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BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- A night of rioting by Catholic militants in Northern Ireland wounded 22 police officers, hours before mass Protestant parades Tuesday that are an annual test of the British territory's peace process.
Lines of riot police prevented masked Catholic men and youths from attacking nearby Protestant districts in several parts of Belfast overnight.
Officers in helmets, shields and flameproof suits suffered hours-long barrages of bottles, bricks, stones and about 40 Molotov cocktails. They reported firing 51 British-style plastic bullets blunt-nosed cylinders designed to deal punishing blows to rioters and dousing the mobs with blasts from water cannons.
During the worst clashes in the Broadway district of Catholic west Belfast, rioters hijacked a bus and tried to drive it into police lines. But the driver lost control and crashed it.
Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former Irish Republican Army commander who today is the senior Catholic in Northern Ireland's unity government, appealed to the rioters not to repeat their performance at the end of Tuesday's parades by the Orange Order.
The Orange Order, a conservative Protestant brotherhood that marches under banners depicting the British crown on an open Bible, stages parades each July 12 in commemoration of a 17th-century military victory over Irish Catholics. "The Twelfth" is an official Northern Ireland holiday that many Catholics despise, and the event often raises community tensions to breaking point.
McGuinness and police chiefs warned of likely violence Tuesday night at the worst Belfast flashpoint: Ardoyne, a traditional IRA stronghold where splinter groups in recent years have mounted anti-Orange attacks as a small Protestant parade passes the area. The dissidents oppose the IRA's 2005 decision to disarm and renounce violence, a key Protestant condition for Sinn Fein to enter Northern Ireland's government.
McGuinness and other Sinn Fein officials described the rioters as drunken hooligans who had gone out of their way to confront police at key sectarian fault lines of Belfast.
"The people who found themselves at Broadway last night had traveled from different parts of Belfast to inflict pain and hurt on the local community and attack the police," said McGuinness, who in his IRA days once encouraged such events.
During the violence, firefighters came under attack in both Protestant and Catholic districts. The firefighters were on high alert because "The Twelfth" traditionally begins with the lighting of massive and often dangerously unwieldy bonfires in Protestant areas at midnight. Firefighters said they responded to 180 emergency calls overnight, 65 percent more than last year, during which one fire engine was vandalized and two firemen were injured by thrown objects.
British Army experts also dismantled a fake car bomb abandoned in a Protestant district of north Belfast near Ardoyne. The alert forced scores of Protestant families to evacuate their homes overnight.
Later Tuesday, police received warnings of multiple bombs on a street in the town of Lurgan. Bomb disposal engineers used remote-controlled robots to blast several suspicious abandoned objects in the area but no bombs were found.
Tuesday's street mayhem followed weeks of similar flare-ups in working-class parts of Belfast and nearby suburbs that have left scores of police injured, none critically. Last week, Protestants rioted in one suburb after police removed British and sectarian flags from posts outside the area's lone Catholic church.
Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society despite the broad success of its two-decade-old peace process. The long negotiations achieved a Catholic-Protestant government, British Army withdrawals and disarmament by most illegal paramilitary groups but did nothing to bring down more than 40 Belfast barricades called "peace lines" that still separate Irish Catholic and British Protestant turf.
Geez here we go again. This has been going on for what now 40 years?
Partly the recession and we get the occasionally terrorist trying to get things started again. Thankfully we have just remained calm.
A big part of the problem in NI seems to be that kids still go to either Catholic or Protestant schools and so do not get to know each other properly and differences and prejudices are kept there to be exploited.
Also do you know that during the 'troubles' they used to call kids throwing stones 'recreational stone throwing'.
Hopefully the recession will be over soon and people can find more fruitful things to do.
Partly the recession and we get the occasionally terrorist trying to get things started again. Thankfully we have just remained calm.
A big part of the problem in NI seems to be that kids still go to either Catholic or Protestant schools and so do not get to know each other properly and differences and prejudices are kept there to be exploited.
Also do you know that during the 'troubles' they used to call kids throwing stones 'recreational stone throwing'.
Hopefully the recession will be over soon and people can find more fruitful things to do.
People in many countries, including England, go to Protestant and Catholic schools and yet no riots there???
The RUC invented the notion of 'recreational stone throwing', perhaps the Troubles were just recreational sniping, rocket launching, mortoring, mining and informer disposal
Belfast Riots: 22 Police Injured By Northern Irish Catholic Militants
BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- A night of rioting by Catholic militants in Northern Ireland wounded 22 police officers, hours before mass Protestant parades Tuesday that are an annual test of the British territory's peace process.
