SpabSFW
09-07-2005, 04:05 PM
I haven't posted to this, but I have been keeping up with it. N.I. has been exploding in almost continuous riots and there are increasing attacks against Catholics in increasing severity since the IRA agreed to stand down.
Here's a piece from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1563265,00.html
In a corner of Antrim another generation grows up on a diet of sectarian hatred
Catholics forced to flee as teenagers are used to mount campaign of arson
It began late one night when Kathleen McCaughey's front door was kicked down by two men who stormed up the stairs shouting: "Taigs out."
"Aren't you going to call me an Orange bastard?" asked one of the men when Mrs McCaughey, 51, who has epilepsy, came out of her bedroom in her dressing gown.
After five months of attacks including petrol and paint bombs and a poster campaign calling her a republican scrounger, she was given a few hours to clear her house and leave the village of Ahoghill in Ian Paisley's North Antrim constituency.
Protestant children had been paid £5 each to sit on her front lawn banging drums until she caved in. If she did not go, she was told, her row of houses would be burned down.
The town of Ballymena and its surrounding villages are in the grip of the worst wave of anti-Catholic sectarian attacks for years and the police have been forced to adopt the same tactics as the UN uses in Kosovo: guarding Catholic churches, schools and Gaelic sports clubs at night to stop them being torched.
Northern Ireland is slipping into the kind of civil strife where people cannot tolerate the presence of their neighbours, and it is being demonstrated at primary schools. Two Catholic schools in the area were burned in arson attacks within 24 hours last week. The head of Northern Ireland's community relations council has said the police patrols are unsustainable, adding that many people would soon start to feel they could only live in Ballymena with UN-style protection.
Ballymena is the buckle in Northern Ireland's Bible belt, the seat of the Paisley family and a place that has been likened to 1960s Mississippi. It is rural, conservative, mainly born-again Christian and predominantly Protestant. Catholics make up about 25% of the borough.
Ballymena's most famous Catholic son, the actor Liam Neeson, has recalled having to shelter inside during Orange parades in his youth.
But Mr Paisley, leader of the biggest unionist party in Northern Ireland, was criticised for not condemning the anti-Catholic attacks soon enough and doing little to engage with his community to stop them.
Mr Paisley, who has always talked about his unbiased dedication to the Catholics in his constituency, was accused of moral cowardice and a lack of leadership. He returned from holiday and condemned the attacks last week but complained that, in the past, attacks on his church headquarters in Belfast had not been condemned by Sinn Féin.
Mark Durkan, the SDLP's leader, accused loyalist paramilitaries from the Ulster Defence Association of orchestrating sectarian violence in north Antrim.
Police said it was more complex than a coordinated campaign against Catholics, adding that teenagers and young boys had been involved. A 13-year-old boy has been charged with arson following last week's attack on St Louis' primary school which destroyed one classroom and damaged 10 others. A 15-year-old is also being questioned. Police have recorded 28 significant attacks against Catholics, including two attempted murders, and 14 attacks against Protestants.
In Ahoghill, a village of about 1,000 people where most of the attacks on Catholics took place, red, white and blue flags fly on the grey estates.
...
Fewer than a dozen Catholic families remain and for-sale signs have gone up outside Catholic homes.
Many have sent word via their Protestant neighbours to their tormentors on the estate that they are considering leaving.
Just as in other villages nearby, where police have been protecting 50 Catholic properties, sectarianism has reached the level where bigots are unafraid to state their views but those opposed to them are afraid to speak out.
...
In the nearby, predominantly Protestant, suburb of Harryville, the Catholic church has been repeatedly paint bombed and daubed with slogans such as "**** the Pope" over the summer.
A group of local Protestants have helped clean the mess at the church, which was picketed regularly by loyalists over 18 months during the Drumcree dispute of the 1990s.
St Mary's Catholic primary school in Harryville reopened last week after five petrol bombs were thrown into the canteen and library causing £1,000 worth of damage.
A report by the Institute for Conflict Research shows that following the Good Friday Agreement in 1997, sectarian violence has increased, with more attacks on churches, Gaelic sports clubs and Orange halls than before the ceasefires of 1994.
There have been sectarian attacks on both side of the divide in north and east Belfast throughout the summer.
Dennis Bradley, the former Catholic priest who brokered the first ceasefire and is now a member of the policing board, said police alone could not solve the problem of the sectarian attacks, which he blamed on the "nihilism of 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds" and "20- and 30-year-olds who are quite sectarian in the sense that they cannot live with their neighbours".
Other research recently has shown that children as young as five or six are displaying bigoted ideas.
A generation is growing up more segregated and sectarian than its parents.
How the attacks began
March
Campaign of intimidation against Catholic families in village of Ahoghill begins. Police investigating a firework attack on a Catholic home are pelted with bricks and stones.
July
Two Catholic churches in Ballymena area are paint-bombed and daubed with sectarian graffiti, in the first of a series of church attacks over the summer. Two Catholic-owned pubs attacked, another bar is petrol-bombed. After petrol and paint bombs and arson threats, Catholic families in Ahoghill begin leaving their homes. One woman is forced on to her roof after the ground floor of her home set alight in arson attack.
August
In an unprecedented move, police issue fire blankets to Catholic homes in Ahoghill and tell residents how to jump out of windows in case of sectarian arson attacks.
September
After two arson attacks in 24 hours on Catholic primary schools in the Ballymena area, police begin night-time guard of Catholic schools, churches and properties in local villages. Police say they have recorded 28 significant sectarian attacks on Catholics and 14 on Protestants since March 1.
