Reflecting on the odious communal violence in Northern Ireland over the last fortnight, the first thing that comes to mind is that burning innocent people out of their homes is not new.

Nor is the sight of a family’s possessions being destroyed in a sea of flames as they are bundled into the back of police vans to be accommodated in community centres. It is a pattern of behaviour that unfortunately can be traced back for more than 100 years.

This time, however, the communal thuggery was unleashed on a small and vulnerable segment of society: mostly people who immigrated into Northern Ireland from parts of the world which used to constitute the British Empire. Loyalists whose antecedents were loud in their devotional praise for the empire 60 years ago and more now focused their cruel fury on people of colour, many of whose ancestors were fellow subjects of the crown.

As a subscriber to newspapers of all shades on the political spectrum, I have been struck over the last number of years by the picture painted in the columns of the Belfast Telegraph of loyalist criminality and intimidation.

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