TUESDAY’s overnight attack on the office of DUP Westminster candidate Sammy Wilson is the latest in a long line of incidents in which politicians’ constituency offices have been targeted.
The attack in Carrickfergus came just two days after a Sinn Féin office in Omagh, used by Westminster candidate Órfhlaith Begley, was forced to close due to a security alert in which a firearm was recovered.
In March 2022, the Portadown office of UUP leader Doug Beattie was targeted when a front window was smashed by a brick. The Upper Bann MLA said the attack followed his announcement he would no longer be taking part in anti-Northern Ireland Protocol rallies, which he said were being used to “raise the temperature”.
Two DUP offices in Newtownards, belonging to MLA Peter Weir and then-MP Jim Shannon, were targeted with graffiti in February 2021, while an office in the town belonging to Alliance MLA Kellie Armstrong also had spray-paint scrawled across it.
In the same week, the Bangor office of then-North Down Alliance MP Stephen Farry had “R.I.P G.F.A” sprayed on the shutters, in a sinister reference to the Good Friday Agreement.
The four attacks came as tensions remained high over the Protocol, and Mid and East Antrim Council staff were pulled from Brexit inspection duties at Larne Port over concerns for their safety.
Also in February of 2021, police investigated reports of pipe bombs being left at the offices of then-SDLP MLA Nichola Mallon in north Belfast and then-Sinn Féin West Belfast MP Paul Maskey.
Mr Maskey’s office was also targeted in August 2020, when a suspect device was left outside the premises at Sevastopol Street, two weeks after a hoax bomb alert at Sinn Féin’s Connelly House HQ in Andersonstown.
In January 2019, a CCTV camera recorded footage of a gunman opening fire at another west Belfast Sinn Féin office at Monagh Crescent. Police condemned the incident as a “reckless attack in what is a built-up residential area”.
The Strabane office of then-West Tyrone SDLP General Election candidate Daniel McCrossan was targeted in April 2015 when a window was smashed in an overnight attack. Mr McCrossan slammed those behind the incident as “anti-democratic”.
In 2014, the East Belfast office of then-MP Naomi Long was targeted two days in a row with paint and petrol bomb attacks.
Alliance offices had been attacked several times since the outbreak of the loyalist flag protests began in 2012 over a democratic vote by Belfast City Council to fly the Union flag at Belfast City Hall on designated days.
This included an office in Carrickfergus being set on fire and almost destroyed days after the vote.
