Alarm Over Orange Funding

Posted By: March 29, 2013

International Fund Judgment Questioned

CAPITOL HILL. Thursday, September 22, 2005

Irish-Americans are alarmed that the International Fund for Ireland has given a grant of a quarter of a million pounds sterling to a group many regard as a front for the viciously sectarian and anti-Catholic Orange Order ,the Orange Community Network.

The President of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, Fr. Sean Mc Manus, said : ” Funding an anti-Catholic organization at any time is bad enough, but at this time it is particularly shocking, given that the Orange Order is presently wrecking havoc in Northern Ireland and inciting anti-Catholic bigotry to destroy the Good Friday Agreement”.

Fr. Mc Manus continued : ” I had thought the bad old days of American dollars subsidizing anti-Catholic bigotry were over, and that the IFI had cleaned up its act. This is a most troubling development. I have taken it up with Congressman Joe Crowley 9 D-NY), co-chairman of the Ad Hoc Congressional Committee for Irish Affairs, who has played a key role in bringing about an increase in the dollar amount that Congress gives to the IFI. It has always been a battle not to have the US funding cut… this shocking development will not help. Bad news about the IFI is not what is needed at the moment,”, he concluded.