Trades councils in the North meet today in Belfast to discuss how to maintain and advance their campaign against sectarianism.Union leaders insisted that yesterday's extraordinary protest marches must be only part of an ongoing protest campaign against intimidation and terror. Further initiatives are planned.
Schools, offices, shops and businesses closed at noon to enable more than 25,000 people to protest in Belfast, Derry and five other towns against violence and paramilitary threats against workers.
They were the biggest rallies since the Clinton visit in 1995 and protests at the Shankill bombing and Greysteel massacre in 1993.
A book of condolence was opened at the GPO in Dublin for the postal worker Mr Danny McColgan, who was murdered by the UDA last weekend. This was the initiative of the Communications Workers' Union representing postal workers in the Republic.
The rallies were sponsored by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and supported by politicians on all sides, church leaders, the business community and relatives of victims of violence.
In Belfast, marchers converged on City Hall through wind and driving rain led by workers from the Royal hospital on the Falls Road and by postal workers from the Royal Mail sorting centre on Tomb Street.
They were addressed by ICTU assistant general secretary, Mr Peter Bunting who said: "Violence doesn't work. Sectarianism is evil. Today we must demonstrate our revulsion and abhorrence of all murders in Northern Ireland over the past 32 years."
The First Minister, Mr David Trimble, addressing the rally said: "Thousands of people have come here to make their commitment. That cannot be overstated." Public action was needed to support the work of local politicians, he added.
In Derry, Mr Eamonn McCann of the Trades Union Council told 6,000 marchers the political significance of the rallies was helping to marginalise the paramilitaries."The people who murdered Danny McColgan did not do so on behalf of the Protestant people of Northern Ireland," he said. Mr John Hume and the DUP Mayor of Derry, Ms Mildred Garfield, also took part.
In Omagh, marchers said they wanted to join the rest of the North just as others stood by them following the bombing in 1998. There were also rallies in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh; Strabane and Cookstown, Co Tyrone.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, backed the initiative saying: "These rallies provide an opportunity to demonstrate opposition to paramilitary attacks and sectarianism."