Fierce football rivalry highlights fragility of peace

COLERAINE - The bruised and battered face of Evelyn McDaid, newly widowed by a "maverick group of yobs" who attacked her and killed her husband, graphically illustrates that political peace in Northern Ireland has not eradicated violence.

McDaid, a Protestant, and her Catholic husband, Kevin, fell victim to a mob which poured out of a pub and drove to a Catholic area of the County Londonderry town of Coleraine, enraged by reports that nationalist flags were on display.

This led to what police described as "bedlam", with "huge disturbances" involving up to 60 people engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. Kevin McDaid was beaten and kicked and died shortly afterwards.

"I went across to help him and they beat me while they beat him," Evelyn McDaid said yesterday. "Then my neighbour had to step in to save me, and she was pregnant and they beat her too and she shouted 'I'm pregnant' and they didn't care."

The incident took place in the aftermath of a key football match between Rangers and Celtic. In Northern Ireland the teams have fervent followings with Protestants supporting Rangers and Catholics Celtic. Tensions had been evident before the match, which Rangers won to take the league title.

Amid reports that loyalists intended to stage victory celebrations close to the Catholic Heights area of the town, negotiations were held involving police officers and Protestant and Catholic representatives.

Things appeared to have been calmed down by the talks, in which Kevin McDaid took part. But it did not work. A group of up to 40 men descended on the estate and in the ensuing rampage McDaid was murdered. He had four children, including a foster child.

Twelve men have been arrested by police while an inquiry has been announced into the police handling of the incident.

McDaid's death has illustrated that today's much more peaceful Northern Ireland is still subject to eruptions of brutal violence, often entirely unexpected. He was the fifth person to be murdered in the province this year. A man was killed in Londonderry by republicans in February, then in March two soldiers and a police officer were shot dead in County Antrim and County Armagh by republican dissidents.

And over the years, the town of Coleraine has provided an example of a place which - although not generally regarded as a violent hotspot - still experiences sectarian flare-ups with lethal consequences.

In 1997 an off-duty Protestant police officer was beaten and kicked to death in the street by a loyalist mob in the nearby town of Ballymoney.

The mob objected to his involvement in policing marching disputes. The following year, three Catholic schoolboys, the oldest of whom was 10, died in a fire when loyalists petrol-bombed a house in the town, again during parading controversies

The courts have just dealt with the case of Michael McIlveen, a 15-year-old Catholic schoolboy who was beaten to death in 2006 in the neighbouring Ballymena by a group of Protestant youths who chased and cornered him.

There are many more events which do not result in death. In Ballymena, for example, police recorded 133 sectarian offences in a 12-month period, 53 per cent of them directed against Catholics and 43 per cent against Protestants. The cities of Belfast and Londonderry have an even higher level of such incidents.

They tend to rise during the loyalist marching season. This is now looming, and will reach a peak in July.

- INDEPENDENT