Sad return of violence
It was truly dispiriting to see the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland wasn’t it?
I had hoped that seeing widespread violence and rioting on the streets of Northern Ireland was a thing of the past.
Unfortunately now that the cat is out of the bag and adrenaline-fuelled teens have discovered what they can get away with, I fear this will become more common as the fear of a united Ireland increases.
On Tuesday Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told the House of Commons that 88 police officers had been injured in the recent violence, with only 18 arrests made and 15 people charged.
He said there was work that the PSNI and Policing Board “need to do to reconnect with communities, to show communities that they are there, the PSNI is there for the safety and protection of everybody across the entire community of Northern Ireland”.Things had been quieter over the past few nights at least until a man in his 20s was shot in his leg in what police described as a “paramilitary-style assault” in Derry on Tuesday night.
Last Saturday marked the 23rd anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. What a sad way to mark it.
On Tuesday church leaders in Northern Ireland called for a unified political response to recent violence and rioting.
In an open letter from the Church Leaders' Group to political leaders in Northern Ireland, the Irish and UK governments, and the EU, they appealed for them to “treat Northern Ireland's fragile peace with care”.
The letter was after what they described as “heartbreaking scenes witnessed on our streets last week”.
“Church representatives and other community leaders working on the ground in affected communities have spoken to us of their frustration at seeing another generation of young people risk their lives and their futures because repeated warnings about the need to treat our fragile peace with care went unheeded.”
This was supposed to be time of the post-conflict generations, the generations that had grown up without the spectre of violence and death around them. The generations that would move beyond fear, division and hate to create a new and better Northern Ireland
How sad to see these teens racing down streets to throw fire bombs over peace walls and at buses and PSNI officers. And how awful to see their parents and neighbours cheering them as they did so.
Unionists must feel betrayed and abandoned and some must feel in fear of a united Ireland. A united Ireland has never been closer in my lifetime or in the existence of Northern Ireland itself, and part of the blame for that must go to the DUP and Boris Johnson who have never acted in the best interests of the north, but instead pursued short-term political goals.Unionists are not well served by the party that has been overwhelmingly most popular among Unionists - the DUP. Of course there’s not much point in unionism without being in the union. Perhaps that illustrates how far away unionists are from accepting a united Ireland. We still have a long, long way to go.