Reignition of sectarian hostility in the North?

Dave!

Hey folks,

I've noticed almost every 2nd day when I go onto BreakingNews.ie in the morning, a new story about sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. There have been churches burned down, small-scale riots, police coming under attack, beatings, murders, and today a bus was attacked with bottles in retaliation to something similar happening a while ago.

I tried to gather a bunch of the stories together but the search function is a bit dodgy on breakingnews...

Maybe I just had my head in the sand, but had sectarian violence not diminished greatly in the last say, 5 or 6 years (maybe more)? It certainly didn't get as much press coverage anyway.

Is there any significance in this (possible) re-emergance of hostility? Obviously there has been tension between the protestant and catholic communities for decades, but now I seem to be reading about violence several times a week.

Any thoughts?

baztard

I think most of the sectarian attacks are carried out by teenagers. Given time they'll grow out of it, and the number of teenagers who replace them wont be as high due to better community relations etc. It'll be a very long time before sectarian attacks seize altogether though.

flogen

Yeah, a lot of the attacks are carried out by kids looking to cause trouble - they just use sectarianism as a veil to justify it to themselves (while the scumbag kids in other places just forget about trying to justify it to themselves).

I think there may also be a lot of people who aren't happy with the situation in Stormont and are trying to rock the boat - if they attack the other side enough people will (continue to?) think of it in generalities and what little trust has been built will dissapear again.

artanevilla

I think there is high tension bubbling below the surface, the only reason it hasn't come to a head is the (arguably) lack of activity from organised groups such as the Provisional IRA.

Dalfiatach

flogen wrote: »

Yeah, a lot of the attacks are carried out by kids looking to cause trouble - they just use sectarianism as a veil to justify it to themselves (while the scumbag kids in other places just forget about trying to justify it to themselves).

Exactly. Scumbag kids latching onto a convenient "excuse" to be scumbags. The North's past just makes it a wee bit more complicated than the general rise in scumbaggery everywhere else - they'll hear their parents reminiscing about the great riots of the 70s and 80s so, as kids do, they imitate and try to throw a "riot" themselves. And they have ready-made "gangs" based on which side of the fence they are on rather than which estate they live in as is the case in Dublin or Limerick. So what would probably not be reported at all in the southern media if two gangs of lads from different estates got together for a wee scrap in Dublin (happens every night of the week!) gets elevated into "huge sectarian riot OMG world is ending!!1!!" blethering nonsense on the Six-One News if it happens in Belfast.

What the media these days calls a "riot" in the north is usually 15 or 20 hoodie scumbags chucking a couple of bottles of WKD at a cop landrover. A few weeks ago the media were full of breathless stories about a "riot" on Shipquay St in Derry which apparently went on for hours, paving stones ripped up, shops looted, the whole works. After all the media fuss calmed down a few days later it emerged that nothing very much had actually happened at all, a scuffle outside a nightclub which was over in minutes. No paving stones ripped up, no shops lotted, no 3-hour running battle with cops. The media simply made it all up, ably assisted by the PSNI furiously spinning "see what poor wee us have to put up with".

As usual when it comes to the North, 99% of what you see in the media is complete nonsense. It's always been nonsense, RTÉ and the Irish Times and Indo have been talking pure crap on the North since the 60s. British reporting on the subject is total fantasy. That the media is full of sh1t is something you realise very, very young when you grow up in Derry in the 70s...

alkalinemono

Dalfiatach wrote: »

As usual when it comes to the North, 99% of what you see in the media is complete nonsense. It's always been nonsense, RTÉ and the Irish Times and Indo have been talking pure crap on the North since the 60s. British reporting on the subject is total fantasy. That the media is full of sh1t is something you realise very, very young when you grow up in Derry in the 70s...

Couldn't have said it better myself!

Mr.Micro

I dont think a day goes by when the North is not mentioned on RTE news .They always appear to find some way of working it into the news .Since there has been relative calm between the Catholics and the Protestants the yobs have been attacking immigrants .

Dalfiatach

Mr.Micro wrote: »

I dont think a day goes by when the North is not mentioned on RTE news .They always appear to find some way of working it into the news .

It's quite deliberate, and there's a blatant agenda to all of RTÉs reporting on the subject. Always has been. The idea is to drum into your brain by endless repetition over decades that all Nordies are congenitally mad bastards who do nothing all day but try to kill one another and that everyone in the south is better off having all the lunatics corralled away safely "up there" as if it was on another planet.

The Cruiser and Eoghan Harris have a hell of a lot to answer for.

Zambia

There will always be some level of this crap going on, unfortunatly it still hurts some folk. just ask the PSNI officer shot today by dissident replicants, while dropping of his kids to school.

Eejits looking for justification to be eejits.