Authorities in N. Ireland Try to Avert Clash
Police and soldiers threw an armored cordon around Portadown on Saturday while government officials sought to thwart a clash over an annual march, which last year triggered Northern Ireland’s most widespread rioting in a generation.
The Orange Order, Northern Ireland’s main pro-British Protestant fraternal group, planned to march through the town’s Roman Catholic neighborhood today. Residents along the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare, Garvaghy Road, have promised to prevent Protestant marchers from passing.
Mo Mowlam, the British minister responsible for Northern Ireland, and Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan, commander of the 12,000-strong police force, spent hours Saturday urging Orange leaders to back away from a confrontation. The officials had already concluded that the Catholic protesters would not budge.
Expecting trouble, British troops and police were deployed in armored cars at every road leading into this predominantly Protestant town southwest of Belfast that the Orange Order considers its stronghold.
Last year, a week of carnage surrounding the march left two people dead, hundreds wounded and more than $30 million in property damage.
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