Protestants in Ulster Mark 1689 Victory

Thousands of Protestants, waving British flags, marched Monday to mark a 299-year-old victory over Roman Catholics and vowed to oppose forever a Catholic-dominated united Ireland.

Led by 40 fife-and-drum bands, the pro-British Apprentice Boys marched peacefully in a carnival-like atmosphere to commemorate Protestant resistance to the 1689 siege of Londonderry ordered by England’s Catholic King James II.

The Apprentice Boys take their name from 12 apprentices said to have slammed Londonderry’s gates on James’ army at the start of the unsuccessful 105-day siege.

At the largest Protestant march in Banbridge, 25 miles southwest of Belfast, several thousand people stood in silence for one minute in memory of members of the security forces killed in the sectarian violence, the 11 people who died in a Irish Republican Army bombing in November at a war memorial in Enniskillen, and two British soldiers killed March 19.

Hard-line Protestant lawmaker Peter Robinson told several hundred marchers at Dundonald on the outskirts of Belfast that the outlawed IRA is planning an all-out war against Protestants. The IRA is fighting to drive the British from Northern Ireland and unite it with the overwhelmingly Catholic Irish Republic.

Robinson said that in recent months, the IRA has brought into Ireland arms “more powerful and sophisticated” than ever used here before.

Leaders of Sinn Fein, the legal political wing of the IRA, dashed any hopes Sunday of a cease-fire.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said he expects talks to continue with the moderate Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party on an overall strategy “for justice and peace” in the strife-torn province, where Protestants outnumber Catholics 3 to 2.

But Sinn Fein Vice President Martin McGuinness stressed that the IRA has gone on record as saying there will be no more cease-fires. “Talk (can) take place, but the war will go on,” he said.

An indication of this was an IRA announcement that it had defused one of its own bombs after discovering it would explode close to women and children at an Easter parade.

5 Pounds of Explosives

Police said the 5 pounds of explosives had been left in an area in Londonderry normally used by soldiers and police monitoring the annual parade marking the 1916 Easter Rising against the British.

Police said several people were held for questioning.

John Hume, leader of the Social Democrats, said he intends to pursue his party’s dialogue with Sinn Fein despite their opposition to any cease-fire until Britain announces its withdrawal from the province.

“Nobody should be surprised that Sinn Fein have a very different approach from us at the beginning, because if we had the same approach, there would be no need for dialogue,” Hume was quoted Monday as telling The Irish Times.

Party Chairman Alban Maginness told British Broadcasting Corp.’s Radio Ulster that the talks are concerned with much broader issues than arranging a cease-fire.

“We are concerned with establishing the conditions whereby there will be a total, permanent end of all violence,” he said.

The meetings have sparked speculation that talks including Protestants as well as Catholics might be the next step.

But Robinson, a key figure in Rev. Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, ruled out participation in such talks. He said he remains vehemently opposed to any formula to solve Northern Ireland’s problems based on the 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement, which gives the Irish Republic a consultative role in the administration of Northern Ireland. Robinson and many Protestants view the pact as the first step to a united, Catholic-run Ireland.

“No way will Unionist (Protestant) leaders sit down and talk to the mouthpiece of the IRA, Gerry Adams,” Robinson said.