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NEWS: Early evening sees Holylands disturbance escalate
From approximately 5pm, the Holylands became rowdier, with the alcohol intake inevitably taking effect. Crowds of revellers gathered outside houses on Rugby Avenue, Agincourt Avenue, Carmel Street, Jerusalem Street and Palestine Street, with Rugby Avenue arguably the worst. Young people took to the middle of Rugby Avenue for a rendition of ‘Rock the Boat’, which then turned into the Irish national anthem. One young man mooned in the middle of the street before being unsuccessfully chased by a police officer.
BY CATHERINE WYLIE
The Gown spoke to a few Belfast natives who had turned up to “see what they could see”. One man said, “It only takes one person. I think something is definitely going to kick off.”
Those gathered in front gardens were visibly drinking, whilst some took to sitting on first floor window sills, or even on roofs. When asked what they thought of how the atmosphere had progressed, one student said, “This is ridiculous.”
VP Campaigns and Communications, Gareth McGreevy, said, “It has been contained with very little violence and rioting. There was an incident earlier in which seven people wearing pyjamas had come up from the Ormeau Road with a Rangers jersey. They were walking down Carmel Street, shouting “Burn it! Burn it!” The students didn’t want them there, and the situation was sorted quickly.”
Many students expressed how good the police had been. One said, “It may have went too far at this stage, but the police have been really nice. I suppose nobody is doing any harm.”
Another student said, “If I was a resident I’d hate it. It’s a bit scary.”
To which her friend replied, “They should confine all the residents to one street just for today!”
For more photos from the day, go to The Gown’s Facebook page.
Tags: Catherine Wylie, Gown, holylands, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, st. patrick's day, student, students, su, The Gown
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 6:29 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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“NEWS: Early evening sees Holylands disturbance escalate”
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i’m actually suprised that she was able to articulate words like “confined”. Why Catherine are you giving a voice to these people? Personally I believe that those residents who have the right to complain should be restricted to those that have lived their entire lives in the holylands – not the scum who have been forced out of every other area in belfast for their unscrupulous activites. But that aside it would be nice to hear a genuine solution to the holylands issue instead of the drunken ramblings of some cum bucket with too much bacardi breezer
To unknownmale:
It was just a joke wind your neck in.
Also unknownmale:
“Why Catherine are you giving a voice to these people?”
Em…
what was a joke? substantiate your comments? do you know this girl? were you there at the time? perhaps you’re some kind of mystic that was able to transcend dimensions and you fully understood the context in which this comment was made? or perhaps are you just assuming that it was a joke?
the gown is an independant newspaper at QUB, it is not a platform for ignorant hoodlums who think that confining residents to one street for the day is a viable solution and i would well believe that this girl was 100% serious when she made that comment, something i will clarify the next time I’m talking to Catherine.
QUB is responsible for the behaviour of its students because it is unable to provide affordable on-site accomodation. Annually there are about 25,000 at QUB, Queen’s Elms Village is able to accomodate a tiny percentage of these students, in fact Elms has become so expensive and middle-class that they’ve had to open their doors to UUJ and UUB students because enough QUB students are unable to foot the bill. If the students union is selling alcohol at reduced prices they too are responsible. if the behaviour of these students causes any emotional or financial problems for the residents of the Holylands then QUB should be making financial payments to these residents. where does the money that is collected from fining students go?
I now live on the Lisburn Road, how ridiculous would it be if I was to complain to the IFA that there was massive amounts of noise, cheering, loud music, huge crowds walking up and down the street, drinking, people urinating in public, singing sectarian songs etc. coming from Windsor Park? Farcical – i knew all this before I moved in. Likewise if someone has voluntarily moved into the Holylands as a long-term resident in the last 15-20 years they knew exactly what they were getting themselves into and HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN. However, and this is where i do have an enormous degree of sympathy, the long term residents that have been there since before the Holylands became a student dominated area are treated disgracefully, obviously primarily by the students but also by BCC, QUB & UUJ, the Students Union and the PSNI.
I would like to point out that I do not in any way endorse the behavior of these students, I am meerly commenting on reality as it is, something a lot of people could do with getting to grips with
Why do the authorities not realise that the real problem in the holylands area is overcrowding? If you take a house designed for a family of 6 and cram approximately 20 students aged 18-23 into it, and you do that to every house on the street what do you expect will happen? It’s not the students fault that there is serious overcrowding in the Holylands area.
The authorities are attempting to treat the symptoms, not the cause, with heavy handed police and CCTV cameras. The Universities are as bad, pointing the finger at the student population instead of tackling the real issue of overcrowding.
Then every young person in the North also knows that the Holylands is ‘the place to be’ on St Patricks day, so you can add a few more thousand on top of an already overcrowded small area of belfast, most of the arrests last year were people who did not even reside in the area or attend either university. They were blow-ins who only come to the area on St Patrick’s day because of the reputation the Holylands has. The bad-press attracts the type of people who revel in this kind of disorder.
Unknownmale: good argument.pity you lose all credibility by using the term “cum bucket”.surprised and disgusted that you would publish this gown.I thought comments were not to be published if vulgar.- suppose that it is testament to the quality of students in general.-nsults are issued freely issued to the holyland student residents but becauese this prat lives on the lisburn road he thinks he is better than them.
“nsults are issued freely issued to the holyland student residents but becauese this prat lives on the lisburn road he thinks he is better than them.”
what are these nsults? dictionary perhaps?
i lived in Elms for one year, Stranmillis for one year and the Holylands for two years so at this point I require you to retract your comment “this prat lives on the lisburn road he thinks he is better than them”.
By the way, pity you lose all credibility by using the term “prat”.