Days before, postal workers halted work after the murder of their workmate, Daniel McColgan, who was killed as he arrived for work in Belfast January 12. A rightist organization called the Red Hand Defenders, the name used by the paramilitary wing of the pro-British Ulster Defence Association (UDA), claimed responsibility. The group threatened to kill other Catholic postal workers and teachers.

Hours prior to the killing they had issued a death threat against all workers at Catholic schools. North Belfast has recently been the scene of organized intimidation and violence against Catholic school children and their parents. There have been hundreds of incendiary attacks on Catholic homes forcing many families to move.

The UDA is one of several organizations known as loyalists, who exist to wage terror against Irish Catholics in order to keep Catholics as a second class caste and defend the "union" with Britain. Since July last year loyalists have killed six people, including a journalist. Dozens of attempted murders took place over the same period.

Postal workers and teachers, who have been the main target of a recent increase in anti-Catholic violence and threats, marched from their workplaces to the rallies along with health-care workers from several hospitals. They were joined by postal workers from Scotland who came to show their solidarity. On arrival at the town center, crowds greeted them with applause.

Public transport workers suspended their services and firefighters also mobilized. School students, encouraged by the Minister for Education--Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness--took part as well.

Drenching rain and gusty winds did not deter people from turning out to express their abhorrence of bigotry. Mary Cahillane, a primary school teacher, said that people were there "shoulder to shoulder, no matter what religion we are." Several participants remarked that this was the first trade union rally of its kind in decades.

A Belfast hospital worker said he was taking part because, "people have got the right to go to work without people shooting them."  
 
Demands on London
In an interview January 14, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said, "How the British government responds to the threat from the UDA and from its securocrats who are involved with that organization, is a test for that government. Nationalists and republicans see the British response to the UDA as a measure of its seriousness about the peace process."

Noting that few loyalists have ever been arrested for the murders, he said, "It can't be because of a lack of information. The UDA was established by the British, it is an organization that is riddled with British agents, either working for Special Branch or other intelligence services."

After initially criticizing the strike call, pro-British politicians and business representatives announced their support for the rallies. In statements from the platform, union and church leaders worked hard to equally condemn "all paramilitary organizations" for a "cycle of violence," implicating the Irish Republican Army, which led an armed struggle against British rule and has observed a cease-fire since 1997. The two Protestant victims of sectarian murder gangs in 2001 were shot in the mistaken belief that they were Catholics.

Speaking after the rally, Martin McGuinness welcomed the presence of "Protestants, Catholics, and Dissenters. We want to move forward together, live together, and work together," he said.

Irish National Teachers Organisation member Anne Brown Lee stated, "If teachers did not come out today, then we could not, in conscience, come out and demonstrate over any other issue."  
 
 
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