The skies above east Belfast glowed orange into the early hours of Wednesday as fire crews battled blazes set during the worst outbreak of civil disorder in Northern Ireland in years. By dawn, a crescent of charred vehicles and shattered glass lined the loyalist housing estates where crowds had clashed with police and torched a bus. Witnesses spoke of a ferocity they had not seen since the worst days of the Troubles.
“I will never get over watching my home burn,” said Margaret Dunlop, 67, whose terrace house on the Newtownards Road was gutted by a petrol bomb. She stood in the cold morning air wrapped in a blanket, her voice steady but her hands trembling. “I was inside when the window came in. I ran out and saw the flames coming through the roof. It took them two hours to put it out. Everything is gone.”
Eighteen people were arrested overnight, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) confirmed. Nineteen officers were injured, three of them requiring hospital treatment. Assistant Chief Constable Alan Todd described the violence as “orchestrated” and “sectarian”. He said petrol bombs, masonry, and fireworks were used against police lines, and that a loyalist paramilitary flag was flown by some of the crowd.
The unrest began shortly after 7pm on Tuesday, when a protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol turned ugly. What began as a legal demonstration outside Belfast City Hall swelled to several hundred people. Around 9pm, the crowd broke away from the designated route and moved into the neighbouring Short Strand district, a predominantly nationalist area. Within minutes, barriers were set alight and missiles were hurled at police in full riot gear.
Residents in the Short Strand described huddling in back rooms as windows shattered. Father John O’Neill, a local priest who mediated between the communities, said: “This was not spontaneous. This was planned aggression. The community is traumatised.”
The violence then shifted to the loyalist housing estates of Bloomfield and Knocknagoney, where young men set a bus ablaze and damaged a petrol station. Fire crews were attacked while trying to extinguish the flames. By 2am, the PSNI had established a containment zone and reinforcements were drafted in from surrounding counties.
Political leaders scrambled to respond. Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Arlene Foster, condemned the “unacceptable violence” and blamed the Protocol for creating a sense of alienation among unionists. Her counterpart, deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill, called for calm and urged the British government to address the “legitimate concerns” of loyalists.
But on the ground, the mood was one of exhaustion and anger. “We have been waiting for this for months,” said William Campbell, a community worker in east Belfast. “The anger has been building ever since the Protocol came into force. People feel betrayed by the British government. That is no excuse for burning buses, but it is the reality.”
For Margaret Dunlop, the politics are distant. “All I know is I have no home. I have nothing. I don’t care about Brexit or the Protocol. I care about where I am going to sleep tonight.”
The PSNI has vowed to continue patrols and maintain a visible presence. Schools in the affected areas were closed on Wednesday as a precaution. A full investigation into the rioting has been launched, with forensics teams examining the scene of the bus fire.
As the city tried to absorb the shock of the night’s events, the question hanging over Belfast was whether this represented a one-off explosion of anger or the beginning of a sustained period of instability. “We have been here before,” said Dr. Eamonn O’Kane, a political historian at the University of Ulster. “What is different now is the lack of a clear political mechanism to de-escalate. The Protocol is not going to change quickly. That means the tinder remains dry.”
