10 Catholic Churches in N. Ireland Torched

Arsonists set fire to 10 Catholic churches in this province, gutting three and compelling British Prime Minister Tony Blair to dash to Belfast on Thursday to bolster Northern Ireland’s peace agreement.

Standing outside the smoldering ruins of the 200-year-old St. James’ Church west of Belfast, the provincial capital, Blair emphasized that he will not let the agreement go up in flames too.

“This is the past behind me,” said Blair, whose previous missions to Northern Ireland helped secure April’s peace accord and its ratification in a May referendum. “Don’t let us ever say that the people who perpetrate acts like that are going to win.”

Blair headed next “to meet the future”: the Protestant leader and Catholic deputy leader of Northern Ireland’s new cross-community Assembly, who were elected Wednesday.

The two politicians, Protestant David Trimble and Catholic Seamus Mallon, have no powers yet. But, already, expectations are growing for them to help broker a peaceful resolution to a looming confrontation Sunday in the mostly Protestant town of Portadown--a confrontation that police have linked to the church fires.

For the past three summers, Catholic protesters have tried to block Protestant Orangemen from marching from their rural Anglican Drumcree church to the center of Portadown along Garvaghy Road, where most of the town’s Catholics live.

Police suspect that members of an outlawed pro-British gang, the Loyalist Volunteer Force, attacked the churches Wednesday night and early Thursday because of a government-appointed Parades Commission’s order this week banning Orangemen from Garvaghy Road.

The Portadown showdown subjects the cross-community duo of Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and Mallon, deputy leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party, to an immediate, fundamental test.

Trimble is hated on the Garvaghy Road for having championed the Orangemen’s cause in the past. He wants the parade to be permitted with protesters allowed to hold placards by the roadside.

By contrast, Mallon considers Orange marches offensive to Catholics but thinks the conflict could be resolved if Portadown’s Orange leaders--or Trimble--meet directly with the protesters.

But leaders of the Orange Order, Northern Ireland’s 80,000-member Protestant brotherhood, have refused to meet the protesters, led by a former Irish Republican Army prisoner.