The Five Demands

F1 star Eddie Irvine: Dissident bombers are idiots (Belfast Telegraph)

‘Clowns’ targeting Belfast with bomb attacks are driving race-ace Eddie crazy

Former race ace Eddie Irvine has branded dissident republicans who’ve brought terror back to the streets of Belfast as “clowns and idiots”.

The ex-Formula 1 star who has invested millions of pounds in businesses says the idiots won’t win.

Irvine, 47, was speaking at the launch of his acquistion of Race Ireland school at Kirkistown only hours after republicans had firebombed a sports shop in the centre of Belfast in the wake of a bomb attack on the busy Cathedral Quarter a few days earlier.

“Every country has idiots like them parading under different banners,” said Irvine.

“They are clowns who can’t be successful at anything. They won’t win but they will cause disruption and it’s really bad for Northern Ireland because that’s what you really get noticed for even though the place has moved on with a very good education system and infrastructure.”

Irvine still has his roots and family in Northern Ireland — his teenage daughter goes to school in Holywood — but he has a number of homes in Florida and in the Bahamas where he owns an island named Little Leaf Cay but which he calls Kathleen Cay after his mother.