Old wounds, new fears stoke Belfast unrest
The streets around Shankill in east Belfast betray few signs of the violence that erupted on Thursday.
There is some burnt debris on streets adjacent to where the heaviest rioting took place and the gates of the peace wall that divides Shankill from nationalist west Belfast are closed for the first time in years.
Just hours prior a city bus was firebombed and a press photographer was assaulted on the eighth, and worst, night of rioting in Loyalist enclaves throughout the province. The violence saw 55 police officers injured. Locals are reluctant to talk, and will only do so anonymously.
One man who is in his 60s said the violence was likely to abate in the next day or so. “This is Mickey Mouse stuff. I lived through the Troubles. This is nothing compared to that.” He blames the unrest on the Covid lockdown. “Young men are letting off steam.”
A local woman, also in her 60s, said Loyalist paramilitary groups with links to criminal gangs were behind the rioting. This is a view well aired over the past week. The belief is that these attacks against the police are retaliation for recent crackdowns on drug dealing and other activities.
There is validity in both of these views, but they feed into a deeper source of unease in unionist and loyalist communities. There is a mural at the start of the Newtownards Road, one of the main arteries into loyalist east Belfast, that partly explains the rioting that has ripped through the province over the past week.
The words “The Ulster Conflict is about Nationality. This we Shall Maintain” are blazoned across the national symbols of Ulster, England, Scotland and Wales with the Union Jack in the centre. The Northern Ireland state was founded almost exactly 100 years ago on May 5, 1921, but the ties that bind the province to Britain are under strain.
Messages leaked from Whatsapp and other social media forums suggest the recent spate of violence has involved a high level of co-ordination among the rioters with some of those participating as young as 12 years old.
Jonathan Roberts, the assistant chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said unrest on Thursday was the most serious Northern Ireland had seen in years. Michelle O’neill, the Sinn Fein deputy first minister, said it is a miracle no one has been killed.
The signing of the Good Friday Agreement on 1998 brought an end to more than 30 years of armed conflict that claimed the lives of about 3500 people. Twenty-three years later, the peace in the province is still fragile.
The backdrop could not have been more highly charged. Loyalist groups have been mobilising against the Northern Ireland Protocol since it was introduced at the start of the year.
For the first time in a century, there is a de facto regulatory border separating the province from Britain. Since the Brexit referendum Sinn Fein has ramped up calls for a border poll on Irish unity. It has been joined by a number of civic groups in both parts of Ireland.
Traditionally, one of Ulster unionism’s biggest weaknesses was that it was so divided. That has changed in recent weeks. All strands of unionists and Loyalists are united in opposition to the sea border central to the Northern Ireland Protocol. Arlene Foster, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and First Minister of Northern Ireland, met representatives of loyalist paramilitaries in February to discuss the protocol.
That is why the mood music in Northern Ireland is very dark. This spurt of rioting will soon end. Some of the difficulties over the protocol may be resolved. But unionists want the protocol scrapped. The Irish government and the EU are opposed to its removal on the basis that there is no viable alternative. If the protocol was scrapped, then calls for a border poll would grow louder. Either way, peace in the province is likely to remain fragile for the foreseeable future.