The BBC news in the north of Ireland ran two swan related stories this week. The first reported that six swans died in a oil spill in the picturesque and loyal town of Carrickfergus. The good news came on Friday when viewers were told that two young swans had been reunited with their mother after a clean up. Aaah!

What’s odd is the type of story that the BBC is choosing not to cover. Earlier this month there were riots in Ardoyne in north Belfast. These are a traditional part of the preparations for the 12th of July. It’s an incontrovertible fact that the marches and bonfires on and before the 12th are a reactionary sectarian provocation. That’s why it is entirely reasonable that the people at the receiving end of the Orange bacchanalia try to force it off the streets near their homes. This usually involves local youths rioting, trying to attack the bonfires and fighting with the police.

In the new colonial dispensation the police’s principal allies are now members of Sinn Fein and other Republicans. We can translate that as “IRA”. People in the area are now saying that when the rioting began well known Republicans arrived and pepper sprayed some of the rioters. This made it easier for the police to arrest them. This is widely known in Belfast but the local TV stations’ journalists are now effectively press officers for the local administration and prefer not to embarrass the politicians too much. They leave that to Iris Robinson who seems driven by some demons to make her husband’s life uncomfortable.

Irish Republicanism has completely run out of ideas. One of the dissident groups has started leaving hoax bombs on the railway line during the evening rush hour – having concluded that one of the most imbecilic ruses of the IRA in the 20th century might just work in the 21st century. Completely missing from any Republican critique of the imperialist victory is a glimmer of insight how the organisation has ended up as ancillary police offices defending a carnival of bigotry and why this is reactionary. They don’t even bother asking how they have ended up as a Sinn Fein as a Catholic party sharing patronage with the Loyalists and helping them secure their sectarian state

As for Martin Mc Guinness and the SAS – give it time.