Shore Road, Belfast
The Shore Road is a major arterial route and area of housing and commerce that runs through north Belfast and Newtownabbey in Northern Ireland.
[3] According to Irish journalist Susan McKay, the area was the scene of fierce sectarian rioting throughout the nineteenth century until it was eventually established as a bulwark of working-class Protestantism.
[9] Other current features of York Street include the Cityside Shopping Centre, which has branches of Tesco, Asda and other large chain stores, St Paul's Church of Ireland and Yorkgate railway station.
Its origins go back to the nineteenth century when it was constructed with very basic housing intended for the unskilled labourers who made up the bulk of the workforce at Harland & Wolff shipyard.
[4] Tiger's Bay is notorious both for the strength of the UDA in the area and for historic tensions between residents and those of the adjoining nationalist New Lodge and Newington districts.
[21] Greencastle previously had a PSNI station although, despite objections being raised by local MP Nigel Dodds,[22] this has since been closed and the building demolished.
The Shore Road is divided between the two North Belfast and the two East Antrim constituencies both for Westminster and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
North Belfast is now held by Sinn Féin MP John Finucane since the general election of December 2019 and Sammy Wilson the member for East Antrim.
In the Assembly North Belfast is represented by Paula Bradley, William Humphrey and Nelson McCausland of the DUP, Carál Ní Chuilín and Gerry Kelly of Sinn Féin and Nichola Mallon of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.
Paramilitaries from both the Ulster loyalist and Irish republican sides were both active on the Shore Road, both in terms of recruiting members and in carrying out attacks.
They placed a bomb in Conway's Bar, Greencastle on 29 March 1974 with two Catholic civilians, James Mitchell and Joseph Donnelly, killed in the explosion.
[34] Larry Potter from County Monaghan was killed by a UVF car bomb on the Shore Road on 25 March 1977 when his firm's minibus was fitted with an explosive device.
[35] On 29 October 1983, David Nocher, a member of the Workers' Party, was killed at his Mill Road shop, with the attack claimed by the UVF again under their PAF pseudonym.
[38] On 17 January 1993, a Catholic young woman, Sharon McKenna was killed by the organisation as she visited a Protestant friend on the Mount Vernon estate.
[39] On 17 May 1994 two Catholic workmen, Eamon Fox and Gary Convie, were shot and killed by the UVF as they waited in a car outside the Tiger's Bay building site at which they were employed.
[40] Later that same year, on 17 June, two Protestant workmen, Cecil Dougherty and William Corrigan, were killed in similar circumstances when the UVF, believing them to be Catholic, launched a gun attack on the hut at which their construction team was based.
A number of alleged members were brought to trial based on evidence provided by supergrass Robert Stewart with crimes including the killing of UDA and Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) activist Tommy English as part of a loyalist feud.
The trial, which involves some 13 alleged members of the Mount Vernon unit, ended in February 2012 when all but one of the defendants was acquitted after the judge called into question the testimonies of the central witnesses.
[43] The UDA has been active in the area since the 1970s with the Shore Road divided between the North Belfast and South East Antrim brigades.
[50] Several years earlier, on 15 March 1975, two UDA members John Fulton and Stephen Goatley, had been shot dead by the UVF as part of a feud between the two groups.
[52] On 4 February 1978 the PIRA shot a civilian dead while mounting an attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol on the road.
[53] A similar attack, carried out from the Seaview football ground on 12 January 1980 resulted in the death of David Purse, a member of the RUC.
On 21 June 1974 loyalists killed Protestant Stanley Lemon as he arrived at work on the Shore Road, mistakenly believing he was a Catholic.
Later that same year, on 3 November, Georgina Strain was killed at her home in Tiger's Bay in an attack carried out by republicans but also not claimed by a specific group.
[56] Elsewhere the republican Irish People's Liberation Organisation killed 66-year-old William Sergeant on 5 May 1992, shooting him as he stood outside the Mount Inn, Tiger's Bay.
[59] Further up in the Greencastle suburb the Shore Road playing fields are home to Northern Amateur Football League sides Grove United F.C.
[60] The Tiger's Bay area is home to the Midland Boxing Club[61] where reigning WBA (Super) featherweight champion Carl Frampton was amongst the fighters they trained.
[62] World Flyweight champion Rinty Monaghan, a native of the nearby Sailortown area, is commemorated by a statue on York Street.
[68] The main Belfast campus of Ulster University is located in York Street which is the continuation of the Shore Road into the city centre.
[70] Ulsterbus services to the areas beyond Newtownabbey also operate on the Shore Road whilst it is also served by the Yorkgate and Whiteabbey railway stations.
