“encouraged by a small number of people opposed to the peace process…”
Twenty-six people were arrested during last night’s rioting in nationalist areas of north and south Belfast and Londonderry. There were also reports of public disorder in Armagh, and the Dunclug estate in Ballymena. RTÉ lists Strabane, Newry, Ballymena and Armagh city, as well as Belfast and Londonderry.
In Londonderry, we are told
Sinn Féin Foyle MLA Martina Anderson said the violence was “orchestrated” and described it as “an orgy of destruction”.
“Let’s be clear the vandalism and wanton destruction in the Bogside last night was just that,” she said.
“They are vandals pure and simple, they are an embarrassment to the nationalist people, there is no political motivation for these activities.
“While the orchestration of the trouble in the Bogside is encouraged by a small number of people opposed to the peace process and anti-community elements coming together no political progress can be made by burning a number of vehicles and holding the community they come from hostage”, she added.
And in Armagh, from the same UTV report
Sinn Féin MLA for Newry and Armagh, Cathal Boylan said: “Contrary to the will of the local community and for no justifiable reason, a group of 20 or so youths, directed by a small number of adults, burnt a number of tyres before stealing and burning a car.”
“The message to those who participate in this rioting from the communities here is that they are not wanted, they have no support and they certainly have no mandate for their actions”, he added.
The police’s official line is reported as “those involved in the violence were mindless thugs and there was no evidence that it had been orchestrated.” Although this UTV report suggests he may only have been refering to Ardoyne where
About 200 nationalist youths – mainly young men, some of whom masked and wearing surgical gloves – threw petrol bombs, fireworks, bricks and other missiles during the disorder in Brompton and Estoril Park.
“I cannot say that any particular organisation had a part in this, this was thuggery with no apparent control or direction and no one apparently able to bring any influence to it,” Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay said.
On the violence on Monday night, in Belfast, before Robert McClenaghan, from the Falls Residents Association, said that the violence was organised by nationalist youths, Sinn Féin’s Jennifer McCann was being quoted in an earlier BBC report
“What I witnessed last night was a disorganised mob attacking police lines.”
And on last night’s violence in Ardoyne, in contrast to the party statements from Londonderry and Armagh, [former] Northern Ireland Junior Minister, Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly, also fails to mention the ‘d’ word.
“The principle reason why tensions are raised here each summer is entirely down to the continuing failure of the Orange Order to sit down and enter dialogue with their neighbours. Instead they arrogantly insist on marching through communities where they are not wanted.
“The residents of Ardoyne held a dignified and peaceful protest against the unnecessary and unwanted Orange parade. There were others who decided to apply for an additional parade to enter the Crumlin Road at the same time as the Orange parade was scheduled to pass. This provided a focus for mainly young people from outside Ardoyne to travel to this area yesterday. A small number decided to engage in rioting.”
In his statement, Gerry Kelly goes on to complain about “the premature use of water cannon” and “the use of plastic bullets”.
Others take a different view, as the Guardian reports
North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds has blamed “militant republicans” opposed to the peace process for organising a sustained riot in the Ardoyne area that lasted into the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The Democratic Unionist MP said the violence, which lasted for more than six hours, had nothing to do with an Orange Order march past the area. Dodds pointed out there had also been a peaceful protest against the parade.
And in a Guardian article yesterday, Henry McDonald identified some important factors behind the violence
Sinn Féin, for example, denounced the trouble that erupted on Monday night in west Belfast, most of it directed at the embattled Police Service of Northern Ireland, as nothing more than social vandalism.
The party’s assembly member for the area, Jennifer McCann, claimed she had identified some of the rioters as serial antisocial hooligans. Less than a decade ago, her party was deploying a similar type of young people to physically oppose loyalist marches through or close by republican districts, albeit before Sinn Féin entered a powersharing arrangement with the Democratic Unionist party and went into power with unionism.
Of course, much of the violence and the mayhem over the past 24 hours, particularly on the republican side of Northern Ireland’s sectarian fault line, has been seemingly mindless destruction and nihilist in spirit.
However, this is to ignore two important factors as to why hundreds have come on to the streets to confront a heavily armed and protected PSNI.
The first of these is ideology: many of those young republicans taking part in street violence across the city and beyond have little or no investment in the current political settlement at Stormont. Unemployed and with little prospect of long-term, fulfilling jobs, this social group is alienated from the political process. They see all politicians and especially those from “their side” as part of the establishment, aloof and indifferent to them.
