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A Co Armagh businessman and former member of the Orange Order has recounted how during political reconciliation discussions an offer was made to remove the Irish tricolor from Dublin Castle.
Ian Milne, who also participated in secret discussions to try to resolve the Drumcree marching disputes of the mid-1990s, has explained in a new book how he was invited to speak at the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation at the Castle. from Dublin in 2003.
Mr. Milne, who runs an entrepreneurial business in Portadown, Lurgan and Banbridge, as an Orange member and trade unionist, was invited to address the forum.
Unionists were reluctant to address the forum, which was established by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds in 1994 and then reactivated in 2002.
According to a biography of Milne, A Matter of Life and Death, written by Belfast-based journalist Ivan Little, the government seemed willing to go to any lengths to ensure that he spoke.
Mr. Milne said that when he arrived at Dublin Castle in January 2003, a man he took for one of the caretakers approached him with a “strange offer”.
“He asked me if I wanted to take the Irish tricolor from the building. He told me that he thought I would not want to speak under the Irish flag.
“But I said that the flag was the flag of his country and I was more than happy to continue with my talk. I told him that it was not always possible for me to fly my flag at home, but that he should always make sure that his flag stayed on the flagpole.
Adams ‘terrorist’
Milne said inside the castle he was sitting next to then-Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams. He said this happened after a government representative told him that he did not want to sit next to Mr. Adams, whom he described as a “terrorist.”
“I asked her if she wanted me to sit between her and Gerry Adams, and she said ‘Please do it.’
Portadown-based Mr. Milne previously served in the Royal Ulster Police and as a prison officer.
The book also tells the story of how he was a mediator in behind-the-scenes efforts to resolve annual Drumcree disputes that sparked major community tensions in Portadown and across Northern Ireland from the mid-1990s to the 2000s.
Each year the Portadown Orangemen marched to Drumcree Church out of town and returned along the nationalist Garvaghy Road.
Local nationalists opposed the return parade. The parades were forced down Garvaghy Road in 1996 and 1997, but since 1998 the march has been banned by the Parade Commission. Each week, the Portadown Orangemen make a token effort to be allowed to “complete” their 1998 parade down Garvaghy Road.
Drumcree Impasse
The book tells for the first time how Milne tried for years to find a solution to the stalemate in the controversial parade. He recounts how he met important IRA figures and also prominent loyalist paramilitaries, including Leal Volunteer Force leader Billy Wright, known as King Rat, who was shot and killed in Maze Prison by the Irish National Liberation Army late December 1997.
Milne also tells Ivan Little how in his youth he was sexually abused by a man he trusted and how he nearly took his life amid a financial crisis that threatened his business, which has since flourished.
He also recounts how he broke new ground as a Protestant funeral director by organizing funerals for Catholics in Portadown, as well as for his own co-religionists. He was once asked if he buried Catholics and replied: “Only if they are dead.”
The book is available on Amazon.
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