On the inside of a front door in a Belfast housing development, a letterbox is fitted with a lock to stop petrol bombs being thrown in.
Each morning, the couple living in their redbrick new-build home unlock the specially designed mechanism before opening a padlock on their front gate to let the postman in.
This was supposed to be their “dream home”. They moved in last November after spending years on a social-housing waiting list.
Today, they are the last Catholic family living on Annalee Street in north Belfast, about 3km from the city centre.
RM Block
Every window in the house is alarmed and five security cameras – triggered by any movement outside – send images to their mobile phones which vibrate constantly in their hands. They are desperate to leave.
“We’ve always lived in mixed areas; we always wanted it to be cross-community for our daughter,” said the woman, who does not want to be identified.
“I am disabled and we had lost everything materially. My husband lost his job. We’ve been in homeless places that had rats and mice. This was us; this was our chance to get a new life.
“The street is right on the peace line between the two communities but there hadn’t been any trouble there in a long time. Even though we had it in the back of our heads about what it used to be like, we thought: ‘We’re moving on; this is a new generation’.”
For the past week, anger at sectarian and racist attacks in this interface area of Lower Oldpark has dominated the news agenda in Northern Ireland.
Arson attacks in Ballymena and the targeting of a home in Donaghadee, Co Antrim, are also being investigated as race-related hate crimes by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
[ Sectarian intimidation in north Belfast linked to UDA, says police commanderOpens in new window ]
On Tuesday, a meeting was attended by police, politicians, community groups and residents in north Belfast to address what one woman described as “sustained intimidation” by loyalist paramilitaries since May.
An Ulster Defence Association (UDA) flag flies from a lamp-post at the end of Annalee Street, where three Catholic families have fled their homes.
Windows in one property along the otherwise pristine row of 10 houses are boarded up.
Every other lamp-post in the street is bedecked with Union Jack flags, which were put up by masked men in July.
Tuesday’s meeting took place in Girdwood Community Hub, a “shared space” leisure centre on a site that was formerly British army barracks directly facing Annalee Street.
Clifton Park Avenue, the street leading to Girdwood, was once the “no man’s land of no man’s lands”, according to Sinn Féin North Belfast MP John Finucane.
He organised the meeting and warned of a “sinister element” involved in the intimidation.
“I think common sense would tell you there’s not an individual group of racists attacking people and a separate sectarian group. The two go hand in hand,” he said.
When Finucane was a pupil at St Malachy’s College in north Belfast in the 1990s, British army helicopters regularly landed at the huge military base as he played football.
“In years gone past this was an incredibly dangerous place ... the amount of people that would have been killed not even within a square mile of here,” added the MP, who is awaiting a public inquiry into the death of his father, the solicitor Pat Finucane, who was murdered by the UDA in 1989.
“Where we had had the meeting at Girdwood is testament to the amount of change that’s taken place.
“The point is not to bring it back to the past but the point is there’s a tremendous amount of work that’s been done on all sides, at all levels, whether it’s community, political, civic, international, to invest in areas that needed it. Girdwood is a really good example of that – shared housing is a really good example of that.
“But there are those malevolent forces that still exist in these areas that see that as a threat, that see progress as a threat. And they are determined to bring areas like that, and society in more general terms, back to 30 years ago.”
The new Clanmil Association development on Annalee Street was built on land that had lain derelict for decades after Catholic residents were burnt out of their homes at the beginning of the Troubles in 1969.
Marketed as “lifetime homes”, the social houses were allocated based on need.
Sitting in their livingroom the day after the meeting – which they attended – the couple pointed to the Union flag directly outside. Every time the wind blows, the security lights they’ve installed come on because “the flag is so big and blowing at the front door”.
“It can be quite scary when you’re on your own. I’ve caught myself jumping. The lights are on and off,” the woman said.
“Police came in three weeks ago and were shining torches in the street,” her husband added. “I was at work and my phone kept going off. I looked and there were 100 notifications linked to our security cameras. It was beep, beep, beep. You’re worried all the time.
“I keep my phone resting beside me with the camera view on, so if anything happens I can give it a quick glance to see who it is … It’s not a way to live.”
When the couple first moved into the house last November there was no tension and people were “pleasant”. Then, one evening in May, everything changed.
The couple spoke quietly as they recalled how a masked man came to the window and put his finger across his throat as their daughter and her boyfriend were in the house.
Within 45 minutes, there was “pandemonium” in the street as windows were smashed and one family ordered to leave.
“There was shouting and roaring by masked men saying: ‘You’ve an hour to get out; we’re coming back’,” said the woman. “There were kids squealing and roaring; they were so frightened.”
For months, the family barricaded themselves into the house and took it in turns to stay up all night to “keep watch”.
“We put the settee in front of our windows to make sure they weren’t put in. The kitchen table was barricaded up against the back door,” the man said.
“I follow the local football team [Cliftonville FC] but I don’t wear colours if I’m going to a match. I’m very conscious I can’t do that.”
[ End of segregation in Northern Ireland is a long way off, report findsOpens in new window ]
At a Northern Ireland Policing Board meeting on Thursday, a senior officer confirmed that individuals linked to the UDA were involved in the sectarian intimidation.
PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Davy Beck said there was no intelligence to suggest the attacks were “sanctioned at a senior level” of the loyalist paramilitary group.
To date, one person has been arrested and charged.
The North’s most senior police officer, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, said the PSNI was “throwing the kitchen sink” at bringing those responsible to justice.
But the couple living in Annalee Street said they have “no faith” in the police. Their support network has been community workers and local councillors, who “check in with them daily”.
“Since May, the threat has always been there. The same guys who put in the windows, we would have seen them walking up and down the street. We would have told the police,” said the woman.
“But there’s only been one arrest.
“If it wasn’t for councillors like Tomás [O’Neill, of Sinn Féin] and Paul [McCusker, an Independent] and all the community workers on the ground, we would have nothing.”
The couple acknowledged that it is a “minority” of people behind the attacks and while welcoming condemnation by Stormont leaders, they want to see action.
They have been informed if they leave their home, the only alternative is a hotel or flat in Co Fermanagh due to lengthy housing waiting lists in north Belfast.
“All I want to do is live here without fear or anything happening to us until we get away,” said the woman.
“The saddest part for me is that we brought our daughter up in cross-community areas – she has Catholic and Protestant friends – but now there is a fear in her. She wasn’t interested in what happened in the past. But now she is asking: ‘Why us?’”
