Residents lie low as loyalist gangs go on a rampage

"I'M scared because this is like a rape. My home has been invaded, touched." Ms Theresa Campbell surveyed the damage in the front room of her house, one of 15 houses on the Catholic Craigwell Avenue in Portadown attacked by a gang of loyalists early yesterday morning.

The attack, which lasted about 10 minutes, happened shortly before 2 a.m. when the gang of up to 50 charged down the street, smashed windows, broke through front doors, damaged furniture, upturned flower pots and badly damaged a car on the street.

An elderly resident described how a masked man came up the stairs in his house. "I had no earthly chance, but he just went down again."

Craigwell faces on to the loyalist section of town and is Just around the corner from where a crowd had gathered for the eleventh night bonfire. In two incidents earlier in the evening, loyalist youths had thrown stones.

"I would like to say to Mr Trimble, because these are his people - I would like to ask him would he like this to happen to his home, to his wife and children," Ms Campbell demanded, adding that similar attacks had happened last year.

Another woman had windows broken in yesterday's incident. "I just ran out the back door and flew. I went around to a neighbour and stayed there until about 5 a.m."

There was going to be trouble whether the Orange parade went down or not, Ms Campbell said, angrily. "I have no interest in their religion and I can't understand how people can come in and wreck my home. I can't understand the mentality. Why? Is it religion?"

Her anger reflected the devastation felt by the Catholic community on the Garvaghy Road after the Orange Order was allowed to march down without their consent. A residents' coalition member explained that last year when the parade had gone down the Garvaghy Road, the community had preserved "dignity and the high moral ground" despite the triumphalism of the loyalists because they had agreement that there would be no further parades.

Exhausted and tense, local Catholic people expressed fears that this was "just the start of it". All around the housing estates residents sat for hours and discussed Thursday's watershed happenings. For many it was like there had been a death in the family.

Around Drumcree church itself, the only signs of the previous five days' tumultuous happenings were the black rubbish bags strewn on the roadway. Two miles away, down the town, the sound of the Orange bands returned from their parade in Tandragee could be heard.

Garvaghy Road itself remained a battle site yesterday with burned-out vehicles and glass and bits of paving strewn across the road. There was sporadic overnight rioting by Catholic youths throwing stones and bottles at police who responded with plastic baton rounds.