THE ORANGE Order is to re-route voluntarily a large demonstration away from the scene of a sectarian murder in Co Derry.
The Pride of the Bann parade, planned for Friday night and involving 40 loyalist bands and more than 20,000 marchers and supporters, decided yesterday it would alter its route following the killing of father-of-four Kevin McDaid.
He was beaten to death outside his home in the Heights area of Coleraine on Sunday.
In a statement last night, the Orange Order said it made its decision in the interests of community relations and to ease local tensions. The decision follows a series of meetings at the Parades Commission, which rules on controversial marches, involving Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the police and others.
Welcoming the decision, commission chairman Roger Poole said: “The commission was strongly of the view that had the parade gone ahead as notified there was the potential for further deterioration in community relations in Coleraine and indeed across Northern Ireland.”
The dead man’s widow, Evelyn McDaid, was also injured in the attack which followed the final matches in the Scottish Premier league which saw Rangers clinch the championship ahead of Celtic. She has blamed UDA members for the murder of her husband.
The dead man’s son confirmed yesterday he received loyalist threats to his life.
Police called at the McDaid family home late on Tuesday to inform Ryan McDaid they were “in receipt of information that loyalists may take some form of action” against him with effect from midnight.
Security minister Paul Goggins, speaking in Coleraine yesterday, pressed the UDA to decommission its weapons but did not indicate any belief that its members murdered Mr McDaid.
“This is a moment in time,” he said. “We have just a few weeks to go now in the period that parliament has allowed for decommissioning to take place. I urge paramilitary organisations to use this opportunity, to mark this moment by laying down their weapons.”
He applauded condemnation of the murder by the UDA-linked Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG). UPRG spokesman Frankie Gallagher said he believed Mr McDaid was killed as a result of bad community relations and he called for more government resources for disadvantaged communities.
“It is community relations that have broken down here and have made this family grieve the way it is,” he said. “People still hate each other. There is a long way to go.”
However, SDLP Assembly member John Dallat said: “Today we had to listen to Paul Goggins who is supposed to be in charge of our security saying there is no evidence that Kevin McDaid’s death was part of an organised threat from loyalist murder gangs. At precisely the same time we heard that the PSNI have informed the son of the murder victim that they have received information that his life is under threat.”
He said the Northern Ireland Office was “going softly, softly against the loyalist murder gangs which still hold on to their arsenals”.
“It is time we got a bit of straight talking from NIO ministers. The people who battered Kevin McDaid to death told him they were from the UDA and there is no reason to disbelieve them.”
Coleraine Sinn Féin councillor Billy Leonard described the threat as the “ultimate insult” to the McDaid family.
“These sectarian loyalists have murdered Kevin, badly beaten his wife Evelyn and now deliver the ultimate insult by threatening one of the sons,” he said.
“Those loyalists responsible must now publicly withdraw the threat and close down forever and the police need to confirm which loyalist group the threat emanates from.”
Mr McDaid’s body has still to be officially released for burial and his funeral is not expected to take place before next week.