Add to this historic mistrust of the police – much of it engendered by the very people who now condemn them while encouraging their peers to join the PSNI – and you have a lethal cocktail of resentment towards any force of authority in society.
Sprinkle on top the influence of ideologically-fired republican dissident organisations from the Real IRA to the Continuity IRA and you have an explosive mix ready to detonate at any time but in particular during the marching season.
He also identifies a “second major impetus”, “the [recent] behaviour of loyalist paramilitaries – the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association.” But read the whole thing.
Topic: Government, Politics, Society and Culture
Region: Ireland, Northern Ireland, UK
Ah well an obviously educated man like yourself cant read between the lines, ah well I suppose I’ll have to spell it out for you, Baltic exchange, Canary Wharf, get my drift now ? Who cares about margins of profit for investors of colonialism. I only care about the loss, and as long as that stays above 99% thats a good investment from my point of view.
Dont go near the water untill you can swim Nun !
tapacall
If by spelling out you mean using semi-structured sentences vaguely acquainted with the point you’re attempting to make then yeah, that’d be more to my level of education – thanks for adapting. And you’d see those incidents as victimless crimes would you, financially speaking I mean ?
Wasn’t quite sure before whether you were waving or not. Now it’s clear you’re drowning, splashing about in that cold dark deep menacing sea. Probably the sea with all of the self-pity, the self-righteousness and the self-loathing in it.
The boat’s not great but it floats mate. Lifejackets for tax-payers only though I’m afraid.
Nun its a pity you have to resort to petty point scoring dont you know anything about creative writing. No I dont see financial loss as victimless but money talks all languages and big losses for the right people make stubborn minds more attentive.
Im not in the sea, Im here on land enjoying the fruits of the British exchequer no self pity at all just the knowledge that if Im to live in the animal farm, well I’ll just take like the royal family.
Creative writing, let’s say a work of fiction, and willful fabrication are not the same thing tapacall. It’s possible that not everyone, say on this thread, recognizes the distinction. The expression “money talks all languages and big losses for the right people make stubborn minds more attentive” is about as creative as it is politically insightful. I’d be prepared to bet that Andy McNab’s publishers would curl their lips up at that line mo chara. More Grange Hill than George Orwell.
Interesting that you purport to hate the royal family specifically because they’re spongers, something you’re very obviously content to be also. That’s pretty much all I need learn about you and it speaks very very loudly and clearly to the depth of your political convictions and the moral value of the principles you live by. Unsurprised by just how unsurprised I am to have that confirmed that easily and to have those points conceded quite that readily. Thanks for the clarity.
ranger1640:
Comrade how are the riots in Ardoyne not political?
It’s a bunch of drunken, glue sniffing spides throwing things (badly) at the cops, who have been totally disowned by the local political representatives.
Do you remember the trouble a couple of years back from that organization calling itself the “Divis Hoods Liberation Army” (enlighten yourself) ? It’s the same people. These are a group of anti-social, handbag snatching, joyriding gluesniffers and they terrorize the community they live in all year round.
Do you remember not long ago – might have been around the same time as the above – when there was a riot among young people who were hanging out at St Patrick’s Day in the city centre ? The whole thing had been organized by the wee bastards on bebo and their mobile phones.
So when said shower of shitheads turn up at an Orange parade and start chucking bricks and petrol bombs instead of stealing cars and breaking into houses, you must surely be able to see why it’s going a bit too far to call it a political act. It’s a bunch of shitheads, being shitheads.
The republican pressure group Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective, are part of the Republican Network for Unity. Therefor those who attended their march and threw “stones and bottles”! Must surely have had a political motive.
They did, but given that they failed to get anyone elected, even to the council, it is reasonably safe to assume that they are not representative of nationalists in general.
That doesn’t mean that it’s correct for unionism to simply wallpaper over the concerns that people have about marching. Just because the people who are rioting are dickheads does not mean that the residents should be ignored. A great deal of progress could be made by the OO talking directly to residents and, yes, agreeing to back away from the marches for a couple of years. In tandem like that we need, quite simply, a strategy for rounding up the anti-social underclass element who are terrorizing neighbourhoods across this country.
If you attend a demonstration by a political pressure group. You must surely be supportive of their aims, and therefor de-facto making a political statement when you engage in rioting. To deny this fact is pure delusion.
It’s not quite as simple as that, as is the case for the Orange Order and the “hangers on”.
I am very concerned that there seems to be some sort of turf war developing in republican areas with Sinn Fein and RNU.
