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Kevin McDaid's wife Evelyn, who were set upon by a loyalist mob
Flowers and messages left by wellwishers
March 14, 2010
VOL 27 NO 11
'We knew this was coming'
Kevin McDaid was beaten to death outside his Coleraine home because Catholics dared to fly their flags, writes Michael Clifford
Community worker Kevin McDaid
Back in the old days, a curfew bell used to ring through Coleraine nightly at 9pm. The bell tolled for the town's Catholics, instructing them to return across the river Bann to their ghetto in Killowen. By the time the practice ended in 1954, the tolling had been relegated from instruction to tradition, but still held huge symbolic significance. The town council's decision to discontinue the practice was informed by budgetary considerations, rather than any attempt at conciliation.
Last Sunday, a few tricolours were raised above Somerset Drive in The Heights area of Killowen. Nearby, at home, Kevin McDaid was living through his last day, one that would end with a vicious beating.
The Heights area is now described as mixed, but is probably as nationalist an area as you will get in a Protestant town. The flags were ostensibly raised for a sporting occasion. Celtic and Rangers were playing on the final day of the Scottish Premier League. Both had a chance of winning the title, depending on results. As it was to transpire, Rangers took the title for the first time in four years. These things matter greatly in the working class estates of Northern Ireland.
Flying flags is second nature in the north. Travel through Armagh and observe the pockets of minority Protestant villages or estates where the Union Jack is prominent, flown with pride and defiance.
Such displays by the local minority tradition are not permitted in Coleraine. The Taigs are expected to keep their heads down, to know their place. The town is a stronghold of the UDA. Torrens Knight is a local, celebrated killer. He was convicted of murdering 12 Catholics in two incidences – one of which was the Greysteel massacre – in 1993. When he was released under the Good Friday agreement, Knight was carried shoulder high through one pub in the town centre.
Coleraine sits near the mouth of the Bann in Co Derry. It is described as a "bustling town", and includes in its precincts a campus for the University of Ulster. Roughly 80% of the population is Protestant.
Flying the tricolour
On Sunday, the tricolour went up in The Heights, but it was raised for more than just a sporting occasion. Confidence has infected the Catholic minority in the north over the last few years. Many are buying into the notion of parity of esteem. The bad old days of oppression, followed by organised murder on all sides, is over. Catholics in areas like Coleraine are eager to assert their identity. Doing so is supposed to be an entitlement under the new dispensation.
Word spread fast that the tricolour went up. DUP MLA Adrian McQuillan said afterwards that he was in contact with the police on Sunday afternoon to inform them that flags had been erected. "I just asked the police to keep an eye on the situation and make them aware of it," he said.
At some point, word came through to Scott's bar in New Market Street in the town, a favoured watering hole of loyalists. Over 100 patrons were in the bar, watching the football and drinking. Between the drink, the football and the flags, tensions began to rise. The police were eager to quell any potential for trouble. At least one officer entered the bar, and engaged in some form of negotiation with individuals. It is understood that an agreement was hatched. Nobody would go up to The Heights looking for trouble, and the flags would come down the following day. It is unclear when exactly the exchanges took place.
Up at The Heights, they were expecting trouble. A makeshift barricade consisting of a horsebox was erected at the entrance to Somerset Drive. Over in Scotland, Rangers won the day. Ordinarily, it might be expected that victory would lead to celebrations. In Scott's bar, celebrating were interpreted by some as inflicting viciousness on the Taigs.
The cars drove into a lane off Somerset Drive sometime after 9pm. Up to 40 men got out, wielding pick axe handles and baseball bats. Some of them began to take down the tricolours. At home, around the corner, 49-year-old Kevin McDaid heard the commotion. McDaid was a plasterer by trade, but latterly, he put most of his energy into community work. The immediate area had had its share of social problems and there have been tensions between the two traditions. The father of four was to the fore in attempting to build up the community. His wife Evelyn is Protestant.
