Fermanagh Traditional Unionist Voice held a highly successful Burns Night dinner on Friday past which was addressed by party leader Jim Allister and TUV vice-chairman Keith Harbinson.

Speaking after the event local TUV chairman Samuel Morrison said:

“The local branch was delighted to be able to welcome our leader and vice-chairman to the west of the Province. The turnout was most encouraging and a good time was had by all. Sometimes people have the idea that politics is a dry and dusty pursuit. Events such as that held on Friday past showed that Traditional Unionist Voice also provides opportunities for its members to mix socially.

“The branch would like to thank all those who contributed to the success of the evening, many giving of their services voluntarily. Many people commented on how they had enjoyed the evening and we look forward to holding similar events in the future.

“The evening has really encouraged members ahead of our Annual General Meeting to be held towards the end of February.”

Following a meal which included traditional Scottish fare such as haggis, tablet and shortbread there was an auction and entertainment from a piper who played a number of hymns and Scottish favourites.

The evening was rounded off with speeches from the TUV candidate in the Dromore by-election last year, Keith Harbinson and Jim Allister.

Mr Harbinson applied the poetry of Robert Burns to the situation in Northern Ireland. In the course of his remarks the TUV vice-chair stated:

“Robbie Burns or the Bard as he is known in his native Scotland was by all accounts quite liberal in his political outlook.  I would not have much in common as far as that goes however I found this line in his poem “Death and Dr Hornbook”
‘Some Books are lies frae end to end’
“It got me thinking, had Robbie Burns had a prophecy of the DUP manifesto?  Or in his other famous work “To a Mouse” when he says
‘The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley;
and leave us naught but grief and pain for promised joy’
perhaps the life and times of Ian Paisley.

“I say this of course in jest, and apologise for quoting the great man so out of context, but one other quote, which struck me with a greater degree of resonance was a line in his work entitled “Man was made to mourn” where he writes
‘Mans inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn’,

“Very poignant words given the Eames-Bradley recommendations that were launched this week.”

Mr Harbinson went on to round on the proposal for a shared day of remembrance in the Eames-Bradley report:

“We already as a community actively remember our dead, just as on 8th November 1987, when at 10.43am 11 people who had gathered to remember the fallen were savagely murdered by the IRA at the War Memorial in Enniskillen.  On the same day of course a second bomb four times as large failed to detonate 20 miles away in Tullyhommon where local members of the BB and GB were parading.  The significance of course is that this neutral date of the Summer Solstice will not offend those who carried out such an atrocity under the very same deep-rooted sectarian hatred of the Unionist community.

“All fatalities in Enniskillen that day were civilian except for Edward Armstrong a member of the RUC Reserve; no warning was given, and with no warning came no chance.  It is these same people that are now set to be rewarded under proposals that at their sheer contemplation leave this report tainted beyond repair.

“One person who witnessed the carnage stated, “I wish the bombers could have seen what I have seen.”  That person was the then Church of Ireland Primate Archbishop Robin Eames, who having buried more true victims of the IRA onslaught than anyone else must surely appreciate the pain which he has caused to those and their families who have suffered so greatly.”

Jim Allister also attacked the Eames-Bradley report, laying the blame on the Belfast Agreement:

“This has been a week which exposed the sham and moral turpitude upon which our post Belfast Agreement society is built. When you reach the point when murderers are equated with those they murdered, then the moral dearth in high places is truly shocking. 

“While I make no excuses for Eames/Bradley and have nothing but disdain for their monstrous suggestion of wages for murder, I do have to recognise that when the highest political offices in the land, OFMDFM and the Executive, are constructed on the same amoral equivalence of democrat and terrorist, then what do we expect? Treating Martin McGuinness – the personification of the IRA’s murderous campaign – as fit to be Joint First Minister, is no different from treating the “volunteers” of his IRA as equal to their victims.  Likewise, the hypocrisy of those who condemn Eames/Bradley, while every day they clutch IRA/Sinn Fein to their bosom in government, arises from the same loss of moral direction. Be it the political rewarding of terrorists with Executive office, or their financial rewarding through “recognition payments”, both are wrong.

“The maxim of “that which is morally wrong, can never be politically right”, is as applicable to Peter Robinson as it is to Lord Eames.

“Soon, in the European Election, the people of Northern Ireland will give their verdict on all these issues. Being the only candidate opposed to terrorists in government, I will be able to look the voters in the eye and afford them an honest invitation to join me in saying of terrorist-inclusive government, “Not in my name”. I will need no verbal gymnastics to explain or justify my stance.”