Easter 1916
BY A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
661 believe that this weekend is a crucial one .
-111Unless order is kept, there can be no peace or prosperity for Northern Ireland."
With these words on Easter Saturday night Sir Arthur Young chalked up yet another crucial weekend, and as usual it is very difficult to point to anything that has been resolved one way or another.
With the Easter Rising of
1916 to commemorate. Republican feeling was running high, enough in itself to guarantee that Loyalist feeling would be running likewise.
The perennial "very ugly situation" occurred in Armagh, Lurgan and Derry with tension running high throughout the province.
Mr. Paisiey was out with the Orangemen on Easter Saturday in Armagh. They had the full regalia of orange sashes, white kid gloves, banners and bowler hats. Paisley assured his supporters "Armagh is a Protestant city and always will remain one. We have proved this today." On Monday it was the turn of 3.000 Roman Catholics to parade with the tricolour and armbands of the I.R.A., commemorating the dead of 1916. "Where are the Protestants today?" they shouted. and vented their spleen in insults to the police and troops.
STONES THROWN In Derry a Catholic mob threw stones at a Catholic priest. Fr. Anthony Mulvey, who. arms linked with some 35 young people, had urged them to go home.
Sir Arthur (Softly, Softly) Young was himself narrowly missed by a rock. 'They carry the Pope in a sedan chair, but they carry `Softly, Softly' in a helicopter," said Mr. Paisley in his invective against him. A rather more effective mode of transport when you have to direct what a Government spokesman described as the biggest security effort yet raounteet in Northern Ireland. Sir Arthur professes himself proud of his nickname, "because one does not do the job by pressurising. You must do the iob with persuasion and goodwill."