Unionists face Orange Order complaint over Ronan Kerr funeral

Two Ulster Unionists attended funeral mass for murdered Catholic PSNI constable despite ban The Protestant Orange Order in Northern Ireland has become embroiled in an embarrassing controversy after one of its lodges demanded that two Ulster Unionists be disciplined for attending a requiem funeral mass for the murdered Catholic police constable Ronan Kerr. Under the Orange Order’s rules, members are not allowed to attend the Catholic mass, even though thousands of its members flout the ban – particularly in the countryside, where many Protestants live side by side with Catholic neighbours. A hardline Orange Lodge in the Sandy Row area of Belfast has put forward a formal complaint to the institution about the decision by the Ulster Unionist leader, Tom Elliott, and the Stormont minister Danny Kennedy to attend Kerr’s funeral in April. The police officer was murdered after anti-ceasefire republicans placed a booby-trap bomb under his car outside his home in Omagh, Co Tyrone. A letter to the Grand Lodge of Ireland from the Sandy Row lodge accuses the two Ulster Unionists of “selling their principles for political expediency”. Elliott and Kennedy are both prominent members of the Orange Order in their native counties of Fermanagh and Armagh. The complaint has caused widespread anger across the community in Northern Ireland. The widow of the first PSNI officer shot dead by republican dissidents, Constable Stephen Carroll, denounced the Orange Order ban, describing it as “antiquated”. Kate Carroll said Elliott and Kennedy’s attendance at the mass was “groundbreaking” and she was “delighted to see that people as prominent as them were there to show solidarity with police”. A spokesman for the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland said: “The complaints procedure is a private matter.” It is understood that it was the only complaint from among 1,200 Orange lodges on the island of Ireland. The complaint will be taken up by Elliott and Kennedy’s respective Orange county districts, and it is expected that no disciplinary procedures will be taken against either man. Northern Ireland guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 15, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.