McDaid knew two of his sons were around outside. He went out and was immediately set upon by the mob. Another local man Damien Fleming received a similar trashing. Evelyn McDaid attempted to intervene and was beaten black and blue. A pregnant woman from the area appealed to the attackers to stop. She also was beaten.
McDaid's son Ryan picked his father up as the mob retreated. They stumbled around the corner to the back door of the family home. McDaid collapsed and died soon after. The official cause of death was a heart attack.
Death threat
Ryan McDaid spoke publicly on Monday about the killing of his father. At 11.40pm on Tuesday, a police officer visited the family home and handed him a standard blue sheet, which contains the official notification of a death threat. Even in bereavement, Taigs are expected to know their place in Coleraine.
Some of the reaction spoke volumes. The DUP man McQuillan focused on the flags. "Tit-for-tat all the time. What reason can you see for there being tricolours up yesterday afternoon, a Sunday afternoon? None other than to get a reaction from the loyalist community, and they certainly got a reaction this time, which is very sad."
He later apologised for the remarks, but there was no escaping the subtext. Catholics in the town should know their place, and not be aggravating the thuggish element of loyalism.
The Police Ombudsman is investigating the attack and all that led up to it. The PSNI has confirmed that there were officers in the area, as tensions were high. How quick they responded will be a subject of investigation, as will the negotiations with loyalists who were consuming drink. There will also be a focus on how much time elapsed between the negotiations and the attack.
On Thursday, nine men ranging in ages from 18 to 50 were charged in relation to the killing. Six were charged with murder, three others with assault and affray.
"It's my firm belief that there was a UDA involvement," Sinn Féin councilor Billy Leonard told the Sunday Tribune. "And the police should never have entered into negotiations with loyalists who had been drinking. We knew this was coming. We knew that somebody was going to die and we warned the police. We knew the viciousness of these people."
Last August, a group of up to 100 entered the same area and attacked local people who were preparing an internment bonfire. Leonard says tension has been building since then.
According to PSNI figures, there has been a major rise in sectarian crime in the town at a time when incidents across the north have been on the decline. While overall figures were down 3% in 2008, the number of sectarian incidents including wounding, injury and intimidation are up 95%. There have also been a number of pipe bomb attacks.
'Know their place'
The SPLP's John Dallat puts much of the increase in attacks down to the small nationalist community attempting to assert itself, as is its right.
"Loyalists will not accept any culture in Coleraine except their own," he says. "Catholics are expected to know their place."
It has always been thus. Dallat remembers one occasion two decades ago when he was issuing campaign leaflets outside a church in the town. The parish priest, a Canon Murphy, approached him and cautioned him about leaving leaflets in a prominent position.
"He told me, 'the curfew bell may not ring loudly in Coleraine anymore, but it still rings'".
Through the week, wellwishers left flowers and messages and Celtic jerseys on the railings at the back of Kevin McDaid's house, where he fell and died. Attached to one bouquet was a simple message. "RIP Kevin. From someone who never knew you. All I ask is why."
May 31, 2009
Comments
#2
David commented, on June 1, 2009 at 9:45 a.m.:
We really have a long way to go yet, my heart goes out to the nationalist community
#3
Michael McLaughlin commented, on June 1, 2009 at 11:32 a.m.:
Councillor McQuillan did not apologise for his remarks. Rather he qualified them by claiming that he did not know someone had died. Anything short of murder is presumably ok. Also the remarks were made on the Monday following the attacks when it was clear that Mr McDaid had been murdered. No Unionist has yet issued an unequivocal, unqualified condemnation of the attack
#4
Gary commented, on June 1, 2009 at 12:03 p.m.:
The PSNI are also investigating the flying of tricolours in the area on the day of the attack, as if it is a jusification for the mobs behaviour.
Its time unionism/ loyalism and the Kevin Myers set focused on this lynch mob mentality in the protestant community. Still no Justice for Robert Hamill either, which only increases the popularity of dissident republicans.
