Once staunchly Protestant, Belfast's Sandy Row area is now home to a mix of people, to the anger of some residents, writes Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor
Whitehall Square near Sandy Row shares a name with the home of the British establishment in London - but little else. A block of more than 100 modern apartments, it stands on south Belfast's Donegall Road opposite the site of the former Rangers Supporters' Club where it rises above a network of little streets. It is home to an unknown number of Catholics and to a mix of races, colours and creeds.
Always defiantly loyalist and Protestant, Sandy Row used to house tens of thousands of people. Now it's estimated that there are only around 3,500 left.
Once utterly mono-cultural, the area is adjacent to the nightclubs and pubs of Bradbury Place, Great Victoria Street and the Dublin Road. Students from nearby Queen's University and nurses from the City Hospital mix with young people from all backgrounds along this stretch of the misnamed "Golden Mile".
The contrast could scarcely be more cruel.
Whitehall Square was intended, at least in part, to introduce new faces and new money to an area marked by steady decline and depopulation.
Southern investors stepped into the local market about two years ago, keen for sterling-area investments at prices well below Dublin levels. Rents are bracketed between £500 and £600 per month - Belfast's mid to upper range.
But for the local community, Whitehall Square is known as Vatican Square and resentment is simmering. Sectarian leaflets have been distributed among Sandy Row residents urging them to spurn the newcomers. "Catholics wouldn't let us live on the Falls Road - why should we let them live here?" the leaflets ask pointedly.
Allegations abound that Tricolours and Celtic shirts have been displayed from apartment windows while abuse - and bottles - are thrown at the local population.
Nationalist politicians pooh-pooh the rumours as unionists endorse them with equal force.
Aluminium shopfronts which protect the vacant retail units at street level have been daubed with anti-Catholic slogans, while the vehicle used by the cleaning company employed to remove them has been attacked.
Some 200 residents marched along Sandy Row on Wednesday towards the apartments claiming their action was nothing more than a protest against provocation from apartment residents.
"If people are going to abuse the residents they are going to have to suffer the consequences," said Bob Stoker, a unionist councillor and former lord mayor.
That prompted a furore, joined by Dr Alasdair McDonnell, the SDLP deputy leader and former deputy lord mayor. He accused unionist representatives of sectarianism and the residents of trying to make the area unwelcome to "outsiders". "Apartment residents are not operating under some form of republican agenda," he insists.
Alex Maskey, last year's Sinn Féin lord mayor, pressed Stoker to retract his claims which, he said, risked inflaming sectarianism. "The majority in south Belfast is opposed to racist or sectarian intimidation and Bob Stoker would be better supporting these people," he said.
Other unionists in the DUP and the Orange Order have largely kept offside. But many explain, rather than excuse, the residents' actions and cite the area's social and economic decline.
For the Community Relations Council, the latest incidents are viewed against a spate of racial and sectarian incidents across south Belfast in the past two years.
"We need to look at whether there's anything that's generating this size of a reaction, where there is a legitimacy on the community side. There must be some fear triggering this," said Duncan Morrow, the council's chief executive.
He talks of the city's "terrible territorialism" which he believes is linked to the attacks on Asians, in particular.
In March, leaflets were also distributed in the loyalist Donegall Pass area - just a few hundred yards away - calling on the local community to protect their Protestant and loyalist heritage and spurn the "influx of yellow people".
Loyalist paramilitary activity, steeped in ultra-nationalistic views of "the British way of life" further complicate the mix.
For some residents of "Vatican Square", the writing is literally on the wall, and some plan to leave.
The commercial sector's view of the development is adequately illustrated by the security screens on the shop units which have never opened.
The area's "Eleventh night" bonfire is already taking shape on a vacant plot in Sandy Row, more than two months early. Yards away, Belfast's young mingle in the city's most vibrant area.
The two images of Belfast clash at the interface between the traditional and the new.