“There was no provocation”

With sporadic violence reported in Ardoyne tonight, here’s an account of last night’s violence in Belfast during which 22 police officers were injured, an ambulance and a fire engine attacked, and a bus hijacked and driven at police lines.  From the BBC report

Community worker Robert McClenaghan, from the Falls Residents Association, said the violence was organised by nationalist youths.

More than 40 petrol bombs were thrown at police, who said crowds of about 150-200 people were involved in the violence at Broadway and about 200 in both the Oldpark and New Lodge areas of north Belfast.

Crowds of nationalists threw petrol bombs and masonry at police who fired 51 plastic bullets in the Broadway and Oldpark areas.

Mr McClenaghan said the violence was “nothing but thuggery”.

“There was no provocation. There was nothing from the Protestant, loyalist, unionist community. Broadway interface was quiet,” he said.

“What you had was 100 or 150 of these young people all tooled up and masks around their faces.

“They were armed with petrol bombs, they were armed with sticks and stones. They had wheelie bins with extra ammunition that they were pulling behind them.”

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.