Update
I spoke too soon. The majority of 12th parades have gone off peacefully, but there are reports of riots and sectarian attacks, most blamed on the Real IRA. Ah, Northern Ireland…
http://u.tv/News/Clashes-disrupt-Twelfth-parades/b2ff8cac-dbb9-458e-b68f-446a0c7d67a8
The Thirteenth
(Watch below: a Belfast bonfire goes bad as petrol bombs miss their target, which later collapses in a tighly packed neighbourhood.)
The Twelfth has passed with relatively little disturbance; all seems well and ordinary thus far on the Thirteenth, what with the dozens of parades and hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. The true test of how things stand will come tonight at parades in Ardoyne and Coleraine, if it doesn’t rain. But that’s looking likely — again, probably a good thing.
Last night I walked over to the Donegal Road bonfire. The drink was clearly flowing, the music playing, and the Irish flags and pictures of nationalist politicians adorning the 50-foot bonfire in wait for the coming trial by fire. Everything as expected.
But after they lit the fire, celebration quickly turned to concern (and then back to celebration again). Temporary panic ensued when petrol bombs thrown from the opposite side of the bonfire missed the stack of wood and flew into the crowd.
Later saw more chaos as the bonfire collapsed into the street, narrowly missing houses across the street, with the fire brigade spending the night ensuring the entire neighbourhood didn’t catch fire.
It must be said that this bonfire doesn’t seem to have been particularly well thought out.
Watch the video below (warning, there is some vulgar language).
The Twelfth
The Twelfth of July has arrived in Northern Ireland. It commemorates the Battle of the Boyne, a defining moment in history here (I won’t get into the details), and sees celebrations and parades staged by the Orange Order throughout Northern Ireland.
Naturally, it also means tensions get ratcheted up, as nationalists and Catholics find it all a bit touchy and see themselves as victims when the Orange parades travel through their neighbourhoods for the simple reason that it’s the “traditional” route the parade has taken. The Orange Order is a unionist and Protestant organisation — indeed, Catholics are said to be forbidden to join by the Orange charter. Fortunately many people choose this time of year to travel, as much on account of their own political and religious ideology and/or personal safety as for the warm weather.
This year should be interesting. The Orange Order has taken extra steps to make the parades more inclusive, including rebranding the event as “Orangefest” and an international celebration of (Northern Irish) culture. On the other hand, a series of bomb scares and sectarian attacks means there are places where trouble could be brewing.
The two highlights of the Twelfth are the bonfires that typically happen late at night on the 11th and the Orange parades on the day itself. Because the Twelfth falls on a Sunday this year, it’s all been a bit broken up, with the bonfires originally scheduled for the 11th and the parades on the 13th. But because of a storm last night with persistent heavy rain and wind, the bonfires have been pushed to tonight.
Most people will be hoping the bonfires and parades are free of violence. It’s forecast to be dry tonight, meaning the bonfires will likely go ahead, but rain is expected again tomorrow. It might be better that way, actually, because it means fewer people are out and fewer people will be on the drink.
Whatever happens, the next few days will certainly be interesting. I’ll be at the bonfires late tonight and some of the parades tomorrow and will post updates and pictures when I get a chance.
Fourth of July
It is the 4th of July — Independence Day in the US. It’s a bit odd being on the other side of the pond, having been able to celebrate the holiday stateside my entire life, and, of course, it’s all mildly nostalgic.
A Northern Irish acquaintance sent me a text today wishing me a happy 4th. It was a nice gesture, I thought to myself, but then my mind began to drift over the Northern Irish equivalent. There is none. The essential theme of Independence Day is national unity (“We’re Americans and proud of it!”), which is notoriously absent here.
About a third of people here consider themselves Irish. Another third consider themselves British. And the final third, maybe a little less, say they’re Northern Irish, something of a mix of both.
I wonder how many people here would prefer that sense of national unity and pride, and if it will ever be possible, whatever the political future of Northern Ireland involves.
Whiterock
Whiterock 2009 proved tame by comparison.
In previous years, most notably 2005, it has led to significant rioting in Belfast. Not so, this time. But I found the experience enlightening, nonetheless.
(For those unfamiliar, Whiterock is one of a number of contentious parades during the summer marching season. Loyalists [Protestants] march from north Belfast into parts of west Belfast, a primarily nationalist [Catholic] area, waving their flags and playing their fifes (?) and drums. Nationalist outrage ensues, resulting in almost tangible tension and quite often violence.)