Developing ? It’s been in progress for some time. If you’re concerned about it, maybe you could do the sensible thing and stop painting as “republicans” the moron element who are engaged in this anti-social behaviour in a way that suggests the whole community support it. Maybe you could also have a word with your pals and suggest to them that it might be a sensible idea for Orange marchers to try to underpin the sensible side of nationalism by – it’s such a radical concept – TALKING to them, rather than steamrollering through Ardoyne in a way that does nothing to counter the notion that the community there is being systematically insulted.
Comrade
the north and west belfast parades forum, have been meeting ardoyne residents groups for years now, they have reach agreements with ardoyne residents groups, then the ardoyne residents group spilts and the new group says no parades without our say so, farc/garc the ardoyne resident group who where behind the counter demo on the 12th which turned nasty say”no parade’s full stop” (A.R. has said it on this very site) how can the O.O. talk to a group that says no parades full stop. ps this comment is adressed to you Comrade, but you know all this already, so its really for those that don’t,
Nun
” Creative writing, let’s say a work of fiction, and willful fabrication are not the same thing tapacal”
What is this nonsence – a work of fiction. willful fabrication.
Hate the royal family, I never said I did I said why should I pay a levy to them, instead of judging me on my having an opinion and leading a life that you dont agree with why dont you focus that on those who have been doing it for centuries.
tapacall
So you withold all of your taxes as a protest against the halfpenny of whatever you’d pay going to them. But yet you take all the benefits coming from it, every dime – all gratis to you personally courtesy of the sucker Irish and/or British (and other) citizens who live on the same street as you who work for their living and who do so honestly and do their bit – reservations and all as they have about the state and how it’s run. That might be a lot of things my friend but principled isn’t one of them and to suggest that it is is a work of fiction which takes an impressive imagination, I’ll give you that much.
No, let’s not focus on what everyone already knows about the monarchy, let’s focus on the redundancy of what you appear to regard as an ethical stance against it and is nothing other than an act of hypocrisy and of solipsism. With an entitlement outlook like that and such slippery opportunist morals you’d be right at home at Buckingham palace comrade – fit right in.
Nun now your twisting words and using your own imagination, who said it was all just about the royal family and when did I ever mention anything about fiction.
Ethics, morals in the world we now live in, please spare me the lecture
When in Rome do as the Romans do.
tapacall
You mentioned creative writing mon brave; you have a flair for imagination, I’ll grant you that. Distinguishing fantasy from reality though, not quite so sure that’s your strong suit.
Not sure what you’re saying about morals and ethics either, seems like you feel that those have no place in the world that we live in perhaps but that’s for you to counter or develop as you wish to or dare to.
As for “when in Rome” etc, in the circumstances of this exchange that sounds like a textbook relativist cop out. It’s OK for you to do it because…other people do it. Fits the pattern I think you’ve established about the quality of your citizenship and the apparent contempt with which you regard the majority of your fellow Irish citizens. Thanks again for the clarity.
lamhdearg,
There is no excuse for not holding talks. Despite appearances to the contrary, the outcome of any negotiation process is never predetermined. This happens all the time, eg trade unions always go into negotiations with excessive demands which they expect to have to give ground on.
Comrade,
“eg trade unions”, there have been talks there will be more talks, but just as in the work place disputes, when one side has an unreasonable demand (g.a.r.c.s often stated no parades full stop) then talks break down and there is a impasse, but there is an other aspect to the ardoyne parades talks problem, in that on the irish nationlist side there are at least two groups for the non irish nats to talk to, and one of them has links to groups that are not on ceasefire, this group are not wanting an resolution, but wants the company to close down
Comrade Stalin, lamdearg
Rather difficult to meaningfully negotiate with anyone believing that God – by some distance the most meaningful influence on their or anyone else’s life (like, ever) – backs their position and will disapprove of – and perhaps taking grave and highly consequential, indeed, conceivably infinitesimal exception to – any negotiation on certain points, particularly when the other side is godless and, as such, are damned in any case. Rather an uneven playing surface upon which to hope to hold any sensible expectation of a fair 11 -v- 11 contest with a settlement agreeable to all.
At least some of the OO higher-ups and grassroots believe quite literally that the military victories being celebrated were/are attributable specifically and exclusively to divine providence. That being the case, be rather a slap in the face to the chap upstairs to abuse that by conceding on the right to march to celebrate the very freedoms which the Almighty Himself brought about – as they say he did – on the battle field. It would, to say the very least of it, signal the perception of some willingness to publicly express doubt about this particular episode of divine providence and, not too further along the trail, cast doubt on the very idea of divine providence itself. Who among the genuinely faithful wants to volunteer to traverse a road given where that might take them to ?
