Protestants Riot in N. Ireland After Police Bar March

Protestants torched cars, blocked roads and attacked police Monday after authorities blocked an annual march through a Roman Catholic enclave, setting off violent protests across Northern Ireland.

For a second day, riot police prevented the Orange Order, Northern Ireland’s main Protestant organization, from marching along the Garvaghy Road, through Portadown’s Catholic quarter.

The confrontation brought the worst mayhem since paramilitary cease-fires in 1994 offered the British-ruled province a glimpse of peace. The violence threatened to delay multi-party negotiations for a political solution to Northern Ireland’s unrest.

Bands of Protestants hijacked and burned about 100 vehicles, leading police to warn the public to avoid driving after dark. Protestants blocked all three approach roads to Northern Ireland’s international airport, the main Belfast-to-Dublin highway and the road to the province’s biggest ferry port at Larne.

Protestant and Catholic mobs threw firebombs at each other in the north of Belfast, and police scrambled to prevent Protestants in the southern part of the city from marching into another Catholic enclave.

The peace talks had been expected to resume todayin Belfast under the direction of former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, but Protestants said the marchers would have to be allowed through first.