Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘Violence worst in the city since the Troubles’
Community worker’s fears after disorder
A COMMUNITY worker has described seeing scenes of violence of a ferocity he had not witnessed since the start of the Troubles.
Isaac Andrews was on the scene on the Springfield Road in West Belfast last week as the PSNI used water cannon to quell crowds for the first time six years.
Trouble flared following a loyalist protest at the peace wall gates at Lanark Way on Wednesday following successive nights of protests, some of which ended in violence, across Northern Ireland.
Scores of police officers were injured after being attacked with petrol bombs, fireworks and stones.
While loyalists clashed with police on one side of the gate, nationalist crowds were involved in clashes on the Springfield Road on the other side.
Mr Andrews described seeing over 100 people on the Springfield Road and he rushed to close an open pedestrian gate at the Workman Avenue, a short distance along the peace wall from Lanark Way.
He said he came under attack as he prevented them gaining access to the Shankill, before republican community worker Sean Murray joined him and they did their best to secure the area.
Mr Andrews said: “I was basically surrounded by about 150 nationalists who were trying to get through the gate to get into the unionist area, it was me singly trying to get a gate locked.
“I was attacked two or three times with bottles, bricks and planks of wood thrown at me.
“Five or 10 minutes into that, I heard someone shouting from the other side of the road which happened to be Sean Murray, and I was shouting back to him to help.
Mr Andrews said “really vicious violence” continued on the Springfield Road on Thursday night into the early hours of Friday. He added:
“For me personally, what I witnessed over those two days was very reminiscent of what you would have seen in the early 1970s in street disorder, that’s how bad it was,.
“It was ferocious at times and it was sectarian. It was like a flashback to the past and very frightening.”
Mr Andrews described unrest in the loyalist community as “murmuring for two to three years”.
He said’ “There is a feeling of loss of identity being eroded.
“Many in unionism and loyalism feel that threat was appeased and we have ended up with this Northern Ireland Protocol and another border has been created.
“You had all that built up and then the Bobby Storey funeral. It’s not an orange or green issue, it affects families across the divide.”