Last week, a new initiative was launched creating a digital archive providing ready access to the works of the late, great and sorely missed Éamon Phoenix, whose On This Day columns were a regular feature of the paper for more than 30 years.

I can recall a column from Éamon featuring a news report in the August 31 1920 edition of the paper about sectarian violence in the Oldpark area of north Belfast, which had seen five men killed that week.

In his notes providing context for the article, Éamon made reference to the involvement of the well-armed UVF – ‘Carson’s Army’ in his words – and a new loyalist paramilitary gang, known as the ‘Imperial Guards’.

The column piqued my interest because my own grandfather, along with his family, had been burned out of their home and public house premises in the area by loyalists during this time, escaping with only the clothes on their backs.

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Members and associates of the descendants of the Imperial Guards have been responsible in recent months for terrorising and intimidating young mothers and their children as part of a campaign to cleanse a mixed residential housing estate of Catholics in the very same Oldpark district of Belfast.

The campaign of hate has also involved several ethnic minority families being........

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