Fresh back from a recent trip to Belfast, it occurred to me that two versions of the city have been on display this summer.
In the first, Belfast was the epitome of joy and togetherness.
In the second, it was a depiction of fury and division.
Feile an Phobail, the annual West Belfast festival, is a magnificent occasion.
A celebration of positivity as thousands gather for live music in Falls Park, or at any of the myriad cultural events that take place during August, bringing with it ever larger numbers of visitors and investment.
But this month also offered us a very different vision of the city.
At the time of writing, protracted rioting is still taking place regularly, triggered – we are led to believe – by similar disturbances across England in light of the murderous attack on a group of small girls at a dance class in Southport last month.
It is a highly-dubious response to put it mildly, but quite inexplicable why Belfast’s thugs have been joined by a small number of useful idiots from Dublin, disgracing the Irish Tricolour by waving it alongside loyalist emblems.
This was (inaccurately) written up in parts of the media as some sort of spontaneous event.
It was nothing of the sort.
It was simply a few far-right activists bussed-up from the south to pose for a photo opportunity with unrepentant loyalists, apparently finding common cause in burning out a Syrian-owned supermarket.
What heroes.
I’ve written many times that there is a reasoned and reasonable critique of immigration patterns into both Britain and Ireland.
But at the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, this was not it.
This was unadulterated fascism. Orchestrated by still-active paramilitaries about which the British government and Police Service of Northern Ireland have been scandalously complacent for far too long.
The Feile was originally started as a riposte to the perception of West Belfast as dangerous and dour during the height of the Troubles.
It has blossomed into a compelling cultural experience and, with it, an expression of the self-confidence and unbridled optimism now felt by Belfast’s nationalist community.
In contrast, loyalists, along with their new Free Stater comrades, wallow in irrelevance and bitterness.
The future belongs to one of these two competing visions of Belfast.
And it isn’t to those with screwed-up faces, setting fire to their own city.
Fresh back from a recent trip to Belfast, it occurred to me that two versions of the city have been on display this summer.
In the first, Belfast was the epitome of joy and togetherness.
In the second, it was a depiction of fury and division.
Feile an Phobail, the annual West Belfast festival, is a magnificent occasion.
A celebration of positivity as thousands gather for live music in Falls Park, or at any of the myriad cultural events that take place during August, bringing with it ever larger numbers of visitors and investment.
But this month also offered us a very different vision of the city.
At the time of writing, protracted rioting is still taking place regularly, triggered – we are led to believe – by similar disturbances across England in light of the murderous attack on a group of small girls at a dance class in Southport last month.
It is a highly-dubious response to put it mildly, but quite inexplicable why Belfast’s thugs have been joined by a small number of useful idiots from Dublin, disgracing the Irish Tricolour by waving it alongside loyalist emblems.
This was (inaccurately) written up in parts of the media as some sort of spontaneous event.
It was nothing of the sort.
It was simply a few far-right activists bussed-up from the south to pose for a photo opportunity with unrepentant loyalists, apparently finding common cause in burning out a Syrian-owned supermarket.
What heroes.
I’ve written many times that there is a reasoned and reasonable critique of immigration patterns into both Britain and Ireland.
But at the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, this was not it.
This was unadulterated fascism. Orchestrated by still-active paramilitaries about which the British government and Police Service of Northern Ireland have been scandalously complacent for far too long.
The Feile was originally started as a riposte to the perception of West Belfast as dangerous and dour during the height of the Troubles.
It has blossomed into a compelling cultural experience and, with it, an expression of the self-confidence and unbridled optimism now felt by Belfast’s nationalist community.
In contrast, loyalists, along with their new Free Stater comrades, wallow in irrelevance and bitterness.
The future belongs to one of these two competing visions of Belfast.
And it isn’t to those with screwed-up faces, setting fire to their own city.