IRA Backers Attack Ulster Police in Violent Outbreak

Irish Republican Army sympathizers stoned police and hurled firebombs across Ulster today, and a banned American dodged a security cordon to attend the funeral of an IRA fighter.

Youths lit bonfires, burned cars and barricaded streets on the first of three days of anti-British demonstrations planned across the province.

Police came under attack in Londonderry, Strabane, Newry, Downpatrick, Portadown and Belfast, mainly clashing with youths who hurled firebombs, stones and concrete slabs, authorities said.

In Belfast, police fired 20 plastic bullets to break up a mob trying to pull a man from a car. Police said one rioter was hospitalized with a head wound.

All police in the British-ruled province were barred from taking leave during the weekend, during which IRA supporters plan protests to mark the 14th anniversary of laws allowing suspected gunmen to be jailed without trial. Britain phased out the 1971 measure four years later.

The IRA is waging a bloody campaign to force Britain out of predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland so it can be united with the Irish Republic.

In Londonderry, Martin Galvin of New York defied a government ban and a police and army cordon to join the funeral cortege of IRA fighter Charles English, 21, killed in a bungled grenade attack on police.

Galvin, publicity director of the pro-IRA fund-raising group NORAID, appeared at the funeral at the same time four hooded and masked IRA members joined the procession between St. Columba’s church and the cemetery.

Galvin, who is under a British exclusion order, shouldered the coffin for a short distance alongside prominent leaders of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing. Galvin then melted back into the crowd.