Love Ulster

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Love Ulster is an umbrella Northern Ireland unionist victims' group. It is composed of a number of victims' organisations, such as Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR) and Women Raising Unionist Concerns. One of its leading figures is Willie Frazer of the south Armagh Protestant victims' group FAIR, who lost five of his relatives, including his father, to Provisional Irish Republican Army violence.

[edit] History

Love Ulster's first public manifestation was in August 2005, when its members symbolically reenacted the Ulster Volunteer Force's Larne Gun Running of 1914. Love Ulster members brought 200,000 copies of a special edition of the Shankill Mirror newspaper into the port of Larne, bearing the banner headline, "Ulster At Crisis Point" - indicating the perception that Northern Ireland is at "crisis point" and on the verge of being "sold out" into a united Ireland.

On 25 February 2006, a planned Love Ulster march in Dublin, Republic of Ireland was prevented from taking place due to violent protests against the march, in the 2006 Dublin riots. A second Love Ulster parade (in Dublin) was discussed as a possibility for late summer 2007^[1] ^[2] and approved by an Garda Síochána ^[3]. However, it was subsequently cancelled following concession to a meeting with senior Irish government members in the Autumn^[4].

At the outset of the Love Ulster project, a website was developed by the Shankill Mirror to rally the Protestant/Unionist community of Northern Ireland. The intention was to give a platform for Unionists to debate the perceived "sell-out" of Unionism to a Nationalist All-Ireland. Though many Nationalists and Republicans enrolled to debate with the Unionist members of Loveulster, the majority were quickly banned by the site administration. A core of Unionist and Nationalist/Republican members were left to debate amongst themselves on the Loveulster site, moderated by a member rather than any structured administration. When the administration closed the LoveUlster site, this moderator created a separate site "The Way Forward"^[5]. Remaining Loveulster contributors enrolled in the new site, where administration was shared between members of the Unionist and Nationalist communities. "The Way Forward" site suffered from vandalism leading some members to migrate to "The People's Assembly"^[6]. The website continues to exist.