Lines of riot police prevented masked Catholic men and youths from attacking nearby Protestant districts in several parts of Belfast overnight.
Officers in helmets, shields and flameproof suits suffered hours-long barrages of bottles, bricks, stones and about 40 Molotov cocktails. They reported firing 51 British-style plastic bullets blunt-nosed cylinders designed to deal punishing blows to rioters and dousing the mobs with blasts from water cannons.
During the worst clashes in the Broadway district of Catholic west Belfast, rioters hijacked a bus and tried to drive it into police lines. But the driver lost control and crashed it.
Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former Irish Republican Army commander who today is the senior Catholic in Northern Ireland's unity government, appealed to the rioters not to repeat their performance at the end of Tuesday's parades by the Orange Order.
The Orange Order, a conservative Protestant brotherhood that marches under banners depicting the British crown on an open Bible, stages parades each July 12 in commemoration of a 17th-century military victory over Irish Catholics. "The Twelfth" is an official Northern Ireland holiday that many Catholics despise, and the event often raises community tensions to breaking point.
McGuinness and police chiefs warned of likely violence Tuesday night at the worst Belfast flashpoint: Ardoyne, a traditional IRA stronghold where splinter groups in recent years have mounted anti-Orange attacks as a small Protestant parade passes the area. The dissidents oppose the IRA's 2005 decision to disarm and renounce violence, a key Protestant condition for Sinn Fein to enter Northern Ireland's government.
McGuinness and other Sinn Fein officials described the rioters as drunken hooligans who had gone out of their way to confront police at key sectarian fault lines of Belfast.
"The people who found themselves at Broadway last night had traveled from different parts of Belfast to inflict pain and hurt on the local community and attack the police," said McGuinness, who in his IRA days once encouraged such events.
During the violence, firefighters came under attack in both Protestant and Catholic districts. The firefighters were on high alert because "The Twelfth" traditionally begins with the lighting of massive and often dangerously unwieldy bonfires in Protestant areas at midnight. Firefighters said they responded to 180 emergency calls overnight, 65 percent more than last year, during which one fire engine was vandalized and two firemen were injured by thrown objects.
British Army experts also dismantled a fake car bomb abandoned in a Protestant district of north Belfast near Ardoyne. The alert forced scores of Protestant families to evacuate their homes overnight.
Later Tuesday, police received warnings of multiple bombs on a street in the town of Lurgan. Bomb disposal engineers used remote-controlled robots to blast several suspicious abandoned objects in the area but no bombs were found.
Tuesday's street mayhem followed weeks of similar flare-ups in working-class parts of Belfast and nearby suburbs that have left scores of police injured, none critically. Last week, Protestants rioted in one suburb after police removed British and sectarian flags from posts outside the area's lone Catholic church.
Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society despite the broad success of its two-decade-old peace process. The long negotiations achieved a Catholic-Protestant government, British Army withdrawals and disarmament by most illegal paramilitary groups but did nothing to bring down more than 40 Belfast barricades called "peace lines" that still separate Irish Catholic and British Protestant turf.
Belfast Riots: 22 Police Injured By Northern Irish Catholic Militants
Belfast Riots: 22 Police Injured By Northern Irish Catholic Militants
BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- A night of rioting by Catholic militants in Northern Ireland wounded 22 police officers, hours before mass Protestant parades Tuesday that are an annual test of the British territory's peace process.
Lines of riot police prevented masked Catholic men and youths from attacking nearby Protestant districts in several parts of Belfast overnight.
Officers in helmets, shields and flameproof suits suffered hours-long barrages of bottles, bricks, stones and about 40 Molotov cocktails. They reported firing 51 British-style plastic bullets – blunt-nosed cylinders designed to deal punishing blows to rioters – and dousing the mobs with blasts from water cannons.
During the worst clashes in the Broadway district of Catholic west Belfast, rioters hijacked a bus and tried to drive it into police lines. But the driver lost control and crashed it.
Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former Irish Republican Army commander who today is the senior Catholic in Northern Ireland's unity government, appealed to the rioters not to repeat their performance at the end of Tuesday's parades by the Orange Order.
The Orange Order, a conservative Protestant brotherhood that marches under banners depicting the British crown on an open Bible, stages parades each July 12 in commemoration of a 17th-century military victory over Irish Catholics. "The Twelfth" is an official Northern Ireland holiday that many Catholics despise, and the event often raises community tensions to breaking point.
