The future doctors, lawyers, and politicians of Northern Ireland stood in the university area of Belfast on St Patrick's Day wondering which resident to hurl abuse at or which police officer's face they'd try to smash with a beer bottle.

"F**king peeler wankers!" and "Up the Ra!" they shouted. Then, there was a chorus of "SS RUC!" Bottles, bricks and fireworks were thrown at police during a three-hour riot. A car and bins were burned in the middle of roads as around 1,500 drunken students ran amok. Nineteen people were arrested.

The streets were left a carpet of glass, the air heavy with the smell of burning, and a small – and already beleaguered – handful of long-term residents absolutely terrified. "I always said I'd never leave. I've so many happy memories of rearing my family here. But I just can't take anymore," said an 83-year-old woman who broke down in tears as the mayhem unfolded.

"F**k you residents. Move out if you don't like it!" one student shouted.

There's been a long and proud tradition of student protest in the North. They've taken to the streets for civil rights and against imperialism.

But this was just an intoxicated rabble who made the behaviour of even the worst Celtic or Rangers fan seem dignified. It took lines of police in full riot gear with body armour, shields and Alsatian dogs to restore a semblance of order.

The Holyland area as it's known – because most of the street names are biblical – runs from Queen's University to the banks of the Lagan.

Around 5,000 students are packed into accomodation on a dozen streets. It was once a lovely, bohemian district with a social and religious mix. Students and long-term residents lived peacefully side-by-side until the late 1990s when student numbers at Queen's and the University of Ulster hugely increased.

As student behaviour deteriorated, most families moved out. Now, less than 100 long-term residents remain. They're plagued with drunkenness, vandalism and all-night parties – with music at nightclub levels – every night. Football or hurling on the street at 4am is the norm.

After a decade living there, I moved out. My home had been attacked on numerous occasions and I'd been threatened. Once, raw meat was chopped up and pushed through my door as a symbolic warning. Last summer, when I returned with my six-week-old daughter, students threw water bombs at the pram.

Last Tuesday, the students surpassed themselves. They were drinking from 7am. After 3pm they tried to burn a car with a southern registration – they were too drunk to see the registration plate.

Hundreds wandered around Carmel Street smashing bottles, breaking railings, and vandalising cars. In Palestine Street, others dragged sofas or even beds into their tiny front gardens where they shouted sectarian slogans and taunted residents.

Inebriated students in leprechaun hats climbed onto window bays or roofs. They gesticulated at police. Some urinated onto the street down below. A tattered tricolour was displayed from one house in Agincourt Avenue where 15 drunken students were crammed in the front garden with dozens more inside.

"Armoured cars and tanks and guns came to take away our sons/ But every man must stand behind the men behind the wire" blasted from the stereo. The house previously belonged to ex-republican prisoner Brian Gillen, who had spent 10 years in Long Kesh. He was driven from the Holyland because his young family couldn't sleep at night.

In Rugby Avenue, students drunkenly climbed drainpipes and hung precariously out of one top-floor window. A few doors down, Sheila Morgan last year had to call police as she waked her husband. Her student neighbours had shouted and urinated in the street as the coffin was carried in. On the morning of requiem mass, police had to sit outside the house to ensure the coffin could be carried out with dignity.

The riot squad was jeered as it appeared in Agincourt Avenue. Students got their friends to use their mobile phones to film them throwing bottles at police. "I can put it on YouTube," one said.

They were so drunk more bottles hit fellow students than police. One missile knocked a male student to the ground. He was bleeding heavily. The police phoned him an ambulance.

Palestine Street resident Johanna Kershaw was walking her chihuahuas when the trouble erupted. "It was like a warzone," she said. "The police went for soft targets. They dragged a girl away and batoned two others for no reason.

"The police have made it worse because now there's even more hostility towards us. What happens next week when the police are gone and we're defenceless?"

Kershaw has been constantly abused since the riot: "One student threatened to throw my wee dogs to his doberman. Another yelled 'Get into your house, you oul' bitch!'"

Kershaw's home has previously been attacked with excrement and her garden plants set on fire. She accused the major Holyland landlords of shirking their responsibility. "Why were they not on the streets telling their tenants to behave? These landlords got £30,000 grants to do up each of their houses. They're multi-millionaires. They don't give a damn about the community they destroyed."

Alan Murray, a mature Queen's student who left the Holyland last year, saw the riot:

"These students wear GAA shirts like a uniform. It's a way of saying 'We're Catholic, we're going places.' It's crude culchie sectarianism. They couldn't even spell 'republicanism'. They destroy residents' lives and escape punishment. Queen's is an academic slum."

Several years ago, Queen's and the University of Ulster hired liaison officers and set up disciplinary panels to deal with offending students. It was just a PR stunt. Queen's has "warned" 150 students this year and fined 50, pro-vice-chancellor Gerry McCormack proudly announced.

"He should hang his head in shame," said University Avenue resident Judy Fleming. "I'm recovering from major surgery and was too frightened to go outside my own house on Tuesday. The students laugh at Queen's 'warnings' and 'fines'. If McCormack and Queen's management lived here, not ordinary working people, the students would all be expelled."