Nationalists and loyalists clash at Lanark Way in west Belfast, Northern Ireland. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP
BELFAST, Northern Ireland The town of Carrickfergus, along with four other Union Loyalist towns and cities, has been beset with violence over the past weeks casting further doubts the current political stability in Northern Ireland will last much longer.
More troubling, however, is the involvement of youth, as young as 12-years-old, being forced into the violence, coerced into despicable deeds by adults with sinister motives.
Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People Koulla Yiasouma said those children were often the victims of gangs linked to sectarian paramilitary outfits still harboring past political grievances.
THE statement by the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC), which represents the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Red Hand Commandos, states that these groups have not been involved in the recent violence and urged people not to get drawn into violent confrontations.
Community volunteers came onto the streets to try to encourage young people not to get involved in the rioting, but it could be said that the LCC in the loyalist community is especially well placed to ensure that people do not come onto the streets.
The reasons given for these riots are related to opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol and the controversial decision last week not to prosecute 24 Sinn Fein politicians for attending the funeral of former IRA man Bobby Storey during strict Covid-19 rules limiting public gatherings. The funeral drew around 2,000 mourners.
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Petrol bombs are thrown while the police hit back with water cannons and rubber bullets, bringing back memories of The Troubles (Getty)
“When your own prime minister shafts you, when he comes to this city and says there will be no border between us and Britain, and then breaks his word so easily, when your voice is being ignored, you feel abandoned,” said the loyalist community leader, a former paramilitary group member who had fought in the long years of Northern Ireland’s bitter conflict.
“The young people feel that violence has paid off for the republicans, so why shouldn’t it pay off for them? What is happening in the streets is not surprising. We have been warning this would happen – the fear is that there’s much worse in the coming months.”
A hundred years of trouble: How an outburst of violence exposed Northern Ireland as a failed state On the 100th anniversary of the divided state they created, the Ulster unionists, far from celebrating, are in thrall to a sense of doom. Will the constitutional experiment soon be over? The scenes of the recent violence in Belfast were like a rerun of images from the darkest days of the Troubles. A sense of inflammatory discord hung in the air as the police came under sustained attack, youths hurled petrol bombs and a double-decker bus was set alight. The escalating mood of conflict, given a bitterly ironic twist by occurring along the so-called peace lines in the city that separate Catholic and Protestant communities, was only compounded by ineffectual appeals for calm from politicians.
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