Catholics in Antrim have endured a campaign this summer to make some estates "Taig-free areas", writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
In the past three months, over 50 families were forced from their homes in the Antrim area, the overwhelming majority of them Catholic. That's over 300 men, women and children out on the streets seeking safe, or relatively safe, places to live.
A week or so into May saw the annual ritual of painting the kerbstones red, white and blue, erecting loyalist flags and bunting, and cleaning old loyalist murals or painting new ones.
There was some green, white and orange reciprocation from nationalists but anyone travelling through Antrim town this summer would have been in no doubt which was the dominant tradition.
One middle-aged father told The Irish Times how last week his daughter was finally rehoused after four months of a "living hell". "She's out of her flat now, thank God," he said.
She was a 19-year-old mother of a four-month-old baby living alone on the Stiles estate in Antrim. It was a mixed estate but there was a campaign to make it and other housing developments "Taig-free areas", said local SDLP MLA Mr Donovan McClelland. "That's the language they use," he said.
The intimidation of the young woman at her home was constant, said her father.
"When she phoned me she whispered for fear of drawing attention to herself. She refused to phone the police on numerous occasions for fear of drawing attention to herself. She was in absolute fear of her life."
He added that his 14-year-old son was twice badly beaten up by loyalists, and that his 11-year-son was threatened. Catholic children were fearful of going into the centre of Antrim. "My children are being ghettoised," he said.
Mr Martin Meehan, the Sinn Féin councillor for the area, said there was no doubt the UDA was behind most of the attacks on Catholic homes and families. Not only was it sectarian in intent but was also part of a local power struggle between the UDA and UVF, he added.
Mr McClelland agreed. "There is a turf war because which ever loyalist group controls the estates controls the protection rackets, the drugs and the money-lending," he said.
Both Mr McClelland and Mr Meehan said that the intimidation was not all one-sided, but added that most of the provocation came from the loyalist groupings.
Mr Ken Wilkinson of the Progressive Unionist Party, which is linked to the UVF, insisted relations are cordial between the UVF and UDA. He blamed Sinn Féin in the Antrim area for stirring up sectarian feelings, and said many Protestant homes and families were also being targeted.
He conceded Catholic families are being intimidated, but said Sinn Féin must accept a lot of the blame because it was deliberately stirring up sectarian feelings.
"They are creating a lot of tension in the Antrim area. They are upping the ante," he said. Part of the motivation was to help strengthen Mr Meehan's profile in Antrim so that he might do well in next May's Assembly elections, he claimed.
Mr Meehan rejects such criticism and proposes a civic forum of local politicians, church, community, trade union and other representatives to tackle sectarianism. But again there is dissension: he says he won't co-operate with the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Mr McClelland and Mr Wilkinson say a mechanism to combat the problem on a united front already exists in the Antrim Community Safety Association. But this includes the police, and according to Mr Wilkinson, the only reason Sinn Féin is proposing a civic forum is because it can't bring itself to co-operate with the PSNI.
How to dampen down the spreading sectarianism in a campaign involving all the main players is proving extremely difficult, particularly in light of the local political recriminations. And while the political blame game continues, so does the intimidation.