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Coleraine: i protestanti vivono nella paura

‘Protestants living in fear’

Coleraine, Somerset DrivePROTESTANT residents of The Heights in Coleraine say a campaign of sectarian intimidation by a gang of thugs has left them living in fear.
They have condemned the murder of Kevin McDaid, but believe that the media has vilified their community, and has failed to tell the full story about the circumstances that gave rise to the attack.

A number of people agreed to speak to the News Letter, but such are the tensions within the community that none would allow their names to be used, never mind pose for photographs. To go public would lead to reprisals, they said.

An elderly woman, who was forced out of her home of 54 years in The Heights said “living in Coleraine during the Troubles was easier than it has been in the last few years”.

“During the Troubles I lived there okay, but now recently any time I went out of the house they were calling me nothing but an Orange bi***.

“There was always friction of some sort in Coleraine, but it was manageable. Then I had my windows put in a few times and the last time I had my front door attacked. I couldn’t live there anymore. I couldn’t sleep at night.”

She claimed there had been “religious cleansing” carried out in the Somerset Drive area of the estate.

“Slowly but surely they have hounded Protestant families out of the area,” she said. “They want us to all go away, and some of us have. I couldn’t stay in the house I was born in because I could have got a petrol bomb through my window. The police in Coleraine are for nothing.

They kept on telling me they would help and they didn’t. Not once.”
We also spoke to a businessman who was last week given seven days to close his business and “move out”.

He said: “I don’t believe the threats came from paramilitaries. These people have no paramilitary connections, even though they say they have. The men, if you could call them that, are thugs. They take their DLA from the Government and sit outside their homes drinking beer for most of the day.

“There are only a few of them into the bargain. If they were lifted off our streets the trouble would end.”

The businessman, who employs workers from both sides of the community, said he has been encouraged to shrug off the threat and continue.

union jackA young Protestant mother said the troublemakers in the Heights numbered about 12 people.

“We have gone to unionist politicians and the police and got nowhere,” she said. “A lot of people have lost confidence in them both.

“All we see are the police going ‘softly softly’ with people who are not even meant to be in the area. They just seem to get away with everything.”

A young Protestant father from the area said the place he had grown up in – and is now bringing his family up in – was being “so terribly damaged”.

“It is so unsettled here at the moment. I know what has happened is terrible. But there is more to what happened than what has been portrayed in the media,” he said.

“On the day that Kevin was killed there was a lot of goading going on of loyalists from republicans who live in the area.

“People had been drinking that day because their teams (Celtic and Rangers] were playing. “Then the goading started and things got out of control. Some of the republicans had put up tricolours earlier in the day and loyalists said they were going to take them down.

“Not that long after Kevin died some agency came out and painted over all the death threats plastered on the walls as if they were never there. But the names of local loyalists had been written on the walls.”

The resident added that The Heights had been, for some time, a major area for drug dealing in the Province.

The residents now fear what will take place in the run-up to a band parade on July 1 to mark the Somme commemoration. It is due to cross the bridge in the town and pass along Killowen Street.

One young man said what he really wanted emphasised was that the majority of people in The Heights “want to live in peace”.

He said: “They get on with their neighbours, whatever religion they are. There is only a very small element on both sides who keep the Troubles going, and I am not sure it is over religion anyway.”

The young man added: “These thugs have turned what up until about three years ago was a nice place to live, into a complete ghetto.”

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René Querin

Di professione grafico e web designer, sono appassionato di trekking e innamorato dell'Irlanda e della sua storia. Insieme ad Andrea Varacalli ho creato e gestisco Les Enfants Terribles.

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One Comment

  1. Sembra il tentativo del News Letter di cercare di “riequilibrare” la situazione.

    Ormai Coleraine è conosciuta all’estero per il grave fatto avvenuto a fine maggio, ad opera dei lealisti.

    Quindi niente di meglio di alcune interviste “mirate” per cercare di mostrare come anche dall’altra parte non siano tutti dei santi.

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