Doug Beattie slams ‘hurtful and spiteful’ Soldier F support at Apprentice Boys parade in Londonderry
Ulster Unionist Get together chief Doug Beattie has condemned the presence of a Soldier F t-shirt on the Apprentice Boys parade in Derry on Saturday.
image of a person sporting the garment with “Stand With Soldier F” printed throughout the again circulated on social media during the last 24 hours.
“No Apologies, No Give up,” the print additionally reads.
Writing on social media on Sunday morning, Mr Beattie slammed the presence of the t-shirt.
“There are some individuals who exit of their strategy to be hurtful and spiteful,” the unionist chief tweeted.
“There’s merely no have to this.”
Elsewhere, SDLP chief Colum Eastwood additionally took to Twitter on Saturday night time to categorical disappointment and make his ideas clear.
“The individuals of Derry have led the way in which in accommodating the Apprentice Boys parades,” he wrote.
“It’s not been simple and has meant all sides have needed to stretch themselves.
“This nonsense is intentionally offensive and has no place in our metropolis.”
Hundreds of members from 26 bands marched within the annual Lundy parade on Saturday to commemorate the seventeenth century siege of the town.
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A number of thousand Apprentice Boys participate within the annual Lundy parade in Derry. Pacemaker.
It culminated with the burning of an effigy of Lt Col Robert Lundy, higher often known as Lundy the Traitor.
A service of thanksgiving and a wreath-laying ceremony additionally occurred.
Talking earlier than the parade, Apprentice Boys governor Graeme Stenhouse stated the entire organisation was wanting ahead to “an important day of the 12 months within the calendar” which he vowed could be peaceable and respectful.
“We at all times encourage our membership and supporters to conduct themselves within the correct method,” he added.
“We imagine that if we’re respectful in the way in which that we conduct our enterprise then we are going to get respect from the nationalist neighborhood.”
Lundy, former governor of Derry, is a hated determine amongst unionists due to his supply to give up to the Jacobite military, which was considered treachery.
The annual march commemorates the 13 apprentices who locked the walled metropolis’s gates in opposition to the approaching military of the Catholic King James II in December 1688 – often known as Shutting of the Gates.
Greater than 10,000 lives had been misplaced within the Siege of Derry which lasted 105 days.