From Bombay Street to Ballymena: The repertoires of sectarian violence and 21st-century racism

Abstract

During June 2025, Ballymena was the epicentre of some of the most serious riots witnessed recently in Northern Ireland. For many days, mobs attacked migrants’ properties and battled the police. These riots soon extended to other areas, the youths involved in the rioting coming overwhelmingly from working-class Loyalist strongholds. We argue that these riots embodied a familiar repertoire of bottom-up Loyalist, non-lethal violence against civilians, shaped by historical sectarianism. We compare the dynamics of the 1969 Bombay Street burnings and the Ballymena riots, demonstrating the persistence of repertoires of violence anchored in sectarianism but assuming new forms in contemporary racism. Although the target group in each instance is different, the repertoire, technique, performative and symbolic dimensions, and underlying ideology of the violence have many continuities, including an effort to cleanse a territory of people seen as undesirable to assert an identity-based control over it, indicating the depth of Loyalist resolve.