Fair ways turn foul when putt-upon working class lose their drive

NEWTON'S OPTIC:IT IS just five miles from Rory McIlroy's house in Holywood to the riot-torn streets of East Belfast, yet it might as well be a world away.

Nowhere else in the world has a young champion golfer ever lived this close to a riot, except when Tiger Woods lived in Hollywood during the 1993 LA riots.

So strictly speaking a young champion golfer has never lived in a town called Holywood with one “L” just five miles from a riot. But still, picture the contrast between the young man playing golf and the young men throwing golf balls.

Powerful stuff.

The cranes of the old Harland and Wolff shipyard loom over the Short Strand and Lower Newtownards Road, bearing witness to the deindustrialisation that has stripped these once-proud working-class communities of jobs and hope.

All that remains in the shadow of those cranes today are the Shorts aircraft factory, the Belfast Harbour industrial estate, the Titanic Quarter regeneration project, the Northern Ireland Science Park, the new Belfast Metropolitan College, the Odyssey entertainment complex, the Paint Hall film studio, George Best airport and the shipyard itself, of course, now thriving again thanks to wind turbines and oil-rig maintenance. But apart from that there are no jobs. No jobs at all.

Opportunities are hard to come by in these deprived neighbourhoods, a full half a mile from Belfast city centre, which is one-tenth of the distance to Rory McIlroy’s house.

Buses run every three minutes along each of the four metro bus routes through the area, all stopping at the Central Train Station 500 metres away.

However, in the two minutes and 59 seconds between buses there is a strong sense of isolation, alienation, marginalisation and so on.

Trapped in their immediate surroundings, young people have nowhere to go except two leisure centres, seven community centres, three youth clubs and the city’s largest park with its playgrounds, football pitches, basketball courts and indoor climbing wall.

The Odyssey complex also has cinemas, cafes, bars, nightclubs, a bowling alley and a museum but it is under the shadow of the above-mentioned cranes and therefore haunted as far as local people are concerned.

Housing is another obvious problem in the area.

It is all brand new, street after street of it, complete with front and rear gardens and off-street parking.

This has shattered the traditional working-class pride that came from living in a slum.

How can people maintain properties of this standard when the nearest Ikea is three miles away, over half the distance to Rory McIlroy’s house?

Little wonder they fall prey to sinister sectarian forces, ever ready to suggest the other side has nicer kitchens or those little white PVC shutters you bolt onto the wall.

Boarded-up shops are a further sign of a district in decay.

This has nothing to do with the nearby city centre or the even nearer Connswater Shopping Centre.

It is entirely due to disadvantage, alienation, sectarianism, haunted cranes and the insurmountable distance to Holywood with one “L”.

To prove I have done some work on this article I go into one of the few remaining shops and ask for a sausage roll.

“There you go, love,” says the women behind the counter. “That’ll be 90p.”

Honestly, it would break your bleeding heart.