Loyalist parade sparks riots in Catholic area

Street battles raged in north Belfast last night after a loyalist parade and supporters waving paramilitary flags were allowed to march past a row of Catholic shops.

A 51-year-old man died of a heart attack after thousands of nationalists turned on riot police with bottles, rocks, bricks and anything they could find in residential streets, including trees uprooted from gardens.

Senior republicans had to intervene to stop a nationalist mob that had isolated around 15 soldiers, forced them against a fence and were attacking them with rocks and baseball bats.

Yesterday was the pinnacle of the Protestant marching season with more than 100,000 Orangemen, women and children parading through cities and countryside to commemorate Protestant William of Orange's victory over Catholic James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

But in north Belfast tensions had been growing all day after nationalists said they did not want a parade to cross their area.

The government-appointed Parades Commission ruled that only the Orange orders would be allowed to file past the nationalist Ardoyne shops on their way back from an Orange gathering in a field in south Belfast. Their loyalist "hangers on" and flute bands would be stopped, according to the commission's ruling.

This rundown and embittered interface area between Protestant and Catholic communities who live behind dividing peace-walls suffered the worst murder count of Northern Ireland's Troubles. The loyalist protests outside Holy Cross school three years ago still play strong in people's minds.

Around 800 soldiers, including paratroopers, positioned themselves around the area to help hundreds of police in riot gear yesterday afternoon as nationalist residents prepared to see if the Parades Commission ruling would be respected and Orange orders complained they had been unfairly treated.

As hundreds of nationalist demonstrators gathered at the shops behind vast steel police screens, first the Orange order marched sedately past in their orange sashes and red, white and blue bandanas. Next the bands and some Orange children were ferried through on buses.

Then several hundred loyalist supporters were allowed to walk up the road. They performed two-fisted salutes, waving loyalist paramilitary flags and singing the Orange anthem, The Sash My Father Wore. Loyalist spectators, including a woman wearing an Orange nun's habit, stood cheering them on.

Bottles, bricks and rocks came flying over the steel barricades keeping nationalists back as missiles flew between loyalist supporters and nationalists.

Nationalists began venting their fury that the police had allowed a "sectarian" march to pass through their area regardless of a Parades Commission ruling and 2,000 nationalists began charging police and army lines.

Police used water cannon to push rioters back, but the streets were a mess of broken glass, bricks and rubble as missiles continued to hurl past.

Sinn Fein assembly member Gerry Kelly said he was hit with a police baton while remonstrating with nationalists to stop them attacking the police.

Martin Morgan, a former mayor of Belfast, for the moderate nationalist SDLP, said the police decision to allow the loyalist parade supporters to walk past the nationalist shops had done "untold damage" to community relations and nationalist faith in the Parades Commission.

He said nationalists had been hemmed in while illegal loyalist paramilitary flags were allowed in the loyalist crowd. He said his party would demand a police ombudsman's report into the policing of the parade.

The police said that under human rights law they had had to allow the parade supporters up the road.

One community worker said nationalist trust had been "smashed to smithereens". A local priest who had intervened when riot police and protesters clashed, said already precarious community relations had been "wound back".

Ummm sure the Famine (an outright, planned genocide of the Irish people) is over, but if you had any knowledge of the VERY not-so-distant past, you would understand what was happening. These Nationalists who were attacking the soldiers have suffered years, no, decades!, of abuse by these same men! People are repulsed by the actions of the IRA but if they would look at the numbers, hundreds more Catholic Nationalists have been murdered by the British military and civilians!

If you would know about Bloody Sunday , you would think differently! These people attacking the police have heard and endured OUTRIGHT DISCRIMINATION for years!

Everytime a Loyalist is hurt, the world goes up in arms and demands the Republicans be brought to justice! Ha! That is only because we live in a world dominated by two powers: Britain and America (the latter a true extension of the former). Both are dominated by a Protestant Puritanism mentality. No one hears, cares or worries about the discrimination and outright abuse of Catholics, Nationalists or Irish in either of these nations. It has actually become a very popular and acceptable sport to discriminate against all three these days (in both coutnries!!!)

Ireland for the Irish!

The rather sinister joke "Innocent until proven Irish."

P.S.: I really do usually try to promote peace. I am an American Catholic. I have many Protestant friends and we get along fine. There is some tension occaisionally, but nothing much. But, as a Catholic, I have been subected to abuses that are downright dim-witted and vicious. I'm tired of hearing about the "priest scandals"!!! My priest is great! He wouldn't hurt a fly! If you look at the statistics (numbers that the media dont want you to know) the same number (in ratio [since there are more Catholics]) of religious of non-Catholics are accused of abuse every year! You don't hear about that do you! It's become a witch hunt!

This last message really ticked me off. The Famine is really irrelevant in these time...a HORRENDOUS memory, but irrelevant. People need to step back and look at the facts. Yes! BOTH SIDES ARE GUILTY OF TERRIBLE CRIMES! But it's too bad that the Loyalists have the backing of the ENTIRE society of the West while we Catholics can only whisper our support to our Irish brothers for fear of being labeled as bigots and inciters of violence! God save the Pope!

And if this article can't be posted, then THAT is outright discrimination! I've only spoken about things from MY point of view. To silence them would be outright prejudice. But I'm Catholic...so who cares?

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