Row erupts after banners depicting IRA atrocities are erected in shared housing scheme

The banners at Cantrell Close, off Ravenhill Avenue, carry pictures of the Shankill and Enniskillen bomb attacks, as well as other murderous acts carried out by republican terrorists.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster’s Nolan Show on Monday morning, loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson said that given the widespread media attention around flags on lampposts in the area, the banners were erected to highlight “the sectarian slaughter that the IRA perpetrated against the Protestant people.”

“The people there felt it was an opportunity to highlight the sectarian campaign that was waged by the IRA against the Protestant people,” he said.

SDLP MLA Claire Hanna condemned the erection of the banners, stressing that Cantrell Close is “public housing designed to be a shared neighbourhood.”

She said the banners had been put up by “the apologists for one sectarian murder gang trying to score points off the back of another sectarian murder gang.”

Alan McBride from the WAVE Trauma Centre, who lost his wife in the Shankill bomb, said it was “very disappointing” that victims of such atrocities are being used for point-scoring, describing it as “grotesque whataboutery.”

Mr McBride questioned if the group who erected the banners would put up similar posters depicting atrocities carried out by the UVF and accused them of “using victims.”

Last year a number of Catholic families left their homes in the area after receiving sectarian threats.

Loyalist flags placed close to the housing scheme were removed last month after a group calling itself the East Belfast Community Initiative published a flags protocol for the area.

Mr Bryson described the flags protocol as “a welcome step towards self-regulation by the loyalist community.” Read more here.