flags – Peter Geoghegan

Belfast Unrest – the View from the Interfaces

By peterPosted on 20th January 2013Posted in Northern Ireland, Politics, Sunday Business PostTagged flags, Jonny Byrne, loyalism, Neil Jarman, republicanism, unionism

Belfast is often described as a patchwork quilt of conflicting loyalties. Most residents live on streets that are overwhelmingly nationalist or unionist. Imposing ‘peace walls’ physically divide communities one each another. This has long been the case on the Suffolk estate in West Belfast, where a small Protestant community of less than a thousand people […]

In Belfast

By peterPosted on 13th January 2013Posted in London Review of Books, Northern IrelandTagged flags, loyalist, Naomi Long

Apparently there were 43 illegal roadblocks in Belfast on Monday night. In a bar with Christmas lights on the ceiling, a hundred yards from a City Hall not flying the Union Jack, most drinkers were glued to their smart phones. The man beside me was scrolling through the #flegs hashtag on Twitter. (So was I.) His […]

Belfast Businesses Count Cost of Unrest

By peterPosted on 18th December 2012Posted in Northern Ireland, Sunday Business PostTagged Belfast, Business, flags, loyalist

The weeks leading up to Christmas are normally a bumper time for the Mourne Seafood Bar in Belfast. One of the most popular restaurants in the city, empty tables at the Mourne are usually a collector’s item at weekends during the festive period. But not last Saturday. As protestors with Union Jack scarves across their […]