https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/14/facile-explanation-for-ballymena-outbreak-of-hostility-northern-ireland-racism

Sinn Féin was the movement set up to extinguish the influence of jerks like these pro-Loyalist sympathizers who are, once again (as can be seen from the photograph above), causing alot of trouble on the streets of one of Northern Ireland’s historical hot-spots.

The banal excuse that these Loyalist demonstrators had was that they decried the overrunning of their town with so-called “illegal migrant gangs, paedophiles, drug pushers, human traffickers, prostitutes.”  The reason why I call that reasoning a fallacious front-stunt is because, these Ulster Union sympathizers couldn’t give a hoot about any of the issues stated in that piece of flagrant propaganda. Take this quotation from the article cited above:

“…some unionist parties – which represent loyalism – give mixed signals by defending ‘legitimate protest’ and amplifying immigration myths.” (emphasis added)

Actually, it’s a historically verifyable fact that they were the ones who gave impetus to all kinds of social vices stemming from the reality of their own allegiance to the evil sequestering of Irish territory by the British Crown. Hence, their excuses are hollow, baseless, and void. All that is, is simply propaganda to tickle the ears of ignorant but well-meaning citizens who do not want the stigma of paedophilia, drug-pushing, human-trafficking, and prostitution in their own backyard but who at the same time, perhaps don’t really have a robust internationalist appreciation either. So, the rooms in their hearts are swept clean but without the proper disposal of these hearts and their adjacent rooms, to a bouyant understanding of the plight of others from far away – this leaves a door wide open for divisive and unkind sentiment to get in and start festering. Such sentiment would be less able to take root if the understanding of these people was already enlightened by a wisdom of true interfaith and intercultural dialogue and reconciliation. This is where Sinn Féin need to become proactive – in the promotion of cultivating internationalist mindsets capable of learning from the tragedy of Ireland’s colonial past, one fraught with an unjust colonial conquest and imposition of divide and rule by the British Empire that gave rise to an insular mentality repleate with promulgating a furious pro-English nationalism. It was this backdrop that fuelled the tensions behind the Troubles and it’s nacency descended not from Irish soil but from English. Hence, the Nazi-like sympathies of the Ulster Unionists have roots in the colonial conquest of Ireland by Imperial Britain and not in the original culture of Ireland itself. It must be emphasized that Ireland’s original culture has a rich historical internationalist flavour because of the positive centuries-old galvanization between Roman Catholicism and Irish culture. See, the forces of the Reformation as a political stunt, were in that particular context, very negative, although the Reformation itself may have had some positive impacts more so on the European continent, particularly in regards to opening up the halls of religious education and literacy to many who were neither clerics, members of specific intra-Church societies nor who hailed from the intellectual class per se. Actually, that was just about the only positive thing that had sprung forth from the Reformation and this was much more evidential in places far away from Ireland itself. For in Ireland, the backdrop was one of a country being positioned as a  ‘convenient outpost’, one which was perceived by imperial England as a vast repository, a replenisher of natural and socio-economic resources that served to supply Britain with reserve labour as well as financial leverage.

And so, there it goes, another meltdown over stuff that the whole place there should have been over with years ago!

It must be remembered that many of the present-day Loyalists are themselves descendants of migrants to the area – descendants of British folk sent there to populate Ireland with representatives of the British Empire during the days of the notorious Penal Laws that were imposed on Ireland by the Empire. They have no real grounds for discontent over so-called immigrants from outside since they themselves, like their forefathers before them, rally for a cause that is, in it’s intrinsic nature a colonialistic exploit. Being the great, great, great, great grandsons of Red Coats, they have no claim to any kind of real loyalty to the land since their predecesors forcibly took the land away from the Irish and imposed their own take-over merchant rule of law upon their unwilling subjects, thereby outlawing the culture and faith of the land which they invaded, then occupied. So, it therefore figures that due to the ribald and divisive pro-Imperial sentiment behind these neo-Rule Britannia louts, they will be, on the basis of their far-right ultra-nationalistic tendencies, unbridalled xenophobes who seek to, through their imposition of a cowardly bombastic terror upon innocent citizens, once again try to control Irish territory, in the name of a revamped hideous colonialism of a bygone era.

Therefore, this then begs the question, where is Sinn Féin in this time, in all this newly spawned furor, this calamity, which of course has its roots in the calamities of old? Not that the situation necessitates another explosive retaliation by the IRA. We would hope that serious lessons have indeed been learned from the tragic chaos of former times, especially by those contingents who understood the historical roots of the problem enough to want to do something constructive about it but, however, did not always seek to go about rectifying the situation in the right way. I simply urge a reflection on this question because I think, if anything, Sinn Féin might just have some proper answers if only they would do the proactively right thing and collectively come to the table with all those sorely affected by this senseless violence, in order to step-in and urge law-abiding citizens to defend the rights of those adversely affected by the acts of terror instigated by pro-Unionist mobs.