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Thousands gather for Belfast vigil

Thousands gathered at 1pm (midnight AEDT) outside Belfast City Hall to make a silent vigil for peace and a united stand against the killers who threaten to drag Northern Ireland back into sectarian bloodshed.

Some held placards reading "No going back", flags saying "Northern Ireland: a better life together", banners in Gaelic, stickers reading "No more killings" and newspaper front pages declaring "End this madness".

The poignant show of solidarity took place following the killing of a policeman on Tuesday, two days after two British soldiers were gunned down outside their army base, the first such violence in over a decade claimed by dissident republican groups.

The Cotton Pipe Band's Mervyn McConnell, 64, from Bangor outside Belfast, dressed in a red kilt and a black jacket, played the moving hymns Abide With Me and Amazing Grace.

"I feel so sick. I've been through all of this and I feel powerless," the lone piper said.

"I do feel in my heart for the people that have actually done this as they're so misled. I hope to God they're convicted and they stop doing it. I'm praying for them and for the people who lost their lives. That's how strong I feel about it."

John Corey, the general secretary of the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance, the largest trade union, told the crowd: "By your dignified silent presence. you can show to the world that is watching Northern Ireland at this time, that the people of Northern http://www.monclerstore.co.uk/ Ireland absolutely and totally reject those that carried out the brutal crimes against humanity.

"The people of Northern Ireland want only peace and absolutely no return to violence in this community," he said, to huge and sustained applause.

Youngsters clung to the City Hall railings and people filled the plinth at the bottom of British queen Victoria's statue to take part, with construction workers in their hard hats also joining in the silence.

"I thought it was fantastic. I was quite moved by the fact that everybody gathered in a show of solidarity. It's the quietest I've heard Belfast be," said Ruth Cloughley, 20, a student nurse from Portadown, southwest of Belfast.

"It showed how strongly everybody feels. We're not going to stand for how things have been. I was near to tears," she said.

Stephanie Moore, 20, who moncler uk studies English at Queen's University Belfast, said: "The silence said more than anybody else could have said. In Northern Ireland people don't really stand together very much. I thought it was really powerful."

Similar vigils were held across the province in Londonderry, Newry, Lisburn and Downpatrick.

Members of Catholic republican party Sinn Fein, the political wing of the nowdefunct Irish Republican Army paramilitary group, also attended as did their former foes, Protestant loyalists who are staunchly proBritish.

Jackie McDonald, brigadier of the South Belfast branch of the Ulster Defence Association loyalist paramilitaries who have stood down said that loyalists were in no mood for rising to the bait.

"I feel sadness, anger and frustration moncler uk store at the possibility that it could all happen again," he said.

"Loyalists are determined not to fall into this old trap, not to be manipulated by fools and glorified drug dealers.

"I'm just as fed up and sick as everybody else. I'm here to show my respect to the families of those that died. People like myself who've been through it all, we don't want to go back there."