Officially, I wasn’t there (UTV health and safety regulations prohibited it), but I walked down by my own choice and got through to the media area, even managing to avoid being hit by various projectiles thrown by protesters. But the experience of being in the middle (with a heavy police presence of course) made me realise how difficult the police service has it here. Quite frequently they have to put themselves between two groups of people who despise each other and somehow, all things considered, generally keep things peaceful nowadays. Many people don’t want them there in the first place though — so they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The determination had been made beforehand to allow only one band through to the nationalist area. The tension, heightened by security alerts of “suspicious devices” in the area, luckily turned out to be worse than the actual event — waiting for the gates to open, the band to come through, not knowing what chaos it might bring. As an American quasi-journo it was my first time attending a contentious parade — and yet people here have become used to it, numb even.
I found the aftermath more telling than the parade itself. After the UTV crew left, I stayed behind, sensing something more. A crowd of mostly young men formed near another gate in the fence separating the two groups, and as several police vehicles positioned themselves in front of the gate, the police became targets as the small mob hurled glass bottles and rocks at the police.
No one was hurt as far as I know, and what I saw would be a fairly regular thing. But despite hearing about it before, witnessing it for myself was eye-opening. The men taunted police. They got boxes of glass bottles out and rained them down on the police vehicles, leaving shards of glass covering the streets. It was a sheer brazen challenge to police authority. And when the police finally retreated to the opposite side of the security fence and then shut the gate, the youths started throwing bottles and rocks over the gate as well.
What I find most troubling is that there was no reason for it. The parade had gone peacefully and all the loyalists had left the area. The crowd did it because they could. If you asked them, some of them would have no idea why they were doing it. Others might simply know that the police represent an authority that they don’t like. Boys as young as 4 or 5 climbed atop rubbish bins to get in on the action. A little girl of maybe 6 years old stood in front of her older brother a block away, complaining about the police and growing more and more excited when it seemed they might move in to try to re-assert their authority.
Attacking the police, almost daring the police to move into the area in force, has become recreation in some areas here. It is not representative of Belfast or Northern Ireland as a whole — but in some places, especially outside the calm and security of the city centre. As a tourist, though, you could come to Northern Ireland and never have any idea there is ever any trouble. That would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.
The province has made so much progress over the past 10 years or so, but there is still more work to be done.
The Seven Thirty Show and Cystic Fibrosis
Last weekend I had the chance to meet an amazing woman named Therese White. She’s amazing because she has cystic fibrosis, a life-limiting illness, and yet has been such an inspiration to everyone around her.
I was sent to a fund-raising concert she organised last weekend to talk to people who know her. Have a look at her story on the Seven Thirty Show programme.
Ardoyne 2001
Friday I worked on a story about a series of murals around Belfast, and particularly one in the Ardoyne area, that have been replaced in an effort to ensure the city’s public art reflects the changing political times in the city. The Republic of Ireland’s president, Mary McAleese, was on hand to unveil the art.
Ironically, it wasn’t long after the story went out on the teatime news that reports of disruptions at a contentious parade started trickling through — and, of course, the trouble had flared only a few blocks from the new murals in Ardoyne.
Over the course of putting the story together I had a first chance to look at UTV’s library footage from the Holy Cross saga in 2001. It’s not pleasant viewing. You see mothers and daughters walking to school through endless lines of police, and then you hear a blast bomb go off nearby, followed by screaming and general chaos.
While Holy Cross would have been a well-known dispute, there have certainly been worse cases of violence. And yet seeing the footage for the first time makes it so much more real. As an American, it’s easy to forget what’s happened here over the years.
But still, and this is the important part, it’s rewarding to be able to see people moving on, contentious parades aside. Putting it all together that day, the editor I was working with remarked, “Seems like such a long time ago.”
It was only 8 years ago, but Northern Ireland has come a long way since then.
Racism
The story in Northern Ireland right now is the racism that has unexpectedly shown its ugly face in the form of over a hundred Romanians forced from their south Belfast homes after some violence, vandalism, and apparent death threats.
I tend to think the story is being mildly overplayed in some circles (national UK and international news coverage), although that in no way diminishes the cowardice of those responsible.
There’s talk that racism is the new sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Criticism that people in Northern Ireland need someone to hate — whether its Protestants, Catholics, Poles, Romanians, or whomever the next group will be.
But then, there are some who prefer to think that those turning to racism, those pelting protesters with stones and breaking into houses and making threats against young Romanian mothers, are in fact in the minority here, with the majority condemning the attacks and doing anything possible to come to the aid of the beleaguered.
I am part of the second group — but there is no hiding the fact that there remains some degree of an undercurrent of violence or thuggery.
But on the bright side, NI is making progress politically, with loyalist paramilitaries finally agreeing to put their guns and bombs out of use, bringing a little more closure to the province’s troubled past.
We’ll see what next week brings.
Another new effort
Another new blogging effort, hopefully representing a more professional approach to the matter. You can expect updates once or twice a week, depending.
