Trade unionists in Northern Ireland are determined that the battle against sectarianism will not end with yesterday's rallies. Dan Keenan reports.
After less than three weeks, 2002 is turning out to be a year of shocks. In a city as resilient and unshockable as Belfast, people have been jolted by riot, murder and threats into uniting on the streets before the City Hall below a platform comprising people from bishops to businessmen.
These are the people who were so profoundly shocked, after so many thousands of deaths, by the cold and casual simplicity of Danny McColgan's killing into uniting under a banner to shout "Stop!".
It comes after a spell of intense intercommunal rioting in north Belfast which seemed to blow up out of nothing and follows the bizarre behaviour of the UDA with its variously entitled factions issuing threats against each other and society at large.
In an atmosphere in which it is always too easy, as the US envoy Richard Haass said, to be pessimistic, the trade union rally against sectarianism has built an unlikely alliance among those who have but one thing in common, a need to demand an end to bitterness and division.
It would be wrong to say that this alliance was built overnight on the spur of a union official's whim.
The origins of yesterday's protest lay in another murder last year, that of Gavin Brett. That young Protestant was calmly shot by the UDA because he was standing outside a GAA club, and his killers thought he must therefore be a Catholic.
That, added to the slow escalation of loyalist violence, much of it directed against ordinary working Catholics, and a series of assaults on transport workers and those in the emergency services led to ICTU officials planning a response.
There had already been industrial action. The ambulance-drivers, who met earlier this month, have deferred a decision on strike action until March.
Belfast's bus-drivers have also been on strike following a spate of attacks. Services have been withdrawn from parts of north Belfast.
According to Peter Bunting, the ICTU's assistant general secretary: "We were in the process of organising when the latest killing took place. We took a decision to have a rally and demonstration. The idea of a work stoppage came about to strengthen t he protest."
Politicians and even business leaders have backed the initiative as far as they can. The Confederation of British Industry, the Chamber of Commerce and the head of the civil service, Gerry Loughran, have supported it short of backing what is in effect a half-day strike.
Paraphrasing the Sinn Féin president, Tom Gillen, the ICTU deputy assistant general secretary, said: "We've been concerned for a period of time now, even though the 'war', if I can call it that, is over, sectarianism has not gone away." That, he says, is the pervading evil.
The ICTU had already sought meetings with local politicians and community groups to bring forward proposals to attempt to address the social and economic problems of Glenbryn, Ardoyne and other areas of north Belfast.
The Northern committee of the ICTU resolved at a meeting on January 9th to meet the First and Deputy First Ministers and the Northern Secretary to discuss the worsening civil unrest and the persistence of sectarianism. It also decided to hold a public rally within three to four weeks.
ICTU members were not to know that the Holy Cross dispute would blow up again, that Danny McColgan would be shot and that the UDA would issue death threats against public workers.
According to Tom Gillen, ICTU's efforts will not end with yesterday's rally.
"We are not going to finish there.
"We will be holding meetings with government and business and the voluntary and community sector in the coming weeks to see what we can do."
He denies there is another agenda, that of merely boosting the profile of the trade union movement for its own ends.
"I think we have a long and proud record of anti-sectarianism and working towards peace.
"We've had the Good Friday agreement which we supported 100 per cent. We met our politicians and encouraged them and supported them through difficult times when the Assembly was suspended.
"But we have felt it necessary to remind all sections of our community, whether it be elected politicians or employers that there are evils out there still.
"We believe that we in the trade union movement are best placed as a cross-community organisation representative of all political opinion and religion and none to once again take the lead in this."