On a tree-lined street in east Belfast, two metal poles beside a neat hedge are the only reminder of what police say is a hate crime.
Last Saturday, a vandal used an angle grinder to remove the Irish-language type on the name of the street Shandon Park, from a newly installed bilingual sign.
This quiet street, dubbed a “mini Malone” – the Malone Road is regarded as Belfast’s most affluent suburb – has become one of the most sought after addresses in the city.
Barristers and doctors are among those living in its redbrick Victorian houses.
There is even a golf club named after it; the club’s back entrance is in the middle of the street.
In an area once a bastion of unionism, children wearing Our Lady’s and St Patrick’s College Knock uniforms – a prestigious Catholic Grammar school a short distance away – walk the road on their way home.
“It’s the epitome of a leafy suburb ... and people living here are horrified by what happened on Saturday night. It was such a violent act,” says one resident.
“Like a lot of east Belfast, there is a growing Catholic or nationalist professional class in Shandon Park. But they don’t shove it in people’s faces; people just get along and they don’t think twice about it.”
The bilingual Shannon Park sign as it was
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