Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

Catholic trade unionist targeted

Loyalists targeted a Catholic trade unionist and his family last week when petrol bombs were hurled at their Thorburn Road home. The family of four escaped injury but their car, parked in the driveway, was destroyed in the attack.

Gerry McCullough and his wife were in the living room and the couple's two sons upstairs when a number of petrol bombs were thrown. McCullough said his wife had been standing in the front room when she heard banging and saw flames engulf the windowsill outside. "She thought she was being shot," he said.

McCullough said that the loyalist gang were carrying bricks and attempted to smash the windows before petrol bombing the house. "If we hadn't reinforced glass she would have been hit with a brick," said McCullough.

There have been more than 20 sectarian attacks in the last 18 months on the McCullough family's home. "The house has been hit with everything from baseball bats and sledgehammers to bricks and petrol bombs," he said.

The family say they were being targeted by loyalists from the nearby Whitewell Road area, intent on driving Catholics out of a mixed area. "As far as I am concerned we are being intimidated for trying to integrate," said McCullough.

In the nearby Longlands area of North Belfast nationalist residents are boarding their windows after months of almost nightly attacks by loyalist mobs.

Houses close to the home of postman Daniel McColgan, shot dead by the UDA earlier this month, where he lived with his partner and the couple's young daughter, had their windows broken last weekend.

Earlier in the week, a number of Protestant homes had been attacked by nationalist youths. Last week, a stone throwing gang also attacked a bus carrying disabled children to Sunday worship at a local Presbyterian Chapel.

Commenting on sectarian attacks against members of the Protestant community, Meehan said there was no excuse for such deplorable activity. The INLA is believed to be responsible for a blast bomb thrown at members of the RUC/PSNI during disturbances on Sunday night.