Nelson’s Column
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Obersturmfuhrer McCausland is understood to be happy to continue to take his seat in the big welcoming edifice called Stormont, itself synonymous with freedom and civil rights over the decades. He will work behind the statue of the Dublin Gun Runner Edward Carson, who you will recall, threatened the British state in Ireland the early years of the last century and caused a mutiny amongst officers in the Curragh.
Nelson also sports on his CV leadership of the Ulster Clubs in North Belfast, an organisation that was entirely dedicated to mutual understanding and tolerance and opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement by whatever peaceful means were necessary. In his political life he has a track record of leaving one party and joining another whenever they do not reflect his zeal and fervour. He truly puts the mental in fundamentalism.
So who then is this man charged with the development of Culture in the North? According to our friends in the Irish News Nelson previously led a campaign against St Malachy’s Grammar School reopening playing pitches in a largely Protestant area of north Belfast. ??He said he would be happy for St Malachy’s College to use the pitches if an Orange hall was opened on the Andersonstown Road in west Belfast.
In September 2002 Mr McCausland defended a Belfast City Council decision not to fund a film festival on the grounds that the title of the event included the word ‘Celtic’.??”Northern Ireland is not a Celtic country or a Celtic region and its people are not Celtic,” he said.??”Support for this festival would involve recognising the spurious claim that Northern Ireland is a Celtic country. “It would be a denial of the cultural rights of the majority of people in Northern Ireland.”
We will be in contact with his office directly to ask if he would consider writing for Talking Balls under the byline Nelson’s Column. We’ll keep you posted.