#5
gearoid commented, on June 1, 2009 at 12:36 p.m.:
As a northern nationalist I am appalled, but not surprised, at the relatively muted response in the 6 counties to this lynching.
The DUP have adopted their usual role of explaining away the sectarian vein that runs through loyalism. Gregory Campbell (DUP MP) was on local news last week and spent the vast majority of time condemning NOT the murder, but the crime and anti-social behaviour in the Heights estate!
While there was (justifiably) a mass outcry in the media here after the murder of the british troops. It was basically business as usual in media outlets after one day's cursory discussion of the lynching. No books of condolences, no online petitions, no public demonstrations.
As discussed in the article above, too many people in the North seem to hanker for the days when nationalists knew their place.
#6
Andrew McCann commented, on June 1, 2009 at 1:18 p.m.:
Since when was 'Catholic culture' co-terminous with the automatic desire for an all-Ireland state and the symbols that go with it?
It is all very well to mention 'parity of esteem'. Equality has been entrenched in Northern Ireland's civic and political culture to a far greater extent that anything your own rather lacking little country has been able to muster.
The problem that I and thousands of other Unionists have is that the nationalist minority, in exchange for full participation in local government, were expected to recognise the legitimacy of NI place within the UK. Flying the flag of the Irish State, which is demonstrably NOT the flag of Northern Ireland, does not dovetail with that responsibility.
For so long as elements within nationalism demand a role in the running of NI without the necessary quid pro quo of ensuring its stability and constitutional continuance, then for so long will Unionists reject most manifestations of their culture, with the brutal savagery perpetrated by evil elements within loyalism visited periodically on totally innocent people such as Mr McDaid.
#7
Gearoid 2 Andrew commented, on June 1, 2009 at 4:42 p.m.:
The GFA reflects and indeed formalises the contested nature of the constitutional status of the 6 counties. Nationalists have the right to an irish identity and the right to peacfully endeavour to reunite the 6 counties with the rest of ireland. Unionists have the right to be british and attempt to preserve that link.
The GFA - accepted by all political parties allows for the transfer of sovereignity (from Britain to Ireland) if and when the majority desire it. Nationalists didn't simply abandon their own legitimate political aspirations for seats at Stormont.
Nationalists are perfectly entitled to fly their national flag. That it annoys some elements of unionism does not negate this right.
BTW isn't it a sad reflection on unionism that not one of their political representitives attended Mr Mc Daid's funeral. Obviously opposing loyalist murder gangs and sectarian lynchings does not play well at election time.
#8
Michael McLaughlin commented, on June 1, 2009 at 7:27 p.m.:
Andrew McCann appears to believe that one has to be a Unionist to participate in politics in the North of Ireland. Parity of esteem is a concept which recognises that there are conflicting national/political loyalties and they must be allowed to be expressed. It is the refusal of people like Mr McCann to accept views other than unionism which underlies the "brutal savagery" of Coleraine.
#9
Anthony R. Lipsi commented, on June 1, 2009 at 8:19 p.m.:
To Mr.McCann, The Irish Catholic community is proud of it heritage and culture, no less than yours. If what you say is true, am I to believe that your community would not fly British flags should Catholics become the majority? Then they deserve that same right. Welcome to the 21st century. Anthony R. Lipsi
#10
Barry commented, on June 1, 2009 at 10:31 p.m.:
Mr McCann,
You will no doubt point to your description of Mr McDaid as "a totally innocent" man as proof of your reasonable nature, yet your causal analysis of the events of last Saturday, as inferred from the above posting, is identical to that of the lynch mob.
The quality of your prose doesn't get you a pass on this.
I, for one, am disappointed that your community and representatives have not taken this opportunity to send the same unequivocal message to the nazi scum that act in your name as was sent - by Dublin, Belfast and London - to dissident republicans over the past months.
#11
Dan Bradshaw commented, on June 2, 2009 at 8:59 a.m.:
Are we to return to the bad old days when bad old Paisley incited mob violence when a tricolour was sighted in Belfast? The cheek of somebody to fly as flag!
