In another sports-related attack, a North Belfast man was left fighting for his life after an assault, while a young Catholic nurse and mother was made homeless by loyalists who attacked her Antrim home.
The incidents highlight a upward trend in loyalist sectarian aggression, despite the relative calm of this summer’s Orange marching season.
In the Ballysally estate in Coleraine, Co. Derry, a Catholic family hung out the red-and-white Tyrone flag in advance of the All-Ireland GAA football final. Two days after the team won the Sam Maguire, the flag was ripped down, used to wrap a brick and which was thrown through a window.
On Oct. 1, the loyalists returned and fired shots into the front of the family’s home, causing them to leave and be declared homeless. SDLP councilor John Dallat said it was a “blatantly sectarian attack.”
In the Antrim town attack, a Catholic mother and her partner were terrorized by a gang of masked loyalists at their home. The attackers broke nine windows in the house and set fire to a car outside, forcing the young mother to decided to leave her home.
At the weekend, after Celtic beat Rangers in Scotland, loyalists attacked a 21-year-old North Belfast man, fracturing his skull. Kevin Milligan of Ardoyne was hit with either a wheel brace or a hammer while walking home from a friend’s house after watching the Rangers-Celtic soccer match. He was wearing a Celtic jersey when the attack occurred. Two men got out of a car and hit him twice over the head with a heavy implement.