As an Irishman I’ve a quaint fondness for folk bewildered why the UK media has barely mentioned the riots in NI this week. It was like this for nearly 40 years during the Troubles. The UK media only cared when the violence crossed the sea or was so appalling it had to be reported

As a reporter I spent years covering murder and terror in my homeland NI - some of the violence so dreadful it still wakes me in the night. Only about 5% of that violence was ever reported in the British media. There’s your reason for silence on the Belfast riots. They don’t care

If this violence was happening in Glasgow, Cardiff or London coverage would be endless. There’d be public inquiries. But for NI, silence. And people wonder why there’s violence. The silence - the othering of NI - allows violence to fester. The riots are British failure writ large

And need I say the NI riots represent the ignorance of the British government and London media returning to haunt them. They mocked the idea that their Brexit wet dream would cause violence. They were warned. Now it’s happening. Where’s the apology, contrition? You’ll die waiting

In terms of Scotland, attention is greater here on NI primarily due to strong cultural and family ties. But I’ve still had to beg - beg - commissioning editors over here to run NI stories. ‘You paddies killing each other again’ is a refrain many Irish reporters are familiar with.

This may sound sick and twisted but it comes from 30 years reporting on NI: in some terrible way violence from both sides is a dreadful scream demanding UK attention. That’s why the IRA took its killing to England as nobody listened when it happened in NI. These riots are similar

This all said newspaper and TV editors now have a public duty to make amends and report what’s happening in NI honestly and dispassionately. And British politicians have a duty to heal the wounds they’ve reopened in NI. We as the public have a duty to care, not to pretend we care

My final thought on this: NI isn’t a ‘story’. That’s the awful truth about conflict reporting: the use of the word ‘story’ to discuss murder and grief and fear and ruin on a national scale. We need better words for the things we try to describe: the suffering on our own doorstep.

Everyone from Northern Ireland dreads what may come next. Someone dead, murdered. Then tell me, who do we blame for starting this? Again and again and again.