North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly held a meeting in the heart of Ardoyne this week to discuss his party’s position  over the July 12 rioting.

In the Crumlin Star on Tuesday night the Sinn Féin assemblyman, also Junior Minister in the Stormont Executive, stood up to critics in front of a 150 strong crowd.

In the aftermath of the trouble Gerry Kelly firmly blamed dissident republican groups such as Eirigi and the Real IRA for directing violence and encouraging youngsters to get involved.

The PSNI used water canons, plastic bullets and riot squads during the mayhem that swamped the area for three nights causing untold misery for local residents and businesses. Police came under gunfire during the trouble, which later seen a fully-loaded rifle handed into Father Gary Donegan of Holy Cross Church.

Pointing to the depth of anger in the community, Gerry Kelly said the Orange Order, who apply to walk past Catholic areas, as well as the Parades Commission, must be taken to task.

"People are clearly angry, and they're angry about a number of things," he said.

"They're angry in the first instance that an Orange parade, an anti-Catholic parade is still being forced up through Mountainview, the Dales and Ardoyne. I hate people talking about Ardoyne shops because this is three different Catholic areas that this parade goes up through.

"They're angry the Parades Commission is continuing to make decisions which allow Orange men to be as intransigent as they are, and then they're angry at the police response, because the PSNI force the parades up, and because once those decisions are made the PSNI will always force those parades up."

Repeating earlier claims that dissident groupings, such as the Real IRA, orchestrated the trouble, Gerry Kelly said there was no future in supporting such organisations.

"I think all the evidence is there and the actual weapon that was found - if you remember - was found in the entry where young Joseph Jones was beat to death. 

"These organisations are  -and if you look at where they are - they have no direction, and this is my fear, there is a young generation there that can be misled.

"The Continuity IRA  has been in existence since 1986. It has done very little in that whole period.

"The Real IRA has been there since 1996 and it has done very little, it's capable, they're all capable if they have weapons, but they don't have a strategy and killing in such circumstances is a hundred times worse than within a conflict.

"These organisations have been responsible for the killing in the last two to three years of eight people, of which five were Catholics - Eddie Burns, Joseph Jones, Emmet Shields in Derry, and two other Catholics in the Derry area as well, and then of course the two British soldiers and a policeman.

"Trying to create riots to fire shots is absolutely mad.

"Rioting is doing nothing except causing damage to our own area, I mean one of the shopkeepers told me that a number of shops were told to shut down from one of these small organisations and it’s the first time in 12 years anybody has told them to close down. That's the difficulty, that’s the stuff we have to come back at."