February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The area where the fires occurred is next to an interface with loyalist districts and yards away from where local Catholic man, Francis Brown, was murdered several years ago by a loyalist bomb.
“There is clearly no other way to describe the actions of those responsible for putting flammable substances through the letterboxes of homes in the early hours of Christmas morning,” said McKeown.
“People living in these homes had gone to bed on Christmas Eve with the expectation of waking up to family and religious celebrations on Christmas Day,” he said.
“Instead they were cruelly awakened from their sleep in the early hours of this morning to find their homes ablaze. This entire community is in shock after these arson attacks. It is extremely fortunate that no one was injured or, worse still, murdered.”
The Orange Order in Portadown had applied to the Parades Commission for an Orange march along the nearby Garvaghy Road at lunchtime on Christmas Day but were denied permission to do so.
Meanwhile, the SDLP assembly member for Lagan Valley, Patricia Lewsley, has condemned a hoax security alert, which led to the abandonment of racing at Down Royal on December 26.
“The people who phoned in this hoax have absolutely nothing to offer anyone in Ireland. They have no political support and no political program worthy of the name. Dissident republicans can only make pathetic attempts to drag us back down.
“They have the potential to damage our tourism and take jobs away from the people of the north, but that is all they have. The decent people who want a decent future want these people to leave them alone.”
Meanwhile, the Sinn F