fein, which is the largest party on Belfast City Council with 16 seats, backed plans to fund events marking the Jubilee — including the £56,000 council-run grant scheme to help community organisations in the city organise their own Jubilee events.
Mr McVeigh added: “We as republicans obviously are not keen to celebrate the Jubilee in any shape or form. But, we have supported the recent round of funding when it came before council and we are happy for unionists to celebrate if they so wish. But, it is not something that we would be involved in as republicans.
“This is as much about accommodating the unionists as about us not wanting to be part of the Jubilee celebrations. We are republicans and have no great love for the royalty in any shape or form. We do not want to be part of the celebrations. A unionist Mayor would love to be on that seat when a member of the Royalty or maybe even the Queen herself comes to Belfast.”
Last year, Mr O Donnghaile sparked a political storm after he refused to present a certificate to a 14-year-old Army cadet during a Duke of Edinburgh awards ceremony. He also caused outrage after removing royal portraits from his parlour.
This latest move has again angered long-standing unionists.
“It is definitely a snub,” said former Lord Mayor Jim Rodgers. “It is unfortunate in view of what the Deputy First Minister said last year — that he would meet the Queen.
“When I was Lord Mayor I met a wide range of people from both sides. I was criticised both publicly and privately for it — but I believe you have to lead to the city and you have to be above politics. Unfortunately this current Lord Mayor has been one of the most political that I can remember in more than 20 years in council.”
Meanwhile, the DUP’s deputy Lord Mayor Ruth Patterson said: “I thought that the current Lord Mayor would have learned a severe lesson from when he refused to present an Army cadet with a certificate last December.”
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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| RSAUB | Date: Tuesday, 2012-04-24, 4:23 AM | Message # 2 |
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Colonel general
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| Happy days, sooner he leaves office the better.  Although he is what we need, regardless of what some people think of him, he reinforces every negative sterotype we have of the shinners, if they were all like him and not like some with their flowers and roses trying to swallow us into the Big Green Bog. This current Lord Mayor even gets the backs up of liberal Prods.  more of the same please, wake up some of these stupid blind sheep who call themselves the loyalist community.
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| Culzie | Date: Tuesday, 2012-04-24, 2:39 PM | Message # 3 |
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| Hopefully they wiill wake up. But I think too the DUP are rubbish by giving him a way out,letting him off the hook. These people will do anything to get their face in the paper. If he had stayed on, Ruth Patterson could have filled in for him which would have showed him up in even a worse light. But now he is playing the game of doing the unionists a favour. He says he recognises how much devotion unionists have to the monarchy so he stepping aside as a favour to the unionists. Once again they can come out 'smelling of roses' as a very magnamious and giving people. That DUP crowd are ratbags. They had him on the hook but because of their own lust for power have let him off it.
Old Herbie Ditty refused to meet Dublin's Lord Mayor and was pilloried and hounded because of it. But this guy slips to the side, aided and abetted by the DUP
What was it Carson said about give us men whom the lusts of office etc. The DUP are not the type which Carson was referring to. 
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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| RSAUB | Date: Tuesday, 2012-04-24, 7:27 PM | Message # 4 |
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Colonel general
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| Very true, that's why I had my doubts about Stormont being used for the destination of this big parade. How would the men of 1912 and the founding fathers of modern day British Ulster feel about the present love-in with the PIRA scum by the folks on the hill, by a pack of vultures who are only interested in their big salarys and will laugh and chuckle away with vermin who have murdered so many of our people, and these same vultures are still committed to their cause, yet our lot, well Peter Hain showed just what to do to sort them out, threaten to cut their salarys for a few months, and by god principles go out the window.
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| Culzie | Date: Tuesday, 2012-04-24, 8:15 PM | Message # 5 |
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| Right On there RSAUB.  Jim Allister was shot down by the deputy speaker and ruled out of order when he asked about McGuinness's role in the murder of the two cops from Ulster murdered in Eire. Shinners have got it made. They are responsible for well over a thousand deaths and yet sit in goverment. Of course that because they are voted in by the Catholic people. Not all Catholics vote for them but the fact remains thats who got them where they are today.
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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| RSAUB | Date: Tuesday, 2012-04-24, 11:28 PM | Message # 6 |
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Colonel general
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| Very true, facts speak for themselves, the vast-majority of the Roman Catholic community right across the age-groups vote for them on mass! That's a fact that many choose to ignore, but it's a fact!
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| Culzie | Date: Friday, 2012-04-27, 5:17 PM | Message # 7 |
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| Probably say you are sectarian or bringing religion into it if you hit them with this fact. But fact it is. They voted for the murderers of men,women and children.
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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