Loyalists throw fireworks at home of Gerry Kelly

The home of Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly has been attacked, just days after his constituency office was targeted with a bomb threat.

Two large fireworks were thrown at his house on Belfast’s Falls Road shortly after 7pm on Sunday, March 7.

The former junior minister said a car was seen slowing down outside his home before “two devices were thrown out of the back passenger seat just before a loud explosion”.

The fireworks attack came as loyalists joined in with celebrating Rangers football fans and set off fireworks not far away on the Shankill Road.

Last week, there was a bomb alert at Mr Kelly’s recently opened Antrim Road constituency office, which has also been targeted with graffiti. The PSNI told him a threat was “phoned in from a loyalist area”.

Mr Kelly said the fireworks attack was “the latest in a sinister pattern of attacks and threats against public representatives.

“This comes against repeated bomb threats and warnings at constituency offices. I and other Sinn Féin representatives will not be deterred by incidents like these.”

Meanwhile, new posters which appear to threaten violence over new post-Brexit port checks have also appeared this week. A number depicting a masked man holding a gun have been put up in towns across the north in recent weeks.

The message reads: “Our forefathers fought for our freedom and rights. No border in the sea or we continue the fight.”

The signs have appeared in the County Down towns of Kilkeel, Ballynahinch and Banbridge in recent days.

It is understood that similar posters have also been erected in Cookstown, County Tyrone.

SDLP Policing Board member Dolores Kelly said the signs should be removed.

“There’s a precedent for the police having taken action. I think they should be taken down and removed, the vast majority of people don’t want them,” she said.

“It’s not as if it’s about consent, it’s about upping the temperature and trying to provoke a reaction. There’s an established precedent - for the police to do nothing is not enough.”

Mrs Kelly added: “The only fight loyalist paramilitaries engaged in was sectarian murders. And who are they going to fight? The British government? Because that’s who brought the in the protocol and the DUP.”

Urgent Appeal