Gemma McSherry

Yes, that's right.

I grew up in Ute Nards, which is a bit of a loyalist stronghold in the north.

And there is a culture there of violence that a lot of the people here out in the streets now are being brought up in and they don't know anything else other than it.

To give you an example, when I would walk home from school,

I would see, you know, murals on the walls, which are sometimes now a bit of a sort of thing that people go and see as tourists in Belfast.

But what those murals depict is violence.

And they send a message to the people in this area that violence is the only way to kind of be a big man, to feel important.

And these people are growing up in a culture where violence is completely and utterly normalised.

A lot of the people going out in the street are kids as well.

And a lot of these kids are being groomed into this culture of violence now.

from a very, very young age.

Yeah, so like I say, this culture is very much based around violence as domination.

And especially in these sorts of estates where these boys are being brought up, the way to express yourself, the way to sort of feel like you are important, feel like you matter, is to take part in what this violence is and what it has always been, which is ultimately, you know, loyalist dominance that we've seen for generations in the North.

I think there's a couple of factors.

Obviously, the rise of misinformation in social media.

And there was a Forbes article that came out in 2024, which said that 70% of online accounts in Ireland are bots, B-O-T, bot accounts.

So those are accounts that are being run by bot farms.

And there's various different reasons that that could be.

And there's various different actors at play.

But