Catholic woman refuses to budge
A Catholic woman ordered at gunpoint to get out of her home on the edge of a loyalist estate in Co Antrim today defiantly said she was staying put.
The mother of four and her Protestant boyfriend were given 24 hours to get out of Larne by a masked man who broke into her home and put a gun to the couple’s heads late on Tuesday evening.
Windows were shattered in the front and back of the house on the Upper Carncastle Road, on the edge of the loyalist Craigyhill estate, during the couple’s frightening ordeal.
But despite the threat the woman, who did not wish to be identified, said she was defying the attacker and would not be driven out.
She said she did not know whether the religious difference between herself and her boyfriend was behind the expulsion order.
But she said: “Nobody is putting me out of here because I’m not selling up.”
The woman inherited the house upon the death of her father three weeks ago.
Standing out against the threat, she said: “If they come and face me without their balaclavas on and tell me what it is all about I will talk to them, but they are not going to put me out.”
Her boyfriend, also too frightened to be named, said they had been watching TV when they were ordered out.
“There was a knock on the door and the next minute the door came in . The man came in, he was dressed all in black and wearing a balaclava, and shouted ‘Get down, get down’ and put the gun to my head and to my girlfriend’s head.
“He said we had 24 hours to get out of Larne.”
Roy Beggs Jnr, an Ulster Unionist Assembly member for the area hit out at what he called the “law of the jungle” operating in Larne.
He said: “Such actions are the actions of despots who are anti-democratic and who are creating more injustice.”
Meanwhile republican and loyalist paramilitary violence showed no sign of abating after two men were shot in attacks on their homes.
A 42-year-old was recovering in hospital after being shot and beaten by a gang of up to 13 men in Strabane, Co Tyrone, and a 39-year-old was shot once in the leg in the loyalist Shankill Road area of Belfast.
Police described the Strabane attack as brutal and savage and blamed republicans.
The gang forced their way into the man’s home in the Carlton Drive area of the predominantly nationalist town and beat him around the head before shooting him in both elbows and both knees.
Inspector Bertie Gault of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said it was too early to say whether the attack was the work of the IRA or the INLA who have a stronghold in the town.
Condemning the attack he said: “This was a middle-aged man who was in his own home on his own when up to 13 masked men forced their way in and beat him up.
“Then they took him into the front garden and shot him in both legs and each arm before making off. It was a savage and brutal attack which is to be condemned totally.”
The victim was found by neighbours who comforted him until an ambulance arrived.
Meanwhile a pipe bomb was defused by the army in North Belfast following another attack on a Catholic home.
The device was found in the back garden of the house at Newington Street beside the interface with the loyalist Tiger’s Bay.
