Opinion

Analysis: Paramilitary flag shop highlights festering issues

Flags and bonfire issues were supposed to have been tackled years ago by the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition
Flags and bonfire issues were supposed to have been tackled years ago by the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition Flags and bonfire issues were supposed to have been tackled years ago by the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition

A FLAG shop is not the usual business that springs to mind when thinking of a typical city centre, populated with its usual mix of chain stores and coffee houses.

But tucked away above a taxi depot, the Lisburn Flag Shop has for years been offering a varied selection of flags to its loyal customers.

Its Facebook page showed off various iterations of union, Northern Ireland and Orange Order flags, as well as other memorabilia emblazoned with union emblems.

However, the business also advertised for sale loyalist paramilitary flags such as flags for the UDA, UFF and Red Hand Commando.

Details disclosed in today's Irish News link this shop – a pop-up business trading mainly in the weeks before the Twelfth – to a social enterprise which has received support through a £400,000 Stormont scheme. This has been denied as a "purely a historical link".

The matter highlights how Northern Ireland's unresolved issue with flags continues to fester.

In recent weeks, numerous flags controversies have erupted.

UVF flags have been placed on lampposts in Cantrell Close, a cross-community housing development off Belfast's Ravenhill Road, for the third year in a row.

 One of the flags advertised on the shop's Facebook page
 One of the flags advertised on the shop's Facebook page  One of the flags advertised on the shop's Facebook page

They were also placed in the car park of Avoniel Leisure Centre in east Belfast, which was at the centre of a loyalist stand-off over a bonfire.

'Soldier F' banners and Parachute Regiment flags erected in support of former soldiers facing prosecution over Troubles killings have also caused controversy.

Flags and bonfire issues were supposed to have been tackled years ago by the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition, but the body formed in 2016 shows no sign of reaching agreement.

The indecision has led to Belfast City Council considering legal action to force a Stormont department to remove paramilitary flags and banners from its property, such as lampposts along public roads.

Without political consensus, flags are likely to remain controversial – and another obstacle to any prospect of restoring power-sharing at Stormont.

 One of the flags advertised on the shop's Facebook page
 One of the flags advertised on the shop's Facebook page  One of the flags advertised on the shop's Facebook page