Last I looked NI was a place where free speech was allowed as well as free expression of one's beliefs and ideology. That must include flying the flag of one's choice. If I choose to fly the German flag am I considered an outlaw? If I raise the flag of Lithuania in my front garden in Coleraine will I receive a visit from the authorities?
No more lame excuses, please. This had nothing to do with flags. Coleraine is just one more symptom of the festering sore of intolerance in the North, and in that town in particular it seems to be coming from one direction.
RIP Kevin, condolences to Evelyn and family.
#12
Andrew McCann commented, on June 3, 2009 at 8:23 a.m.:
There is a great deal of difference between the pursuit of aspirations and the deliberate attempts to destabilise a polity over which you have a role in governing. Look at how the SNP (however objectionable I find thier politics) operates devolution in Scotland. That fact seems to be lost on those too blind to see the republican agenda.
The tricolour is not the national flag of Northern Ireland, nor of anyone who lives therein. In return for full participation in government, nationalists are expected to work for the stability of Northern Ireland. Its 'contested' nature was settled under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
My thanks to the above contributors for helping me make up my mind for the Euro elections. That's one more vote for Jim Allister!
#13
Dan Bradshaw commented, on June 3, 2009 at 10:46 a.m.:
Are you the same Andrew McCann who regularly posts on David Vance's blog? If so, I'm wondering how you can vote for Jim Allister, being as how you live in Yorkshire.
I asked earlier why I should not be allowed to fly any flag I choose, of whatever nation, on my own property. "Nationalists are expected to work for the stability of Northern Ireland" you say. I should think that a lynching is far more destabilizing than the hoisting of a flag. But perhaps Yorkshiremen see things otherwise.
#14
Andrew McCann commented, on June 3, 2009 at 6:22 p.m.:
'Are you the same Andrew McCann who regularly posts on David Vance's blog?'
No, but his name provides a suitable pseudonym.
'I asked earlier why I should not be allowed to fly any flag I choose, of whatever nation, on my own property.'
On your own property you can and should fly what you like. The problem comes when the flag of the Irish State is flown other than in accordance with a person's private property.
I do indeed think a lynching is far more heinous than flying a flag, though not more heinous than having IRA terrorists in government. Perhaps the lesson of the 'peace process' for the morons who killed Mr McDaid is that 'violence pays'.
#15
coleraine catlick commented, on June 4, 2009 at 10 a.m.:
'Are you the same Andrew McCann who regularly posts on David Vance's blog?'
No, but his name provides a suitable pseudonym.'
odd then that this mccann's language is eerily similar to the guy on atangled web! he writes 'co-terminous' an unusual word it's usually conterminous and he misspells it with a hyphen exactly as andrew mccann did on august 14 2008. yes i googled it so can anybody lol. i think mr mccann should come clean!!!
#16
Jed commented, on June 4, 2009 at 1:59 p.m.:
Mr McCann,
You're basically saying that in return for participation in government, Nationalists (not militant republicans), should have agreed to give up their Irish hertitage and agree to be fully British - if not becoming unionists/loyalists/orangemen, then keeping their heads down and allowing others to parade their red white and blue culture 24/7.
Question: why the hell should nationalists have to agree to anything before being allowed in government?
They should have the same rights as anyone else from the beginning. Unfortunately this is not the case, as the DUP once refused to govern with the SDLP, simply because they are nationalists, and dirty catholics to boot.
The GFA was not about nationalists giving up their Irish heritage in order to govern, it is about both cultures and nationalities being equally respected by the other, albiet as a member of the UK (although only until the Brits can wash their hands of it when there's a majority nationalist vote).
So stop being offended by nationalist culture and their flag. It's time unionists stopped demanding that taigs respect their right to hate them.
#17
Andrew McCann commented, on June 5, 2009 at 7:45 a.m.:
'You're basically saying that in return for participation in government, Nationalists (not militant republicans), should have agreed to give up their Irish hertitage and agree to be fully British.'
