Protestant - Catholic violence in Northern Ireland



A masked man taking part in sectarian violence in Belfast on Tuesday night. This week
has seen the worst flare up of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland in almost a decade.


The Ulster Volunteer Force, a Protestant paramilitary group, attacked Catholic homes with bricks and fireworks


Your Editor is so happy.  I am sick of the endless stories about Islam.  Finally we are getting back to the basics.  To the good old days of Catholic - Protestant violence.  Which is the True Faith?  We all need to know. 

Despite ongoing sectarian tension in Northern Ireland, violence has recently seemed a thing of the past. Until Monday night, when a group of Protestants began attacking homes belonging to Catholics. Two nights of rioting have left several wounded and many wondering what is next.

There are walls everywhere in Belfast. They criss-cross residential districts, they cut off roads and they abut backyards. Known officially as "peace lines," they are not designed to keep people in or out. Rather, they are there to keep Catholics and Protestants in the city separated. And for almost a decade, they have been -- at least to the casual observer -- remarkably successful.

Until this week.

Tuesday night saw the second straight night of rioting in east Belfast in what some are calling the worst flare-up of sectarian violence in the area in a decade. Police say 700 people took part in the melee on Tuesday night with police coming under a barrage of Molotov cocktails and other projectiles. Several shots were also fired and a photojournalist was hit by a bullet in the leg. A local politician told the BBC that another man suffered a fractured skull after being hit by a brick.

There were also gunshots fired during clashes on Monday night. Police are investigating the incident as an attempted murder. Some 500 people were thought to have taken part in the Monday night riots. Officials say the unrest started when masked members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a Protestant paramilitary group, attacked Catholic homes with bricks and fireworks.



Hundreds of radical Protestant loyalists battled it out with Catholic
republicans on both Monday and Tuesday night. 

 The UVF, which declared an end to its armed campaign in 2007, was among the most violent loyalist groups fighting to keep Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. For almost 30 years beginning in the late 1960s -- a period known simply as "The Troubles" -- the loyalists fought an ongoing battle against the largely Catholic republicans, who wanted a reduced British role in Northern Ireland.

The two sides declared a cease fire in 1994 and that was followed by a political pact known as the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Violence, though, has sporadically continued. Indeed, 2002 saw an eruption of street fighting that rivaled that during even the worst of the Troubles. Tension has simmered since.

"There are often sporadic bits of trouble which are so relatively small that they often go unreported by the media," Neil Jarman, from the Institute for Conflict Research at the University of Ulster, told the BBC. "But they are the source of significant tension in the area and can lead to something much worse, like we've seen in the last 24 hours."

- Spiegel Online