Unlike
Mark Twain's famous quip reports of the death
of David Ervine were premature rather than greatly
exaggerated. The leader of the PUP had drawn his
last unassisted breath some time before the official
announcement of his death. The damage sustained
as a result of rapid-fire strokes and heart attacks
left his condition irreversible, the inevitable
delayed only by the artificial.
As
a youngster I probably stood on the same football
terraces as David Ervine waving the green red
and black of Glentoran. Depending on whether Bimbo
Weatherup scored or Albert Finlay conceded, the
demeanour would have been one of delight or disgust.
The Oval at the bottom of Dee Street was a much
needed source of excitement for an adolescent
blissfully unaware that within a short time many
of us chanting Glentoran slogans would abandon
our unity and become involved on different sides
of a much more deadly game in which the final
whistle really would mean final for many. The
dead don't have extra time or replays.
In
1995 I followed David Ervine through London as
he switched trains at tube stations and proceeded
on foot to the University of North London. Had
MI5 been tailing either of us, they might have
thought they were on to some sinister republican
plot against the life of the loyalist leader.
Things were considerably less dramatic. I was
a first time flier making the trip from Belfast
International airport to London's Heathrow. I
had been out of the country only once before in
my life, to see Celtic play Rangers in the Scottish
Cup final in Glasgow 22 years earlier. Tommy Gorman
took me to the airport and advised me as best
he could on how to negotiate my way through a
strange city. As grateful as I was for the advice,
once in the sky I was on my own.
Spotting
Ervine on the plane, who by that time was well
on the way to becoming a media personality, was
a stroke of good fortune. I assumed he would be
going to the same conference at the University
of North London where I would be speaking and
decided to rely on him as my unwitting guide.
Then relations between republicans and loyalists
while far from arctic were not quite as thawed
as they are today. Uncertainty prevented me approaching
him and asking outright if our destinations were
the same. As it turned out my instinct was correct
and 'big Davy' unbeknown to him had me at the
conference centre in good time. So frequent a
visitor to London these days, I find it an easy
matter to crisscross the city and get to where
I need to go. Then it was very different.
During
the conference I was introduced to him and found
him instantly likeable. In our hotel on the second
evening myself and a Sinn Fein member from Derry
wanted a late drink after the bar had closed.
We teamed up with Davy, one of his PUP colleagues
and a UUP politician and eventually persuaded
a member of the hotel staff to let us have a 'swall'
at the back of the cookhouse. Having known more
than a few loyalists from prison I was not of
the type to think my drinking companions that
evening had horns. And like ourselves they liked
to guzzle, always a welcome foil to the poker-up-the-fundament
guardians of whatever Holy Grail.
Throughout
the conference the rapport between loyalists and
republicans was good. However, the flavour of
our backward times caught up with us as soon as
we touched down in Belfast. One of the loyalists
sheepishly informed us that it would be best for
them were we not seen socially fraternising at
the airport. Their community was not quite ready
for it.
In
the mid 1990s Republicans exuded a certain ease
with loyalists although it was a sentiment not
reciprocated in full measure. Former high profile
UVF prisoners like Billy Hutchinson could come
into West Belfast to sit in offices in Ballymurphy
or speak at conferences on the Whiterock Road.
The notion that republicans could do likewise
on the Shankill seemed out of court. Loyalist
activists like Hutchinson had no difficulty with
it at a personal level but appreciated that they
were ahead of the pack that populated the community
they hailed from.
Much
of David Ervine's success lay in steadily eroding
the discrepancy in attitudes and draining away
the tensions and animosities that ran so deeply
between those most hostile to each other. That
Gerry Adams could attend a high profile loyalist
funeral in the heart of East Belfast without being
screamed at or threatened was a result of the
edifice of tolerance that David Ervine helped
build.
Regrettably,
apart from a quick hello at an airport, I never
had the chance to speak with him since that time
in London. We were to debate in Derry one evening
but he had to pull out at the last minute because
his mediation was required on the Shankill where
various strands of loyalism were tearing themselves
apart. I did not envy his task of reconstructing
Humpty.
Had
his life not been cut short prematurely it might
only have been a matter of time before David Ervine
switched allegiances to the Ulster Unionist Party.
It appeared ready to poach him and he seemed willing
to consider an offer. His ability had outgrown
the limited capacity of the PUP. And after the
report by Nuala O'Loan on the collusion between
Special Branch and the UVF, his unwillingness
or inability to pull the shutter down on the PUP's
military alter ego may have seen his star rapidly
fade, his position wholly untenable. In the end
death intervened and spared him the onslaught
he would most certainly have faced from quarters
unwilling to brook his leadership of a party so
closely aligned with a Special Branch proxy murder
machine.
Big
'Dictionary Dave', as he was affectionately ribbed
by many for his loquaciousness, will be missed
by those who liked a touch of colour on the political
landscape. That the colours he brought were red,
white and blue was secondary to the fact that
he brightened up the grey surrounds in the boring
kingdom of Peaceprocessia.
