Nothing silly about loyalist attacks on Catholics

For it was a strange thing about the silly season in journalism that there was in fact a major news story underway in the North. In July and August, there were over 120 attacks on Catholics. Homes, schools and churches were petrol-bombed and paint-bombed. A child was stabbed to death and sectarian assaults were rampant.

This horrific litany of sectarianism was either ignored completely in the media in the Republic, or presented as if sectarianism had nothing to do with it. One report of a loyalist mob rampaging through Catholic estates in Ballymena spoke only of a crowd of young hooligans causing damage in a "mixed estate"!

But the palm for dishonesty must surely once again be given to the Sunday Independent. Their correspondent, Jim Cusack, claimed that this loyalist violence was a "reprisal" for Catholic aggression. Of course, Cusack could not cite any cases of Protestant schools or houses being petrol-bombed, or of young Protestants being stabbed to death; but no matter, the waters were muddied, and readers of the Sindo were left to assume that "they're all the same up there".

Don't expect the major political parties to set that record straight. loyalists aren't challenging for votes down here.

Eoin Ó Murchú