A SLIGO man is fighting for his life in the Royal Victoria Hospital, a Chinese-American woman is traumatised after a rape, two men are recovering from serious injuries and a policeman has a slashed face. This is the aftermath of street violence in Belfast last weekend. Most of the perpetrators of these attacks are believed to be teenage boys.
"Death driving" claimed two young male lives in a high-speed car crash in the city in the early hours of Sunday morning. Their families have requested that their names not be released.
Paul Newton (43) from Sligo was set upon, probably by a single assailant, outside his hotel on Bradbury Place in the university area, near the city centre, in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The woman, who is in her 20s, was walking in the Colin Glen Forest Park on the western edge of the city on Saturday afternoon when a young man approached her, dragged her into the bushes and raped her. A young girl was raped and murdered by a teenage boy in this area three years ago.
Another man was beaten up on the Falls Road, and a community policeman received head injuries during an attempt to deal with 20 or so teenage drinkers outside shops in the vast Poleglass estate, not far from Colin Glen. The sergeant said this was known as a "hot spot" for street drinking.
The new political stability has encouraged hopes that tourism could boom in Belfast. The Lonely Planet guide called it one of its "must see" destinations of 2008, and praised its transformation "from bombs and bullet pariah to hip hotels and hedonism party town".
The tourism industry contributes nearly £300 million (€380 million) to the North's economy and provides 16,000 jobs. A five-star hotel is to be built just down the road from Bradbury Place, on the strip known as Belfast's "Golden Mile".
But street violence is seriously damaging the city's new image. Much of it is fuelled by alcohol and drugs, and resembles what is to be witnessed in Dublin, as well as in towns and villages all over Ireland. However, many believe that a hangover from nearly 40 years of conflict is adding to the problems.
Bradbury Place is just around the corner from the loyalist Sandy Row area, once a heartland of the UDA. Southerners who invested in property on the edge of this area got a rude education in sectarianism a few years ago when their apartment block was dubbed "Vatican Square" and vandalised.
It is also adjacent to Donegall Pass, where Chinese residents have been attacked by loyalists linked to the UVF in recent years.
In the west of the city, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams was clearly stung by recent criticism in a local paper, which said he had to take a share of the blame for violence which has seen three men murdered in the past year, and the ongoing deprivation and poverty underlying it.
On Thursday Adams made an appeal at the entrance to Colin Glen Park for people to take part in a walk there today in solidarity with the rape victim.
Sinn Féin has been engaged in a row with Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, over policing in the area, since Adams said after the murder last month of Frank McGreevey that the PSNI was "not up to the job" of policing west Belfast.
Sir Hugh used the most recent meeting of the policing board to deny the allegation and to retort that such criticism "does not seem to be rooted in a desire to solve overall issues". Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey said he was "very, very angry" about Sir Hugh's remarks. Adams and a Sinn Féin delegation met Sir Hugh yesterday at Hillsborough Castle.
Many republicans take the view that the trouble on the streets in west Belfast is caused by a small cohort of hardcore young "hoods". "There are probably only about 40 of these guys and they are under no sort of control whatsoever," said one man.
"In the past, the IRA would have put them out of the country. Now Sinn Féin is telling people to go to the PSNI. We are in a period of transition, from conflict to normal society, complete with juvenile delinquency. It seems like Belfast was never so dangerous. Even the hard men get taxis home at night rather than taking their chances on the street."
On weekend nights now, a big yellow bus is parked on Shaftesbury Square beside Bradbury Place from late night until about 3am. Joe Hyland is the co-ordinator of the SOS bus, a multi-agency service which provides medical assistance and emotional support for those in trouble on the late night streets.
"At half past one in the morning, 25,000 people hit the streets. We've created an environment and gifted it to our youngsters and then we've all gone to bed," he says.
"They can get an e tab for 80p and a pint for £3. They can get into clubs even if they are underage. Ninety-nine per cent of them are fine, but it is the others, the drunk and the drugged, those who are either vulnerable to violence or potentially violent, who need help. There is an element who have been hurt themselves and the only way they can feel good is by hurting someone else."
But Hyland, an Englishman, is Belfast's biggest fan. "It is a brilliant city," he says. "We just need to take responsibility for our young."