AN elderly Belfast resident is chuckling at the relatively small scale of last night’s violence.
86-year-old Oliver O’Connor is smiling indulgently at the idea that last night even remotely compares to the centuries of riots, sectarian clashes, and bomb blasts that have plagued the streets of his home city.
He said: “Ah, some buses and houses got a bit on fire, did they? Boys will be boys. Letting off steam after GCSEs, I expect.
“Maybe I’m jaded, but a kerfuffle following a knife attack doesn’t really register once you’ve lived through decades of bombing, shootings and reprisals. Back in the day we’d call last night a slow Tuesday.
“Where are the paratroopers? Where are the Army checking identity papers of ordinary folk on every street? For me, it barely counts as violence if a tank doesn’t come rumbling down a residential road.
“Do I condone last nights behaviour? Sure no, but unless this spirals into years of entrenched warfare about Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom, it doesn’t touch the sides.”
He added: “If you’re going to chant ‘foreigners out’, at least direct it at the English. What happened to tradition?”
