Fear and Loathing in Northern Ireland: how the impact of online agitprop has poisoned our social cohesion…

And so, now, to the annual pogroms. The pogroms have a two-fold effect, as they allow for the Great Cleansing of the undesirables, whilst also providing the staining of identity, civic pride, and general decency. Northern Ireland’s regular refurbishment reminds us that this truly is a place apart.

On Tuesday, the wide dispersal, organisation, and simultaneous nature of the violence was striking. Yesterday saw further violence in Glengormley (twelve police officers inured) as the unrest made its way to suburbia, directing smoke signals towards the Chimney Corner hotel. The glorious tradition of recreational rioting from young, voiceless and disaffected males has all too easily segued into racist thuggery, underpinning a complex and exploitable situation.

The barbaric attack on Stephen Ogilvie in North Belfast on Monday night was unfathomable in its outright callousness and bloodlust, leaving Mr Ogilvie with life-changing injuries. A 30-year-old Sudanese man has been charged with attempted murder.

Norman Hamilton, the former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland made the excellent – and uncomfortable – point on Evening Extra yesterday that:

“One of the elephants in the room [is that] we have not had an intelligent conversation about the relationship between immigration and integration: that simply hasn’t happened, it’s almost as if we daren’t mention it… the mutual benefit that can come to both communities…that’s a disgrace [that the proper societal conversation] hasn’t happened.”

Peaceful gatherings, demonstrations and protests about unvetted immigration have taken place in many towns. But the subsequent violence has inevitably “distracted” from the protesters’ message, much to chagrin of Paul Givan and other elected representatives.

On Tuesday evening, Ulster was saying, ‘No’: a lorry of some sort appeared to have been dumped across Molesworth Street in Cookstown. A car set on fire in Kilkeel. The burning police vehicle, too, in Portadown. A Turkish barbershop in Ballyclare, windows smashed. Far too many moments of note to keep up with. Though it was perhaps the properties burnt out on Lendrick Street in Belfast that gave us the most emotive images, with a family cowering for shelter in the back of a police Land Rover.

Some schools closed early yesterday, education disrupted, as rumours of more trouble left a vacuum of uncertainty.

If we were to believe that the Slurry in Scarva would be enough effluence for one week, then think again. The online overlords of the Great Grift will keep the discerning gentleman and woman on the righteous path.

On Tuesday, Steve Bannon (Donald Trump’s former strategist), on a livestream with MAGA evangelist Jack Posobiec, said:

“…with Nigel [Farage] and the guys, there’s sometimes not the focus [needed]. Tommy Robinson is trying to pull this together. Although an Englishman, Tommy Robinson is trying to unite Northern Ireland and the Republic, in some sort of combination here.”

You can view the full exchange from the Pit of Acheron below:

On Facebook, Rupert Lowe (the rebellious foil to Nigel Farage’s, erm, more mainstream brand of discriminatory politics) had commanded:

“Patriots – if you are protesting tonight, in Belfast or elsewhere… Stay Calm. Keep your heads. Do NOT attack the police.”

Read between the lines, there.

On Tuesday’s Newsnight, the British-American broadcaster Mehdi Hasan’s glorious character assassination of Elon Musk and his ill-intentioned playbook summed up the wider problem that exists in our online reality:

With hellish carnage playing out on the streets, the Northern Ireland subreddit was so overcome with events that moderators deemed it necessary to implement code ‘M’ – A Protest Megathread. This allowed for a useful streamlining of narrative, enabling horrified observers to keep pace with swift developments. Among the comments of misery, fear, shame and overriding depression, there was one moment of light relief when ‘Usual-Charity-6772’ revealed, “it looks like there’s been massive amounts of destruction in Antrim town but no word on the protests.”

Late last night the thread came to life again, with the Sky News chopper providing the absurd image of an entire garden fence being used by the rioters.

Our localised perspective is something we tend to take for granted, so it was surreal to see Belfast front and centre of several other livestream broadcasts on YouTube and beyond. Steve Lookner from ‘Agenda Free TV’ inhabits this space, and he is a respected and neutral online news observer. He will often stream coverage about moderately ‘big’ events unfolding in America, or certainly significant international crises. Steve went ‘Live’ on Tuesday night with his video entitled, ‘Belfast Protests & New U.S. Strikes on Iran’. The stream amassed over 596,000 views. For a bloke who usually sticks to U.S. centric information on events such as a school shooting in Texas or a tornado in Arkansas, it was utterly remarkable.

We had reason to go to A & E in The Royal a few weeks ago. A Nigerian doctor took care of a serious issue for us. It shouldn’t matter a damn if he was from Nigeria or Newry, but in the context of ‘this place’ these things have now become an observation on many a person’s internal monologue, and he was fantastic and warm and lovely; and even if he had been an auld ignorant hoor, then fair play to him and so what? I thought then, and even more so now: what way do others judge this man when he’s out walking to the corner shop in his faded trackies and runners, with no NHS lanyard to be seen? What do they see? Indeed, I asked myself uncomfortably, how would I consciously, or sub-consciously perceive him?

In Anna Burns’s novel ‘Milkman’, the narrator remarks – whilst caught in the minefield of Troubles era language and a divided society – that the use of “ ‘Us’ and ‘them’ was second nature. ” Our country’s new genie is out of the bottle now, unfortunately, with those who fear the ‘Other’ emboldened and unafraid.

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Standing on a hilltop in Saul last Saturday afternoon, I looked down into the distance across Strangford Lough. Little islets, skiffs and a colourful harbour town were all hazy in the distance. As a Tyrone native still trying to find his Co. Down reference points, I thought, ‘Is that Killyleagh? Or perhaps Portaferry?’ Neither maybe, but I saw and felt the beauty in this place, this country, and it was a real and peaceful and welcoming presence. Across the field, on another hilltop, the gigantic statue of St. Patrick’s gazed through the smirr, barely visible, and lost in thought.