By Peter McColl
The name ‘Belfast’ is an anglicised form of Béal Feirste, which means ‘the crossing of the River Farset’. The river after which the city is named isn’t one that many people have seen. It’s buried under the High Street, in a culvert,. And that’s appropriate, because much of what Belfast is about is under the surface.
For a long time I’ve had people tell me that they have been to Belfast, and that they love it. They had a great weekend. It was fun. I don’t doubt it. But what I do doubt is that they understood what was going on under the surface.
The culvert in which the Farset now flows to the Lagan is rumoured to be big enough to take a bus. So what’s going on in Belfast that those visitors don’t see is really big.
And now it’s on show. The racism and hatred is bubbling to the surface. Unlike the river Farset, this isn’t some kind of natural phenomenon. It’s been kindled, supported, nurtured and fed over the years.
It came in response to a brutal attack, but it is out of all proportion to the nature of that threat. It speaks to something deeper. It comes at a time when the one-time leader of unionism, Jeffrey Donaldson is on trial for sex offences. It comes at a time when over 30 women have been killed this decade. The overwhelming majority were killed by people known to them. Not by immigrants, but by husbands, sons and boyfriends.
There were no riots about those killings. There was no mob to confront Jeffrey Donaldson.
Northern Ireland is often referred to as a ‘post-conflict society’. The organised killings may have stopped, but what’s flowing under the surface is a river of male violence, taken out of the public sphere and directed toward the domestic. Ballymeena is a town less than an hour from Belfast. Last year there were another set of race riots. Of those arrested one in three had been reported for domestic violence.
The riots are not just a distraction from the wave of male violence, they are an outward manifestation of it.
It’s time to take this seriously. Belfast may have built over the river that gave it its name. But we can’t continue to cover up the wave of violence in our homes.
