Apparently Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald (MEP for Dublin, IIRC) has heard the plight of the West Belfast Festival and while attacking the whole July celebrations in Northern Ireland decided to mope on their behalf. Unfortunately fact-checking still doesn't seem too high on the Sinn Fein agenda. (Thanks to Miss Fitz at Slugger for highlighting this - it's rare I delve through the murky depths of what the Daily Ireland loosely terms news)

I wrote just over a fortnight ago about the Department of Social Development's decision to grant money to the Orange Order (£104k over 3 years) to help develop the celebrations into an event that would appeal to a wider audience. Disgusted that the government seems to be giving Protestants money, Mary Lou writes of her outrage at the cruel oppressor (the British government) denying the indigenous Gaels of west Belfast funding for their festival.

In actual fact the Northern Ireland events company reduced a rather generous funding package of £150k a year to around a third of that (still more than the Orange Order will be getting per annum), but over a week ago, Peter Hain boldly stepped in to throw an extra £100k of "transitional funding" at the festival (also blogged on Slugger). He also said 2 other Irish cultural festivals in Belfast would receive £20k and £25k under the same plan.

I guess once you've learned to whinge about how oppressed you are the MOPEing starts to take on a life of its own and before you know it you're inventing things to feel hard-done-by about! It's ok Mary, we understand. I won't hold my breath for a retraction.