McGuinness and police chiefs warned of likely violence Tuesday night at the worst Belfast flashpoint: Ardoyne, a traditional IRA stronghold where splinter groups in recent years have mounted anti-Orange attacks as a small Protestant parade passes the area. The dissidents oppose the IRA's 2005 decision to disarm and renounce violence, a key Protestant condition for Sinn Fein to enter Northern Ireland's government.
McGuinness and other Sinn Fein officials described the rioters as drunken hooligans who had gone out of their way to confront police at key sectarian fault lines of Belfast.
"The people who found themselves at Broadway last night had traveled from different parts of Belfast to inflict pain and hurt on the local community and attack the police," said McGuinness, who in his IRA days once encouraged such events.
During the violence, firefighters came under attack in both Protestant and Catholic districts. The firefighters were on high alert because "The Twelfth" traditionally begins with the lighting of massive – and often dangerously unwieldy – bonfires in Protestant areas at midnight. Firefighters said they responded to 180 emergency calls overnight, 65 percent more than last year, during which one fire engine was vandalized and two firemen were injured by thrown objects.
British Army experts also dismantled a fake car bomb abandoned in a Protestant district of north Belfast near Ardoyne. The alert forced scores of Protestant families to evacuate their homes overnight.
Later Tuesday, police received warnings of multiple bombs on a street in the town of Lurgan. Bomb disposal engineers used remote-controlled robots to blast several suspicious abandoned objects in the area but no bombs were found.
Tuesday's street mayhem followed weeks of similar flare-ups in working-class parts of Belfast and nearby suburbs that have left scores of police injured, none critically. Last week, Protestants rioted in one suburb after police removed British and sectarian flags from posts outside the area's lone Catholic church.
Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society despite the broad success of its two-decade-old peace process. The long negotiations achieved a Catholic-Protestant government, British Army withdrawals and disarmament by most illegal paramilitary groups – but did nothing to bring down more than 40 Belfast barricades called "peace lines" that still separate Irish Catholic and British Protestant turf.
Belfast Riots: 22 Police Injured By Northern Irish Catholic Militants
Christianity..religion of peace..dont'cha know.
Belfast Riots: 22 Police Injured By Northern Irish Catholic Militants
Belfast Riots: 22 Police Injured By Northern Irish Catholic Militants
Christianity..religion of peace..dont'cha know.
Indeed. The other place the UK has these sectarian problems, admittedly to a much lesser degree is where the main supporters of the Orange Order are outside Ireland- Scotland. Don't get me wrong, they are a tiny minority in Scotland but an embarrassing minority none the less.
We are trying to sort it out. Most of it comes out at football matches but there has been a serious problem this year. We are now thinking of stopping religious schools.
I think Northern Ireland would benefit from that too. It is far harder to keep stereotypes in your mind if you actually know the people as your friends.
Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | UK News :: Campaigners want end of RC schools to end bigotry shame - but maybe not I see at the bottom.
However research has also shown that we have very little prejudice against Muslims from people who have recently left school. This is put down to the school experience they had together.
Christianity..religion of peace..dont'cha know.
Indeed. The other place the UK has these sectarian problems, admittedly to a much lesser degree is where the main supporters of the Orange Order are outside Ireland- Scotland. Don't get me wrong, they are a tiny minority in Scotland but an embarrassing minority none the less.
We are trying to sort it out. Most of it comes out at football matches but there has been a serious problem this year. We are now thinking of stopping religious schools.
I think Northern Ireland would benefit from that too. It is far harder to keep stereotypes in your mind if you actually know the people as your friends.
Express.co.uk - Home of the Daily and Sunday Express | UK News :: Campaigners want end of RC schools to end bigotry shame - but maybe not I see at the bottom.
However research has also shown that we have very little prejudice against Muslims from people who have recently left school. This is put down to the school experience they had together.
I can't see the trouble in NI ending untill the constitutional issue is dealt with in a more comprehensive manner, the sectarianism is a result of the constitutional uncertainty...
Geez here we go again. This has been going on for what now 40 years?
Geez here we go again. This has been going on for what now 40 years?
Belfast Riots: 22 Police Injured By Northern Irish Catholic Militants
BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- A night of rioting by Catholic militants in Northern Ireland wounded 22 police officers, hours before mass Protestant parades Tuesday that are an annual test of the British territory's peace process.
Lines of riot police prevented masked Catholic men and youths from attacking nearby Protestant districts in several parts of Belfast overnight.
Officers in helmets, shields and flameproof suits suffered hours-long barrages of bottles, bricks, stones and about 40 Molotov cocktails. They reported firing 51 British-style plastic bullets blunt-nosed cylinders designed to deal punishing blows to rioters and dousing the mobs with blasts from water cannons.