Here's a piece from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1563265,00.html
In a corner of Antrim another generation grows up on a diet of sectarian hatred
Catholics forced to flee as teenagers are used to mount campaign of arson
It began late one night when Kathleen McCaughey's front door was kicked down by two men who stormed up the stairs shouting: "Taigs out."
"Aren't you going to call me an Orange bastard?" asked one of the men when Mrs McCaughey, 51, who has epilepsy, came out of her bedroom in her dressing gown.
After five months of attacks including petrol and paint bombs and a poster campaign calling her a republican scrounger, she was given a few hours to clear her house and leave the village of Ahoghill in Ian Paisley's North Antrim constituency.
Protestant children had been paid £5 each to sit on her front lawn banging drums until she caved in. If she did not go, she was told, her row of houses would be burned down.
The town of Ballymena and its surrounding villages are in the grip of the worst wave of anti-Catholic sectarian attacks for years and the police have been forced to adopt the same tactics as the UN uses in Kosovo: guarding Catholic churches, schools and Gaelic sports clubs at night to stop them being torched.
Northern Ireland is slipping into the kind of civil strife where people cannot tolerate the presence of their neighbours, and it is being demonstrated at primary schools. Two Catholic schools in the area were burned in arson attacks within 24 hours last week. The head of Northern Ireland's community relations council has said the police patrols are unsustainable, adding that many people would soon start to feel they could only live in Ballymena with UN-style protection.
Ballymena is the buckle in Northern Ireland's Bible belt, the seat of the Paisley family and a place that has been likened to 1960s Mississippi. It is rural, conservative, mainly born-again Christian and predominantly Protestant. Catholics make up about 25% of the borough.
Ballymena's most famous Catholic son, the actor Liam Neeson, has recalled having to shelter inside during Orange parades in his youth.
But Mr Paisley, leader of the biggest unionist party in Northern Ireland, was criticised for not condemning the anti-Catholic attacks soon enough and doing little to engage with his community to stop them.
Mr Paisley, who has always talked about his unbiased dedication to the Catholics in his constituency, was accused of moral cowardice and a lack of leadership. He returned from holiday and condemned the attacks last week but complained that, in the past, attacks on his church headquarters in Belfast had not been condemned by Sinn Féin.
Mark Durkan, the SDLP's leader, accused loyalist paramilitaries from the Ulster Defence Association of orchestrating sectarian violence in north Antrim.
Police said it was more complex than a coordinated campaign against Catholics, adding that teenagers and young boys had been involved. A 13-year-old boy has been charged with arson following last week's attack on St Louis' primary school which destroyed one classroom and damaged 10 others. A 15-year-old is also being questioned. Police have recorded 28 significant attacks against Catholics, including two attempted murders, and 14 attacks against Protestants.
In Ahoghill, a village of about 1,000 people where most of the attacks on Catholics took place, red, white and blue flags fly on the grey estates.
...
Fewer than a dozen Catholic families remain and for-sale signs have gone up outside Catholic homes.
Many have sent word via their Protestant neighbours to their tormentors on the estate that they are considering leaving.
Just as in other villages nearby, where police have been protecting 50 Catholic properties, sectarianism has reached the level where bigots are unafraid to state their views but those opposed to them are afraid to speak out.
...
In the nearby, predominantly Protestant, suburb of Harryville, the Catholic church has been repeatedly paint bombed and daubed with slogans such as "**** the Pope" over the summer.
A group of local Protestants have helped clean the mess at the church, which was picketed regularly by loyalists over 18 months during the Drumcree dispute of the 1990s.
St Mary's Catholic primary school in Harryville reopened last week after five petrol bombs were thrown into the canteen and library causing £1,000 worth of damage.
A report by the Institute for Conflict Research shows that following the Good Friday Agreement in 1997, sectarian violence has increased, with more attacks on churches, Gaelic sports clubs and Orange halls than before the ceasefires of 1994.
There have been sectarian attacks on both side of the divide in north and east Belfast throughout the summer.
Dennis Bradley, the former Catholic priest who brokered the first ceasefire and is now a member of the policing board, said police alone could not solve the problem of the sectarian attacks, which he blamed on the "nihilism of 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds" and "20- and 30-year-olds who are quite sectarian in the sense that they cannot live with their neighbours".
Other research recently has shown that children as young as five or six are displaying bigoted ideas.
A generation is growing up more segregated and sectarian than its parents.
How the attacks began
March
Campaign of intimidation against Catholic families in village of Ahoghill begins. Police investigating a firework attack on a Catholic home are pelted with bricks and stones.
July
Two Catholic churches in Ballymena area are paint-bombed and daubed with sectarian graffiti, in the first of a series of church attacks over the summer. Two Catholic-owned pubs attacked, another bar is petrol-bombed. After petrol and paint bombs and arson threats, Catholic families in Ahoghill begin leaving their homes. One woman is forced on to her roof after the ground floor of her home set alight in arson attack.
August
In an unprecedented move, police issue fire blankets to Catholic homes in Ahoghill and tell residents how to jump out of windows in case of sectarian arson attacks.
September
After two arson attacks in 24 hours on Catholic primary schools in the Ballymena area, police begin night-time guard of Catholic schools, churches and properties in local villages. Police say they have recorded 28 significant sectarian attacks on Catholics and 14 on Protestants since March 1.