UNIONISM has historically had a problem with regard to claiming people and land.

It raises its head each time the loyal orders demand the right to parade in areas they are not wanted.

It is evident in the annual discontent caused by the erection of loyalist flags in mixed residential communities, village and town centres, a practice manifesting the infamous utterance of the one-time DUP and TUV elected councillor Mel Lucas, who declared “It’s all British, even the bits outside the chapel” when defending loyalist flags put up directly outside a Catholic church in Antrim town.

It is a problem well known to those in the Irish language community who continue to face opposition to their very modest request for a visible presence for the language in the land in which the very names of settlements, townlands and streets derive their meaning from Irish.

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It is an issue which Co Armagh’s young Chris Atherton faced recently after declaring he was making himself eligible to represent the Republic of Ireland at international football, prompting an angry response from those who would seek to deny him the right to choose the international team for which to play.

The communities minister, Gordon Lyons, took it in a different direction when determining that it was time for him to claim for the wee province, in 2026, the men from this part of Ireland who played a part in helping to shape the new United States of America in the latter half of the 18th century- a time when the very idea of a partitioned-off slice of Ireland could only have evoked thoughts and images of the Pale.

The minister’s plans for how to........

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