During the worst clashes in the Broadway district of Catholic west Belfast, rioters hijacked a bus and tried to drive it into police lines. But the driver lost control and crashed it.
Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness, a former Irish Republican Army commander who today is the senior Catholic in Northern Ireland's unity government, appealed to the rioters not to repeat their performance at the end of Tuesday's parades by the Orange Order.
The Orange Order, a conservative Protestant brotherhood that marches under banners depicting the British crown on an open Bible, stages parades each July 12 in commemoration of a 17th-century military victory over Irish Catholics. "The Twelfth" is an official Northern Ireland holiday that many Catholics despise, and the event often raises community tensions to breaking point.
McGuinness and police chiefs warned of likely violence Tuesday night at the worst Belfast flashpoint: Ardoyne, a traditional IRA stronghold where splinter groups in recent years have mounted anti-Orange attacks as a small Protestant parade passes the area. The dissidents oppose the IRA's 2005 decision to disarm and renounce violence, a key Protestant condition for Sinn Fein to enter Northern Ireland's government.
McGuinness and other Sinn Fein officials described the rioters as drunken hooligans who had gone out of their way to confront police at key sectarian fault lines of Belfast.
"The people who found themselves at Broadway last night had traveled from different parts of Belfast to inflict pain and hurt on the local community and attack the police," said McGuinness, who in his IRA days once encouraged such events.
During the violence, firefighters came under attack in both Protestant and Catholic districts. The firefighters were on high alert because "The Twelfth" traditionally begins with the lighting of massive and often dangerously unwieldy bonfires in Protestant areas at midnight. Firefighters said they responded to 180 emergency calls overnight, 65 percent more than last year, during which one fire engine was vandalized and two firemen were injured by thrown objects.
British Army experts also dismantled a fake car bomb abandoned in a Protestant district of north Belfast near Ardoyne. The alert forced scores of Protestant families to evacuate their homes overnight.
Later Tuesday, police received warnings of multiple bombs on a street in the town of Lurgan. Bomb disposal engineers used remote-controlled robots to blast several suspicious abandoned objects in the area but no bombs were found.
Tuesday's street mayhem followed weeks of similar flare-ups in working-class parts of Belfast and nearby suburbs that have left scores of police injured, none critically. Last week, Protestants rioted in one suburb after police removed British and sectarian flags from posts outside the area's lone Catholic church.
Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society despite the broad success of its two-decade-old peace process. The long negotiations achieved a Catholic-Protestant government, British Army withdrawals and disarmament by most illegal paramilitary groups but did nothing to bring down more than 40 Belfast barricades called "peace lines" that still separate Irish Catholic and British Protestant turf.
Belfast Riots: 22 Police Injured By Northern Irish Catholic Militants
Christianity..religion of peace..dont'cha know.
Geez here we go again. This has been going on for what now 40 years?
Over 800 years to be slightly more accurate.
Norman invasion of Ireland started in 1169.
In 1171 Henry II invaded Ireland again.
Relations between Irish and the people who eventually called themselves the "English" have been fairly rocky ever since then.
Ireland is the earliest and it appears it will also be the last horrible example of the failings of England's colonialist policies.
Christ. I thought the Irish had finally grown up there for a while. That didn't last too long.
Likely the case.Christ. I thought the Irish had finally grown up there for a while. That didn't last too long.
Guinness...
Likely the case.Christ. I thought the Irish had finally grown up there for a while. That didn't last too long.
Guinness...
Officers were attacked with flagstones during trouble in the Drumbeg and Meadowbrook estates. In a separate incident police are investigating reports that an explosive device was fired at Brownlow police station. Two police vehicles were damaged during the trouble on Saturday night. The Police Ombudsman has been informed. The PSNI said they received reports Brownlow police station was targeted, but not hit, on Saturday evening. They have advised anyone who comes across any suspicious objects to contact police.
SDLP MLA Dolores Kelly said: "Republican dissidents seem to be upping their game and becoming more emboldened by recent events." Democratic Unionist MP for the area David Simpson said the incidents were "very reckless" coming on the back of other recent incidents. Sinn Fein assembly member John O'Dowd said the attack was pointless.
"I would challenge those who claim to speak politically for these factions to tell the republican and nationalist community exactly how these sorts of activities, or indeed the recent murder in Derry advance the cause of a united Ireland one iota," he said.
Pc Stephen Carroll was shot dead by the Continuity IRA in Craigavon last March. A car bomb exploded close to Newry courthouse in County Down on Monday. On Wednesday night, Kieran Doherty, 31, was bound and shot by the Real IRA in Londonderry.
Dissident republicans
