ST Patrick’s Day has always been a day for high jinx amongst students and young people.
In more recent times drink has become a huge feature of the national saint’s celebration.
These days, people don’t so much go out to wet the shamrock as to drown it.
As children, St Patrick’s Day involved going to Mass, some limp shamrock and a fairly lack-lustre parade with accordion bands followed by legions of scouts and cubs.
As students in the mid 1980s our St Patrick’s Day challenge was trying to navigate all the pubs from the Washington in Belfast city centre all the way up the Golden Mile to the Botanic Inn.
We never quite made it. We got drunk, very drunk and then followed up by going to a house party, where a second wind would kick in for an hour or two.
We then crawled back to our digs still managing to pick up a dodgy kebab or pizza. The point being we weren’t little innocents who never partied too late or didn’t take too much alcohol.
That said, watching images of the Holylands completely shocked me. This wasn’t just some high jinx by students. It was sheer hooliganism.
Listening to phone-in shows, I was amazed to hear some seasoned commentators actually trying to excuse the behaviour.
The recent phenomenon of out of control shenanigans in one part of south Belfast besmirches the reputation of the feast day for the hundreds of thousands of families who enjoy the parades, the bands, the fun fairs and a bit of plastic paddy-ism across the country.
What these young people are doing is very like those who hang onto the fringes of the Twelfth celebrations and who also act like hooligans with their binge drinking and riotous behaviour.
There’s nothing cultural for either group of numpties.
It’s clear that those involved in the trouble in the Holylands were not just students from Queen's, Ulster University and other educational institutions, they were young people from across the country hosted by student friends.
And let’s be frank, there are no reasonable excuses which explain their behaviour. They were drunk, out of control, riotous and without common courtesy, decency or respect towards others or indeed themselves or their parents.
The pictures published in the media clearly show young people running around half naked and others standing on cars roofs and bonnets.
Those who try to minimise this anti-social activity under the banner of some playful St Patrick’s Day frivolity underestimate the fear and intimidation that is felt by other residents in the area, pensioners or those living there with young families. If I lived in the Holylands I would want the water cannon brought in.
And what of their parents? Hundreds of those young people caught on camera are bound to be recognisable to their parents.
Why don’t they come forward and identify their own little horrors? The fact that there were only eleven arrests is shameful.
Even more shameful is the fact that ratepayers picked up the cleaning bill for the mess created by these cosseted undergraduates and their friends.
The streets looked like the aftermath of a tornado. Those identified on camera should be made do street cleaning each week in the area and their parents should reimburse Belfast city council for having to clean the place up.
Media images of these young people queuing up outside off sales the day after the riot and still being sold alcohol in large quantities is mind-blowing.
Where was the sense of responsibility of these businesses? Isn’t the licensing trade is supposed to be a regulated and responsible industry?
Incidents such as St Patrick’s Day in the Holylands and let's face it – it is three days of lock down for residents - could not happen if it were not for the huge numbers of students living in multiple occupancy dwellings.
Victorian terrace houses are being extended to create multiple flats and units resulting in too high a concentration of students in a small area and then the physical infrastructure can’t cope when law and order breaks down across a few streets.
Whilst some people are worried by the creation of new tower blocks for students across the city centre, they are infinitely better residential solutions than the scenario residents in the Holylands have to put up with.
The responsibility for the events of last week does not lie solely with the institutions in which they study - there are a myriad of contributing factors but the first is taking personal responsibility.
