Local community’s solidarity with family of murdered Coleraine man
South Belfast community workers and trade union members joined colleagues from across the city and beyond in a special vigil in memory of murdered Coleraine man Kevin McDaid.
Scores of people descended on a sun-drenched Belfast city centre on Tuesday lunchtime to show their support for the Catholic father-of-four’s grieving family.
Mr McDaid was beaten to death by a loyalist mob outside his Somerset Drive home in Coleraine last Sunday night after Rangers won the Scottish Premier League over Celtic.
His wife and pregnant neighbour were also beaten in the attack and his friend, Damien Fleming remains critically ill in hospital after he too was set upon.
Chain emails and text messages have been circulating across Belfast in recent days calling on community groups from both sides of the divide to come out in support of their murdered colleague.
South Belfast community activists joined the last minute vigil at City Hall on Tuesday where they were flanked by Church representatives and Irish Congress of Trade Union members in a determined ‘we will not accept sectarian violence’ message.
Little more than two months ago, tens of thousands of people brought city centres, including Belfast, to a standstill with lunchtime peace vigils in honour of soldiers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar and PSNI constable Stephen Carroll.
Last November, rallies were organised in defence of community workers facing threats from dissident Republicans.
But this time it was community workers across the city themselves who took the initiative to convene a public condemnation of the latest sectarian murder.
Donegall Pass community worker Ken Orr was among the large crowd who turned out to support the cross-community rejection of sectarian violence.
“I wanted to show the McDaid family that everyone from Donegall Pass was disgusted and horrified by Kevin’s murder and that we support them 100 per cent in their grief,” he said.
“Rallies like this are important, especially in interface areas and areas with large ethnic minoritiy communities, to show people that we are presenting a united front against atrocities.”
Markets community worker Gerard Davison said he had come out to show his support for all the McDaid family and to show his disgust at the “appalling” murder “which has once again plunged communities across the whole of the north into grief”.
South Belfast Sinn Fein MLA Alex Maskey said it was critical South Belfast showed its support for the McDaid’s “in direct opposition to the bigots”.
The South Belfast-based Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions sent out a rally call to all its members on Monday morning urging them to come out with trade union banners to show their “collective opposition to all acts of sectarian aggression”.
