A brief break in the Day of Woe
Jun. 30th, 2006 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hellisonThis was just too funny to pass by...
FURORE erupts over government grant to Orange Order to make Twelfth Parades a tourist attraction. The headline is a work of impressive understatement - or perhaps there were so many they could have gone with they just gave up and went for the simplest -
Orange Grant Gets Mixed Reaction
Full of the usual quotes on either side, but my favourite is the SDLP with - "They are already helping tourism, but it is Donegal that gets the benefit every July...
It's... baffling really. This is an organisation whose members in the past 10 years have spent the days running up to the 12th blocking all the roads in and out of NI, blockading the airports and the ports - but now that there's no fuss they can make over Drumcree or whatever, they want tourists to come here and watch??
Not to mention the fact that Everything, EVERYWHERE shuts down for the 12th. Everything. You can't go anywhere since most of the roads are blocked for parade routes. There's mimimal public transport. None of the shops are open. Most of the pubs shut and the ones that stay open are ones you REALLY don't want to go to. Especially if you're a tourist. I have no idea if cinemas and theatres etc are open because I've never even *tried* going out that night. But I very much doubt it.
This has, I have to say, cheered me up no end; Northern Ireland Politics, you never fail to bring the farce. Don't ever change (not that there's much likelihood of that).
FURORE erupts over government grant to Orange Order to make Twelfth Parades a tourist attraction. The headline is a work of impressive understatement - or perhaps there were so many they could have gone with they just gave up and went for the simplest -
Orange Grant Gets Mixed Reaction
Full of the usual quotes on either side, but my favourite is the SDLP with - "They are already helping tourism, but it is Donegal that gets the benefit every July...
It's... baffling really. This is an organisation whose members in the past 10 years have spent the days running up to the 12th blocking all the roads in and out of NI, blockading the airports and the ports - but now that there's no fuss they can make over Drumcree or whatever, they want tourists to come here and watch??
Not to mention the fact that Everything, EVERYWHERE shuts down for the 12th. Everything. You can't go anywhere since most of the roads are blocked for parade routes. There's mimimal public transport. None of the shops are open. Most of the pubs shut and the ones that stay open are ones you REALLY don't want to go to. Especially if you're a tourist. I have no idea if cinemas and theatres etc are open because I've never even *tried* going out that night. But I very much doubt it.
This has, I have to say, cheered me up no end; Northern Ireland Politics, you never fail to bring the farce. Don't ever change (not that there's much likelihood of that).
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Date: 2006-06-30 02:12 pm (UTC)http://www.starfish.govt.nz/shared-graphics-for-download/orange-roughy-bin.jpg
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Date: 2006-06-30 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-30 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 08:42 pm (UTC)are they drinking something we can't get?
no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 09:48 am (UTC)