PSNI OFFICERS in riot gear were last night dealing with nationalist violence that erupted at the Ardoyne shops in north Belfast before, during and after an Orange Order parade passed by the area.
Police fired plastic bullets and used water cannon as nationalist rioters threw petrol bombs, stones and other missiles. They also pelted the police with broken slates. A number of cars were hijacked and burned out by nationalists.
The trouble was limited at first, but intensified as the evening went on.
At one stage police warned people to take cover, suggesting there had been warnings about gunfire.
The Greater Ardoyne Residents’ Collective, viewed as sympathetic to dissident republicans, staged a protest in the area at about 7pm. They were restricted from entering the Crumlin Road, along which the Orange Order feeder parade marched at about 7.20pm.
They were led by a colour party with furled flags and the Pride of the Ardoyne Loyalist band, playing a drumbeat. About 80 Orangemen and some women paraded behind.
Supporters were not permitted to accompany the Orangemen.
The Crumlin and Ardoyne Residents’ Association, which is supported by Sinn Féin, staged a peaceful protest as the parade passed. They were joined by senior republicans including Sinn Féin Assembly member Gerry Kelly, Bobby Storey and Brendan “Bik” McFarlane.
Because the Greater Ardoyne Residents’ Collective parade was kept away from the Ardoyne shops, an effective buffer zone was created at this flashpoint for a period.
Police also adopted different tactics on this occasion. For instance, unlike in previous years, they mounted the rooftops of shops to try to prevent rioters using them as a vantage point to attack police, as happened in previous years.
The police were later forced to retreat from their vantage points, with some nationalists climbing on to the rooftops to fire missiles at the PSNI.
At the start of the Greater Ardoyne parade, spokesman Dee Fennell said that under the Parade Commission ruling they were to disperse peacefully after the march. Several people laughed at this, while one woman shouted, “No chance!”
A few hundred loyalists gathered near the top of Twaddell Avenue, close to the Ardoyne shops flashpoint.
The previous night, as Orangemen and loyalists gathered at “eleventh night” bonfires (through Monday night and into yesterday morning), hundreds of nationalists had started rioting in areas of west and north Belfast.
Twenty-four PSNI officers were injured during the disturbances in the Broadway area of west Belfast and in the Oldpark in north Belfast. There was also trouble in North Queen Street.
Petrol bombs, bricks, stones and other missiles were thrown at police, who fired 51 plastic bullets in response. Police are also investigating reports that some gunshots were fired.
After a similar attack by loyalists on a police Land Rover in Ballyclare, Co Antrim, at the weekend, nationalists hijacked a bus in the Broadway area and tried to ram a police line separating the rioters from an eleventh night bonfire, about 180m away. The bus crashed short of the police line.
Some of the rioters were children or in their early teens.
Sinn Féin Assembly member Jennifer McCann urged young people not to get caught up in the rioting.
“Those behind it are not welcome here and they are the very same people who are responsible for antisocial behaviour throughout the year within west Belfast,” she said.
SDLP councillor Tim Attwood said the Broadway area of west Belfast “has been left on its head having been encroached [upon] by violent youths who are intent on inciting fear in this community, causing harm to our emergency services and destroying property”.
“This extreme antisocial behaviour will achieve absolutely nothing and only serves to damage the hard work which has been done to build a better west Belfast,” he said.
The PSNI were also reporting incidents of public disorder in Derry and Armagh last night.