If the reasonable exercise of civil and religious liberty is to be mediated solely through a prism which is itself at least slightly religious and/or which takes account of religious beliefs, then there’s really no objective basis for resolving this outside of the theological debating chamber. For as long as the state continues to refuse to separate itself from matters of religious conviction and considerations, we will continue to have matters regarding human rights – and responsibilities – muddied and needlessly compromised upon within a framework which is only partially, if at all, secular and pluralistic.
nunoftheabove,
have you ever writen for monty pyton, some of your comments read like dennis the constitutional peasent, with class replaced by religion.
lamhdearg
We can do both class and religion if you like my old sword-throwing watery tart, today I’m majoring on the innate immorality of religion though.
Nun just home from a good days scrounging I see your still rambling about imagination, fantasy and reality again, please take your pills.
My lack of morals and ethics (financially) which you abhor are minor misdemeanors compared to those who claim sovereignty over this part of Ireland. Does the British Government have morals when it comes to Libya, Iraq, Afganistan using deplated urainium munitions to delibrately contaminate the populations of those countries with cancers, birth defects, ill health for thousands of years and lo and behold the British Royal family privately owns investments in uranium holdings worth over $6 billion. Yeah they really give a fk about human life morals or ethics.
As for my citizenship well Im in a bit of a limbo there because Im an Irishman who lives under British rule, I dont agree with using violence but will happily let Britain pay for the privledge of passing British laws on Irish people, so whats your problem with that.
tapacall
Yeah well you’ve used the appropriate word for it – scrounging. My problems with it are twofold; one – you’re guilty of precisely what you accuse the loathesome monarchy of, and two, I’m one of the Irish schmucks who has to subsidize your selfish choices. The difference is, I earn the right to complain about the state I live in, my dues are paid. I contribute part of whatever it costs to keep your income propped up to unreasonable levels given the market value of whatever you do for a living – and I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are gainfully employed at all here, which is pretty big of me. Plus of course all of the other benefits you enjoy, however much you appears to resent enjoying them. Again, the idea that it’s not Irish people kicking in their cash for those choices is the stuff of fiction. A cheap attempt at a cheap deceit on your part. An immoral position, objectively speaking.
I think you’ll find that limbo is a place that exists only in the world of the fantastic, even the profoundly immoral vatican admits that it made that up now. Appropriate choice of words on your part therefore, that being the case.
Selfish and self-pitying about covers my main criticisms I think.
Nun you obviously have no issues with the state you live in which I very much doubt is Ireland are you third generation Irish from a w.a.s.p family background why the hostility to the way I feel about making Britain subsidise as much money as possible enforcing its sovereignty in this part of Ireland. Should I become part of the democratic process and beg for Britain to leave, have they listened to reason in the last 1000 years, did they listen to the democratic wishes of the majority of of Ireland in 1918. I’ll just live my life by my own morals and ethics and I really dont care what you think. nuf said.
tapacall
Thanks very much indeed for the ultra bright light you’ve just shone on the almost micro-surgical narrowness of your perspective. You don’t know me and yet – based on no evidence of any description – indeed contrary to what I actually very clearly said – you now suggest that I have no issues with the state. That is factually untrue. Third generation wasp family ?! Quite the parochial altogether, and very very wide of the mark again factually. Puerile name-calling – pathetic.
I have made my objection to your sponging, selfishness, self-pity and your self-righteousness plain enough. You have yet to defend your position in relation to them or to mount a robust defence of yourself in relation to any of them. I’m guessing you won’t simply because you are unable to.
I really don’t mind what morals you or anyone else live by so long as they don’t interfere with my rights and what I regard to be fair. In your case, albeit to a small degree – yours do interfere with mine, our interests conflict. I kick in my share – you don’t. We both get the same benefits, mine are covered. Stop pretending that it’s just ‘the bastard brits’ that pay for it so it’s not a tab you worry about who picks up. It’s actually nothing remotely like a political point you make, it’s just personal gain – cornerboy dole-cheating fag-smuggling greed. It’d be a little more honest – to say nothing of being a little more civil – of you to admit what those values were rather than denying them and making some lame attempt to justify what you do with reference to what happened several hundred years ago in Ireland and some eirgi-esque bollocks about the make-believe colonial exploitation of Afghanistan.
You’re entitled to not care what I think; it’s entirely obvious to me that you don’t give a shit about any other Irish citizen either. As such, your values are essentially those of a twopenny- halfpenny tory wide boy judging by what you’ve contributed to this thread.