Rathcoole (Newtownabbey) - Civil Unrest

Civil Unrest

Towards the end of the 1960s, civil unrest in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles brought about sectarian conflict after a period of reducing community antagonism. A feature of the early Troubles was a form of what in later conflicts would be classed as ethnic cleansing. With some exceptions in Northern Ireland this was carried out largely on the basis of implied threats rather than outright aggression. Rathcoole became a new home to many Protestants displaced from Belfast. In the period 1969-1973 a common sight on the streets of urban working class areas of Northern Ireland was parties of people moving furniture either by hand or any vehicle they could borrow. It was in this time that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive was born in response to accusations that councils responsible for allocating public housing were using allocation as a means of favouring their own. Community vigilante groups acted as gatekeepers to such population exchanges in public housing areas. In the early 1970s police were briefly excluded from the area by the Rathcoole Defence Association (RDA), a move that reflected a wider pattern in Northern Ireland. Resource-starved authorities could do little but stand by and re-allocate housing on the basis of squatters becoming accepted as sitting tenants. In Rathcoole for instance this was estimated at between 200 and 250 families in mid-1972.

It was during these times that the family of Bobby Sands, later to become an Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger striker and Member of Parliament for Fermanagh & South Tyrone moved out of Rathcoole to the Irish Republican Twinbrook estate in Belfast, one of many Catholic families to leave the area to be replaced by similarly displaced Protestant families. The estate was the scene of several sectarian murders and other violent crimes during the conflict. At around this time many young disaffected males became associated with a Loyalist Tartan Gang in the estate named 'The Rathcoole KAI'. The decline of the gangs coincided with the sudden success of The Bay City Rollers with younger children and the conspicuous use of tartan items of clothing by the band possibly leading to a loss of credibility of tartan as a symbol of strength.

In subsequent years at times of wider community stress in Northern Ireland sporadic rioting with security forces has occasionally occurred within the estate but not to the extent witnessed in urban areas of Belfast and Derry and the community has enjoyed long periods of calm.

In October 2010 there was serious rioting in the area linked to the Ulster Volunteer Force and resulted in Translink suspending their services in the area for a period of time after some of their buses were hijacked and set on fire.Police also claimed a gunman from the UVF was sighted at the scene of the rioting.The unrest was believed to be a reaction to police raids in Rathcoole.