There is a pattern tracing through Northern Ireland’s history, set to repeat itself. It was the Catholics’ homes that burned in 1969; it is the immigrants’ homes that burn today.
This recurring attempt to impose territorial control is a true testament to the alleged peace that followed the Good Friday Agreement. Although minimizing paramilitary violence, the Good Friday Agreement’s legacy includes politically charged investigations, limited integrated education, a lack of shared commemoration, unresolved killings and disappearances, and the polarizing early release of prisoners.
In many instances, the Good Friday Agreement was a sellout of justice in the interest of short-term peace. A direct result is Northern Irish citizens’ suffering from a distorted relationship with violence because of overlooked trauma, fuelling substance abuse and poor mental health, unresolved ideology, enemy shifting, and poverty. A recent result is the rise in right-wing extremist and racist attacks and riots.
Recent unrest in Belfast following the stabbing incident on Tuesday has been reported in historically loyalist areas, where organisations such as the UDA and the UVF remain influential. In recent years, Northern Ireland has undergone significant demographic and political change, as Catholics have superseded Protestants in number and education. Moreover, Sinn Féin celebrated electoral success, and interest in Irish Unity increased. Simultaneously, immigration has picked up in Northern Ireland. As the Protestant community declines, many immigrants find housing in historically loyalist areas, a legacy of the Troubles’ segregated housing.
Displacement resulting in segregated housing began in 1969 as Catholics were burned out of houses on Bombay Street by loyalist groups committed to preventing Catholics from settling in Protestant areas. Considering recent developments in the Belfast riots, including the targeting and burning of immigrant houses, a striking resemblance to the early days of the Troubles emerges. Loyalists perceive themselves as threatened by these demographic changes, interpreting them through narratives of displacement or replacement.
With an unresolved conflict at hand, it is unsurprising that past patterns continue through projection on new minorities or weaker links in society. Violence in Northern Ireland mustn’t be discussed without addressing the fact that it is the most dangerous place for women in Europe. In 2025, rioters targeted immigrants following the attempted rape of a teenage girl by two 14-year-old Roma-Romanians, allegedly out of concern for women and girls. The Irish Independent wrote that almost half of these arrested rioters had been reported to the PSNI for domestic abuse.
In fact, PSNI numbers reveal that in 2024/25, 74% of domestic violence offenders were of White ethnicity with UK and Irish nationality. Women are not the real concern; it is an excuse for racist behaviour, rooted in a fear of an endangered existence. The Good Friday Agreement was a stepping stone for peace, but the British and Northern Irish governments fail to continue walking the path to true reconciliation.
Northern Irish politics is highly polarising, largely ignoring the untreated results of the Troubles that Northern Irish citizens are facing. Brexit and the border debate were vivid examples of an almost ignorant attitude towards Northern Ireland’s complex past. Border issues ironically raised concern in the EU about recurring violence, which attests to an insensitive attitude towards Northern Ireland’s past. Therefore, it is even more ironic that loyalist riots come from a place of preserving Britishness in Northern Ireland, when neither their representatives in Northern Ireland nor Westminster seem to acknowledge their struggles. Hence, the relationship between Northern Irish loyalists and the British state appears rather odd, as burning passion is met with disinterest.
While Northern Ireland seems stuck in the past in some respects through recurring ideology and patterns of violence, demographic and political shifts remain significant. Extreme hostility towards immigrants and women emerges from a shifted conflict, in which narratives internalised over generations are projected onto new perceived out- groups. The rise of extremism in Northern Ireland calls for a long overdue continuation of the process of coming to terms with the legacy of the Troubles.
