BELFAST PERSPECTIVE
                          by Des Wilson
             from the Irish People of April 10, 1993
                              *****


                       STAGE MANAGED GRIEF

By the time the news got to America, the six thousand or so
demonstrators in Dublin's O'Connell Street (who had been
described by the Irish media as ten thousand) had become twenty
thousand. If the news had travelled further west, the number of
demonstrators might have reached colossal proportions, rivalling
the population of China, Russia and India.

The demonstrations, whose numbers miraculously increased as it
went west, was organized a week ago last Sunday by New Consensus-
-an offshoot of the Workers Party in Ireland, which had almost
disappeared when some members turned away from it and formed the
Democratic Left.

                              COPY

Persons who were frightened and hurt by what happened in
Warrington, England where two  children were killed when a bomb
placed by the Irish Republican Army exploded, went out gladly and
joined the demonstration. In an almost perfect copy of  the Peace
People of  the 1970's there was an enormous response to the call
for citizens to "go out and demonstrate their rejection of
violence."

                            INFLATED

When the citizens arrived at the demonstrations, whether six
thousand, as is likely, or twenty thousand as inflated by James
Clarity (James Lack of  Clarity in this instance) in the New York
Times, the message was almost exactly the same as that given by
the Peace People in the 70's: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are
against violence, so there will be another demonstration next
week...and another...and another...and another."

                         SINEAD O'CONNOR

This creative and meaningful message was backed up musically by
the Dubliners, who happened to be, strangely enough, in Dublin at
the time, and by  Sinead O'Conner who, having already proved her
mettle by tearing up a picture of the Pope, now announced her
horror at the death of the two children in Warrington. After her
performance, she sang the prayers of St. Francis of Assisi, a
prayer which observers remembered with interest had been recited
by Mrs. Thatcher, too--on the steps of Ten Downing Street.

Guardians of St, Francis' grace at Assisi must have watched
anxiously for  possible damage while  the saint turned over many
times in it.

To add to the ideological fervor and philosophical enlightenment
of the afternoon, Connor O'Brien--who is still alive--demanded,
as his contribution to a peace plan, internment of some of his
fellow citizens.

                           LIVINGSTON

And the peace demonstrators spat on a picture of Julie
Livingston, who  had been killed in the North by a plastic bullet
fired by British forces. The last part of the demo was not
rehearsed. of course. It occurred because some mothers and
fathers and relatives and friends of children killed by the
British forces in the northeast came down to Dublin to tell the
demonstrators that this had occurred. The demonstrators seemed
not to  have heard of it--or of more than one hundred children
who had died by British government violence in Ireland, either.

                             REFUSED

The mothers and other relatives from the North were refused leave
to speak to the demo. As one of  the organizers very logically
said, "To do so would be political, and it might offend the
British."

Members of the New Consensus demo on the ground were more
forthright. They asked how they had the nerve to come down there
"on their day", and they spat on them.

The mothers arrived with dignity and went home again with
dignity.

                          NEW CONSENSUS

And New Consensus arranged its next demo for yet another Sunday.

Plenty of time to work up a good spit.

On a previous occasion, when New Consensus held a "peace rally"
in the Mansion House, Dublin--with Allen Shatter, Connor O'Brien
(who  was alive then too) a man named Norris and various Workers
Party members--Bernadette Devlin MacAlisky said she had
experienced at that meeting a more intennse and chilling wave of
hatred against her personally that she had ever felt in her life-
-a life abundantly filled with meetings with loyalists,
opponents, Unionists, crackpots and many other possible sources
of hatred.

Patrick Mayhew, British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland,
graciously approved of the demo and said that this is what the
Irish really should be doing. All  the time. 
                              *****

The Irish People is the weekly publication of Irish Northern Aid
Committee. It is available by subscription from:

Irish People
363 Seventh Ave
New York, NY  10001

tel: 212-736-1916
fax: 212-279-1916

for further info on Ireland on Peacenet, see "reg.ireland".