Lovely play on words. What I actually said was that nationalists, in return for participation in government, should respect the legitimacy of NI place within the UK. The largest party of nationalism does not even say its correct title.
'The GFA was not about nationalists giving up their Irish heritage in order to govern.'
Nationalists conflating the issues of heritage and political rebellion, once again.
'although only until the Brits can wash their hands of it when there's a majority nationalist vote.'
An argument rooted in the same kind of sectarian hatred as the lunatics who killed Mr McDaid. There is no nationalist majority vote or indeed any sign of one.
#18
Gary commented, on June 5, 2009 at 1:57 p.m.:
"so long as elements within nationalism demand a role in the running of NI without the necessary quid pro quo of ensuring its stability and constitutional continuance, then for so long will Unionists reject most manifestations of their culture, with the brutal savagery perpetrated by evil elements within loyalism visited periodically on totally innocent people such as Mr McDaid."
You're a bigot Mr.McCann
#19
Andrew McCann commented, on June 6, 2009 at 6:13 p.m.:
...and, like most nationalists, you're in total denial, Gary
#20
Gary commented, on June 7, 2009 at 3:17 a.m.:
So Andrew, are you saying its acceptable for loyalists mobs to kill innocent Catholics until they learn their subservient place in northern society? go shrug your shoulders and blame it on the Taigs for flying their flags
#21
Annie commented, on June 7, 2009 at 8:18 a.m.:
I agree with Andrew 100% - it's like the Jews and the Holocaust. They brought it on themselves: provoking honest, decent Nazis by wearing the yarmulkes and having the funny names. They should have got their noses fixed and stopped taunting respectable Germans. The Taigs are the same: calling their kids Kevin and Rory, playing Gaelic games, praying to the mother of God (she wasn't even British): it's just being provocative: They're practically asking to be beaten to death by their fellow citizens. And stop picking on Andrew because he's from Yorkshire: he can't help it. You people are so bigoted.
#22
George commented, on June 7, 2009 at 2:03 p.m.:
visited Coleraine last weekend- and walking through the town centre at 3.00 in the afternoon were a group of youths( early 20s) wearing football shirts emblazoned with R.I.P. RYAN on the back- obviously meant for Kevin McDaids son Ryans attention.
That these yobs felt so safe and free to spout their sectarian hatred in front of the whole town on the busiest day of the week says it all about Coleraine and the poisioned statlet that is Northern Ireland.
Where is the book of condolances that any decent town would open for an innocent brutal death
Why was there no Unionist politian of any kind at the funeral
People in the south( like myself) dont really know what nationalists have had to live with in protestant towns like Coleraine, Ballymena and Portadown.
#23
michael commented, on June 8, 2009 at 2:29 a.m.:
i agree with annie 100%. im going to move into largely nationalist area maybe bogside or somewhere and erect union flags on lamposts and when my nationalist neighbours try and get to their homes me and some drunken mates will erect baracades across the roads and give them dogs abuse and tell them how in the early hours of the morning we are going to set fire to there homes with there children in them. And to top it off if someone gets killed or are badly hurt we will just throw our hands in the air, say we can't understand why anyone would want any trouble with us peace loving non criminal non sectarian people
#24
David Moorehead commented, on June 9, 2009 at 2:02 p.m.:
Nice piece of attempted justification of murder there Michael. Si it was all the Taigs fault that a large group of men who were drinking in a bar organised themselves into cars, armed themselves and tried to beat another man to death and severely assaulted two women, one of which was pregnant?. I suppose that it was Kevin McDaid's fault for both getting himself murdered and then getting that death threat put on his son? Your attempted excusing of murder is the epitome of the sickness and inhumanity which runs through sections of NI, [but I suppose that he was only a Taig after all].Disgusting!
Your bilious exoneration of murder is the stark mirror image of Andrew McCann's more veiled excuses.
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Thank you for recounting the details of this appalling incident. It must be questioned if the police played a responsible role.