Ballymena

[Ablondiebutagoody]

AIBU to think that this kind of unrest/attack is happening more frequently now? Or did I just not notice before?

NBU - Yes, it's more frequent
ABU - You didn't notice before

Do you mean in a racial element?
I mean we have i would say regular of riots here.
Though dont remember many in Ballymena.

I understand the anger at the alleged sexual assault on the girl. But, dear lord, the comments on various social media are barefaced racism. Lots that I’ve seen are actually promoting violence. Bloody small minded people. It’s not as if good ol’ norn Irish lads don’t carry out sexual assault.

I mean that I don't remember people being burned out of their homes before like here or after Southport. So yes, a racial element.

I mean that I don't remember people being burned out of their homes before like here or after Southport. So yes, a racial element.

Fine to rape if you’re a local, but not if you’re foreign it seems. Femicide and sexual assault rates are horrific in NI, but you’ll only see a protest if the alleged perpetrators are not indigenous. Any excuse for a baying mob, they are scumbags.

Not a lot of riots when the leader of the DUP was arrested! 🙄

NI is a failed social experiment. Not in the least bit surprised at the horrendous violence borne from bigotry, yet again.

You only have to look at Donaldson to see what was allowed happen behind closed doors.

White men who were born in NI rape women all the effing time and noone is out rioting about that. Of course it's anti immigration sentiment and thinly veiled racism under the guise of "concern" for women and girls. It's disgusting, and the papers knew what would happen when they included certain details in the report. My feeling is that is why it was reported early on that the alleged perpetrators spoke Romanian.

It really does seem that any excuse to riot because they think the perpetrators aren't white. Look at Liverpool, they released super quickly that he was white and from Liverpool so no rioting started.
It's disgusting that the only reason a lot of these people (mostly men) will riot to "protect the women" is if it's a foreigner. Didn't seem bothered about protesting at how men treat women when the bloke with the crossbow raped his ex and then murdered her and her mum and sister. He's white so it's fine. You even see comments when things like that happen about how the woman probably drove him to it.
So many men genuinely think there isn't an issue and any comments about male violence and make violence against women is met with "women kill too". "Men get attacked too" "not all men".
But too many men. And 99% of the time a man.

One of the sad aspects for me was that 2 fourteen yr old children had no one who would apply for bail for them.Custody may be safer for them but these children are living a very different life to a normal 14yr old.

Ballymena saw its fair share of sectarian murders during the troubles. Then it was wrapped up as Republicanism or Nationalism.

The vigilantes out of late will be drawn from the same demographic. Poor, uneducated, mostly men, looking for a cause to make themselves feel better about their sh*t lives.

Absolutely this. At the end of the day if this happened then something has gone deeply wrong that the intervention needed to prevent this didn't happen and children were not stopped from hurting other children. We've no idea what trauma these boys have been through - gang raping at 14 is not normal behaviour so something has contributed to this. The reaction that's happened just deflects it onto immigration instead of actually addressing violence against women and why it happens.

The other thing is that it's overwhelmingly children/ minors getting manipulated into contributing to rioting like this by adults. Often they don't even fully understand why they're there or what the context is. So there's a bunch of people using child exploitation to set their own racist agenda. It's sickening.

In Northern Ireland?!!! It was surely synonymous with unrest like this for decades.

The transplanting of various countries (poor souls) residuum onto other countries already existing (poor souls) residuum is reaching tipping point and other sensitive solutions must be found.

Oh, poor rapists. Their lives have been ruined!

Summer in NI is rioting season. Doesn’t always get much coverage but it happens. Ime NI really is incredibly backwards once you get away from the obvious tourist areas.

I'm not defending their actions. I also think it's still a pretty horrific crime for two 14 year olds to be committing and there are bound to have been signs ahead of this that should have been intervened on. I think it's very easy and comfortable for us to simply label people evil when they do something like this but that's because it takes away any accountability from the community around them that didn't intervene or react to warning signs or pass on concerns. Ultimately responsibility lies with the boys in question, but where were their parents/guardians/support services/schools etc.

The community is selective in who they protest against. No rioting against Davy Tweed, William Wilkinson, Brian Duffin, all who were elected councillors in Ballymena. Wonder why 🤔. BTW William Wilkinson is very active in the local community, helping victims, supporting voluntary groups etc. They know of his crimes 🤮

There are serious racist attacks in NI regularly, it's not a good place if you're not white. And there's a very deep-run contingent of apologists/deniers who will swear blind none of it is happening when it's been there for a very long time. My midwife tried to tell me I wasn't racially attacked at one point when I told her about an incident. She said "we don't have anything like that here."
Yes, Maeve, you do.
Until people actually accept that this shit is still going down nothing will change.

Quite a lot of Ireland is, outside the big towns and cities. My husbands family come from a small village in ROI and going there feels like stepping back in time. My daughter said to my MIL, 'Grandma why is Ireland so old fashioned' , that was not taken well! And my Irish in laws moan about immigrants all the time, whilst living in England 😂

Small villages in Ireland are no more "old-fashioned" than small villages in the UK.

@Bushmillsbabe I’m originally from Bushmills and it’s definitely not forward thinking. I agree that outside of the big cities/towns NI is still very old-fashioned in their thinking.