PROTESTS in Northern Ireland last week were condemned by the Archbishop of Armagh, the Rt Revd John McDowell, as “a source of great shame”.
On Monday, the police said that 64 law enforcement officials had been injured over the course of 4 nights in attacks that they described as “racist thuggery, pure and straightforward”. Twenty-nine people were arrested, of whom 21 were charged.
In an statement released last Friday, Archbishop McDowell described the “scenes of violence” as “hiding behind the figment of ‘legitimate concerns’ but the truth is motivated by crude racism”.
He said: “Groups of young men (and the shadowy and unaccountable individuals who control them) planned and carried out attacks on civil society and on democracy. The damage they’ve caused just isn’t just material; it can’t be simply swept away.
“As disciples of Jesus Christ, called to respect the dignity of every one made within the image and likeness of God, we must always put ourselves within the shoes of somebody trapped inside a house or a hostel while an offended mob gathers outside. It have to be utterly terrifying. Imagine the lasting impact of such terror on a baby.”
The violence began in Ballymena, in County Antrim, and shortly spread to other twos and cities including Larne, Coleraine, Belfast, and Portadown, where the police needed to deploy water cannon.
The origin of the unrest was the court appearance in Coleraine Magistrates’ Court of two teenage boys accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Ballymena. They spoke in Romanian through an interpreter. Later that day, a peaceful protest over the alleged assault within the town turned to violence.
Businesses were damaged as doors and windows were smashed. It is known that houses where immigrant families were staying were targeted. Six homes were attacked as bricks, fireworks, and petrol bombs were thrown.
“It is simply by the grace of God, and by the actions of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the fireplace service last night, that we are usually not taking a look at something more serious,” the Northern Ireland Assembly member for North Antrim, Sian Mulholland, said in Stormont the subsequent day.
Archbishop McDowell said: “The people who find themselves the goal of such squalid protests have come to this country to make a latest life and to make a living. Just as we’d rightly refuse to be judged by the criminal actions of any individual who happens to be from the identical nationality or ethnicity as us, so we must always query those that achieve this of others.
“I actually have also a legitimate concern that the scapegoating of individuals whose skin is a distinct color, who speak different languages, or who practice a distinct faith, will allow policymakers to proceed to disregard the actual, deep-seated problems which make Northern Ireland a spot of low productivity and social and political unease.
“Above all, I actually have a priority that speaking about other people and cultures in sub-human and positively sub-Christian terms, and acting towards them as if they’re in a roundabout way inferior to me, will deaden my soul to the love of the God of all nations, whose Son allowed himself to be bowed to the bottom to bring an end once and for all to each ethnic division.”
The MP for North Antrim, Jim Allister, referred to “unfettered immigration” resulting in “significant demographic change in the world”. A report published by the Northern Ireland Assembly this yr estimated a net international migration total of 62,000 people over the period 2001-23. The majority of individuals have come from Ireland, Poland, and Romania, it said; only 3.5 per cent of the Northern Ireland population come from an ethnic minority (England and Wales have a figure of 18 per cent).
The variety of international migrants into the the mid- and east-Antrim council area over the past 20 years, in line with the Assembly research, was 4900. Its population on the last census in 2021 was slightly below 139,000 people.
