Loyalist side of Belfast interface ‘demonised’ and ‘unfairly’ singled-out following street disorder

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A long-time community worker in Belfast has said that the Village district has been under a "continual" barrage of anti-social behaviour for the last 10 months, following rioting in the area this week. Sarah Bowden feels that Village residents have been "demonised" and "unfairly" depicted as being largely to blame for the recent disorder when, in reality, there's blame to be shared on both sides of the interface. Much of the problem stems from youths from the republican-dominated Falls side of the interface crossing over onto the loyalist-dominated Village side, she said.

Whilst there has been "tit-for-tat" antisocial behaviour across the divide, the geography of the area means that homes on the Village side make for particularly accessible targets, she told the News Letter.

A policeman on patrol at the south Belfast roundabout separating the Village from the Falls on Tuesday

It is against this backdrop that bigger-scale street disorder flared on Monday and Tuesday, when police came under attack from petrol bombs and missiles. The area is the main junction between south Belfast and west Belfast. It consists of the Village neighbourhood on one side, the Falls on the other, and a gigantic motorway roundabout in between (where the Rise sculpture is located, AKA "the Balls on the Falls").

Ms Bowman, 37, has worked for the Greater Village Regeneration Trust for the last 19 years. She said last October, "a crowd came over from across the interface and damaged houses and vehicles" and trouble has continued since. She recalled TikTok videos showing crowds of people in their late teens coming over, shouting they were "part of the Beechmount Reactive Force" (Beechmount being a district just off the Falls).

"It just escalated from there" she said, with the latest disorder beginning "with a crowd that had come across the interface and damaged a car (belonging to a Spanish family, I think)... and that then spiralled into large scale disorder then on Monday evening". What kind of antisocial behaviour has there been? It has largely consisted of "stone throwing across the motorway, from both groups," she said.

"I think a lot of it is emanating from social media - they're goading each-other," she said. "They're just using social media as a means to try to meet up and have these arranged sessions, on both sides." It's not helped by the fact there's a nearby McDonald's that's used by people from across the interface.

It has had to shut a number of times due to trouble, she said. The whole thing is made more dangerous by the fact the trouble is being conducted across a motorway. "This is a busy, busy road," she said.

"Someone's going to end up getting seriously injured, or else some poor person driving a car is going to hit one of those young people and they're going to have to live with that for the rest of their lives as well." What about a recent Village bonfire where paramilitary symbols and the slogan "all taigs are targets" was displayed? "Nobody can condone that type of language, and we're trying really, really hard to work with young people around bonfires, around what bonfires stand for, why we hve bonfires, and a lot around our culture.

"And there's a lot of work still to be done there. But unfortunately the ongoing trouble from October is obviously going to have an impact." It is all made worse by the fact youths are travelling from outside the area to get involved in trouble.

And when it's all over, they go home - whilst the area's residents "can't leave". As for how all this is being perceived, Ms Bowden said: "The Village is the one at the minute that's getting a bad name, and it's really unfair and I think they just feel there's been a lot maybe of media bias. "Especially over the last couple of days [coverage] has always centred on the Village...

"I don't think necessarily it's fair to blame one community and have one community demonised whenever in actual fact that community has been living with attacks from October last year."

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