A violence from the past?

Serious rioting during the 2010 loyal order marching season prompted a predictable debate about Northern Ireland's political future in general, and the condition of the nationalist community in particular. Whilst there was a broad consensus that the disturbances, however severe, did not signal a return to the ‘bad old days of the Troubles’, there was little agreement about their underlying causes and significance. International media coverage, for example, evinced surprise at a turn of events that challenged a widely accepted ‘international ideology of Northern Ireland’ as a radically changed and stable region.

For some, the violence could simply be condemned and dismissed as ‘recreational rioting’ by bored teenagers: using the trope of anti-social behaviour, they blamed feckless parents and a feral youth out of control. Leading politicians from the DUP and Sinn Féin, whilst pursuing their own, distinct agenda, largely agreed with the PSNI's analysis that ‘sinister elements’ were at work behind the scenes. In the wake of the transfer of policing and justice powers to Stormont, the politicians claimed that dissident republicans opposed to ‘dialogue, negotiation and accommodation’ had orchestrated the fighting and were manipulating young people, thereby handing on ‘the baton of hatred … to another generation’.

Other commentators, however, suggested that the causes of the violence were more fundamental, being located in a continuing and unresolved sectarian conflict and segregated ways of living.