Londonderry Catholics Decry Protestant Parade Plan

Thousands of Catholics marched Friday toward the 17th century walls that encircle Londonderry’s commercial center, decrying a Protestant plan to parade past a Catholic neighborhood.

In response to appeals by the town’s Catholic political leaders, the marchers steered clear of Londonderry’s most isolated Protestant neighborhood, the Fountain.

Catholics and Protestants have battled rhetorically for days over rights to march near one another’s neighborhoods in Londonderry, the walled city where Northern Ireland’s current “troubles” began in 1969.

Protestants want to hold a traditional parade today around the city walls, including near a volatile Catholic section of town. Friday’s Catholic march was called to demonstrate opposition to that plan.

About 3,000 Catholics converged on the Guildhall, the town’s council chambers, from three different neighborhoods.

As the light faded over city walls studded with ancient cannons, a leader of Sinn Fein--the political wing of the Irish Republican Army--called Protestant marchers “racists who refuse to acknowledge our Irishness and our right to exist in our own country.”

Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness called on his followers “to be calm, dignified and disciplined. . . . Let’s show the world who the real enemies of peace are in Ireland.”

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Some marchers carried a banner declaring “No Consent, No Parade”--a reference to their demand that Protestants obtain their consent to hold any future parades, which commemorate 17th century Protestant battles with Catholics.

The marching dispute comes as Northern Ireland’s peace process remains deadlocked: Catholics demand immediate negotiations without conditions, but Protestants say they can’t talk compromise with IRA supporters.

Northern Ireland’s midsummer marching season often sparks violence. Last month, a similar Protestant march through a Catholic neighborhood in the city of Portadown touched off days of riots by both sides.

In 1969, the Protestant parade in Londonderry provoked Catholic unrest, which prompted Britain to send in troops--a deployment which eventually led to the IRA’s terrorist campaign against British rule.

Many Protestants feel threatened these days because Catholic marchers are being allowed freer rein in Londonderry. Protestants were infuriated when the British ordered troops to put up barricades to block off a stretch of wall that overlooks the Catholic Bogside area.

Catholics consider the Protestants’ annual march a provocation and associate it with an old regime in which minority Protestants gave Catholics fewer opportunities for housing or jobs.