The Trib reverts to type

Lots of silliness in this week's edition of the Sunday Tribune, starting with the suggestion that it may have been fans of Celtic ("the republicans' favourite club") and not Shamrock Rovers who attacked Linfield fans on their visit to Dublin last week: perhaps, says the Trib, witnesses were confused by the similarity of the two clubs' jerseys. Well firstly I doubt the attackers were wearing jerseys at all. Football hooligans these days are nearly always "casuals", who believe that fights should only be conducted in expensive designer wear. (I'll save the post on the silliness of casual culture for another day.) They were probably recognised as Rovers fans because everyone who closely follows the League of Ireland knows exactly who the Rovers casuals are. Secondly, the jerseys aren't that hard to distinguish. And finally the attempt to link republicans to this attack is pathetic, and Sindo-esque.

Onto the travel section, which has a breakdown of Irish airports showing all the direct flights abroad - well, no it doesn't. Although titled "Routes from a small island", the article's listing is limited to 26 County airports. You wouldn't have to be a republican to think this is stupid - there are parts of the south where the nearest (or next nearest) airport is across the border. I've checked out prices for flights from Belfast a few times myself.

And I really, really wish their food writers would stop referring to "fish-eating vegetarians". There ain't no such thing.

The headline story is, once again, the McCartney sisters - this time concerning an alleged threat which was posted on a message board. I say "alleged" because, reading the excerpts that were printed, I'm not convinced the poster actually was making a threat, more like simply confirming that such a threat exists, which I thought we already knew (no small thanks to the Trib for that, of course).

The article cites, unsurprisingly without comment, the poster's reference to anger in the Short Strand over the sisters' "lies". This is the story that the media won't touch: the belief of many within the community that the sisters have gone beyond persistent and into the realms of reckless in their pursuit of justice. I have no idea whether this is a majority or minority view in the Strand; it is at the very least a significant minority view and one which merits investigation, but so far this article in the Sunday Business Post almost three months ago is the only one I've seen address it (the print edition added a number of salient quotes from local residents which unfortunately didn't make it online).

I believe there would be a reluctance to question the sisters' version of events even if it wasn't republicans involved. Of course, nobody wants to add to the hurt of victims' families by suggesting that they're manipulating the facts, especially when they don't have any obvious reason to. But victims' families sometimes do exactly that; recall the case highlighted in the acclaimed documentary Murder On A Sunday Morning. It's not necessarily deliberate dishonesty - sometimes people are overwhelmed by events and convince themselves that something is true when it isn't. But false is false, and it doesn't help the search for justice. If the McCartneys are propagating a version of events that isn't accurate - and I'm obviously not in a position to know for sure that they are - the media are really not doing them any favours covering it up.