It's a far cry from the image of the supremacist sons of Ulster. Ron Martin
is nervous even standing outside the battered Orange hall on the nationalist
Whitewell Road in north Belfast.
"The last time I'd my picture taken here, the photographer and I were
stoned. That's how much freedom Protestants have in this community," he
says.
The hall is a sorry sight. The windows have been broken so many times,
they're now bricked up. There are metal grilles, a heavy security door, and
steel shutters. The building is splattered with paint and scorch marks from
nationalist petrol bomb attacks.
The weeds grow high and thick. Nobody is brave, or foolish, enough to stand
in the garden and cut them. "We need a police escort every time we enter and
leave the hall," says Martin. "From the moment we start the meeting with a
hymn, the bricks and bottles crash down on the roof and walls.
"It lasts for the entire two hours. Sometimes, we can't come out even with
the police there. Last August, we were locked in three hours because there
was a riot outside and it wasn't safe to leave. When we did get out, it took
21 police Land Rovers.
"We were stoned leaving last Wednesday night. There used to be 130 in the
lodge; now there are only 25. I can't blame people for leaving.
"Those who attack us forget we are human beings. We have our rights like
everybody else. We don't cause trouble – we just hold our meetings and
leave. I worked all my life with Catholics in the painting and decorating
business and I'm not out to oppress anybody."
There are around 1,500 Protestants in the Whitewell Road area. They are
divided between the Whitecity and Graymount Estates. The surrounding area
is overwhelmingly nationalist.
"We're a community under siege," claims Martin. "My daughter lived on the
frontline in Whitecity. She was raising three children on her own. In just
one year, her home was attacked 56 times. My wife and I had to go down in
the middle of night and rescue her and the kids. Eventually, she gave up and
moved out."
Whitecity (all the houses are painted white) should be a beautiful place to
live. It's framed by Belfast Lough at the front, and Cavehill behind.
Belfast Castle is just up the road.
"We exist, we don't live," says resident Linda Taylor. "Every facility – the
shops, the doctor's, the dentist's – is in the nationalist part of the
Whitewell Road, or else we have to pass through a nationalist area to get
there.
"If you're recognised as Protestant, you're abused, spat on, or assaulted.
There are mothers who buy their children Celtic shirts so they can pass as
Catholics and walk to the shops in safety."
"It's not too bad with a car," says community worker Brian Dunn. "But plenty
of people here can't afford one or maybe only the husband drives and, when
he's at work, his wife is stranded.
"The women must either take taxis, which costs a fortune, or else make huge
detours. The mother and baby club on the Shore Road is a 10 minute walk away
but the safe route for Protestants takes 30 minutes."
Dunn has spent the day helping Ruby Hill whose house was stoned on Monday
night. "It never ends," he says. "Our homes have been targeted at Christmas,
Easter, New Year's Eve. When a house is under attack, somebody drives
around the estate honking a car horn.
"It's a good system but it makes you nervous; you jump at even a taxi horn."
The violence is by no means one-sided. Loyalists have carried out dozens
of sectarian attacks in the past year.
On Monday, they set fire to an oil tank which set three Catholic houses on
the Old Throne Estate ablaze. It destroyed a playhouse where three children
regularly slept at night. Their pet rabbit died in the fire.
In April, a Catholic man was beaten with hockey sticks by four loyalists
wearing balaclavas on the Whitewell Road. The previous month, Megan Brown
(12) was badly beaten. "You Fenian bastard, you're not walking down this
road again," her assailants shouted.
In December, another Catholic schoolgirl, Laura Cleary (15), was beaten up
on the Serpentine Road. A year earlier, a Catholic man lost an eye when
attacked with machetes and hammers. Nationalists maintain that loyalists are
the aggressors.
On the Whitewell Road, there are separate bus stops – for Protestants and
Catholics – within 80 yards of each other. "We asked for that," says
resident Lynne Hamilton.
"A Protestant boy getting the bus into town was held down by a woman while a
man beat him. It wasn't safe for us to queue with nationalists.
"We had to make special arrangements for unemployed people to sign on in
Whitecity after a disabled lad was covered in paint and beaten up coming
back from the dole office."
Protestants living directly on the Whitewell Road are regularly abused, says
Linda Taylor. "If they go out to cut the grass, nationalists shout 'Don't
waste your time with that because we'll be back to burn you out and take
your house'."
That's what Margaret, a partially sighted grandmother in Gunnell Hill, the
most attacked street in Whitecity, is frightened off. "I'd smell the petrol
and I'd hear the whoosh but I wouldn't be able to see where the bomb
landed," she says.
So far, every time petrol, paint or coffee jar devices have hit her house,
other family members have been there. On her kitchen dresser, sit dozens of
nuts, bolts, and ball-bearings catapulted at her home this year.
"There's another big bag in the shed from previous attacks," she says. "One
night they threw jam jars filled with dogs' dirt. Then, they attached
fireworks to golf balls."
A 40ft high fence runs across the back gardens of Margaret and her
neighbours, separating them from nationalist Serpentine Gardens.
A white plastic table and chairs lie in the corner of Margaret's garden. "I
don't know why we bought it," she says. "We only used it once and I had to
sit beside the back door because I'd be slower than the others making it
into the house if we were attacked."
She has an extra layer of reinforced glass on her back windows. The walls
are splattered from paint bombs. "The only dialogue we hear from
nationalists is 'we're going to burn you out'," she claims.
It's not as much a fortress as the local Orange hall but Ballygolan Primary
School, is laden with metal grilles and spikes. There are security cameras
at every corner.
"On Monday mornings, I spend two hours lifting the bricks and bottles hurled
into the playground," says caretaker Tina McClure. "Our school is a
fortress. I look at St Mary's Catholic school on the Shore Road, which is
lovely, and I wonder 'why can't we be left in peace like St Mary's?'"
Sammy Dixon, an ex-serviceman who has lived in Graymount 51 years, claims
his community is deliberately left "unprotected" because the police and
Housing Executive believe the area would be "more easily managed" if
Protestants moved out.
Local Protestants stress only "an element of the nationalist community" is
responsible for the attacks and the vast majority of their Catholic
neighbours present no threat.
They also acknowledge loyalist violence: "We totally condemn attacks on
Catholics," says Brian Dunn. "But we are angry that our community's
suffering is ignored. Catholics are always presented as the victims,
Protestants as the assailants."
"Our representatives don't shout loudly enough when we're attacked," says
Linda Taylor. "I envy nationalists. Sometimes, I think we need our own Sinn
Féin."
