Protestant Marchers Confront Police

Police in riot gear charged about 200 hard-line Protestant demonstrators early today, dispersing a daylong protest that signaled a potentially violent week ahead in this bitterly polarized town.

The ground around Drumcree Bridge was littered with rocks and shards of concrete hurled at security forces by supporters of Northern Ireland’s major Protestant group, intent on marching past Roman Catholic homes.

More than 2,000 members and supporters of the Orange Order marched Sunday to Drumcree, an Anglican church near Portadown, where British security forces for the last two years have prevented the Protestant group from parading past a nearby Catholic neighborhood.

British soldiers in armored personnel carriers blocked the Orangemen’s intended route--a narrow country lane between the church and Garvaghy Road--and rows of riot police in helmets and flame-retardant uniforms stood ready.

“This struggle goes on for as long as it takes,” Portadown’s Orange leader, Harold Gracey, told the crowd from a podium in front of the armored vehicles.

At midday, a few dozen men, some of them members of outlawed anti-Catholic gangs based in Portadown, scuffled with police and threw stones.

Sporadic violence resumed after dark Sunday when a 150-strong group fired ball bearings and firecrackers at police lines. An armored personnel carrier, its tires smoldering, appeared to have been hit.

A number of police officers reportedly suffered minor injuries.

The Orange Order, a hard-line fraternal group founded near Portadown in the 1790s, is still influential. Tens of thousands of Orangemen march each July, often to celebrate 17th century military victories over Catholics.

The Portadown march, which commemorates losses suffered by Protestants during the Battle of the Somme in World War I, has traditionally gone past Catholics living on Portadown’s Garvaghy Road.

The event has caused violence whether or not police have permitted the Orangemen to parade: Police forced anti-Orange protesters off the road in 1996 and 1997, provoking riots in many Catholic areas, but authorities have banned the parade route since 1998, triggering Protestant disturbances.

Gracey said he expects 6,000 to 10,000 Protestants to turn out for a bigger Orange attempt to march down Garvaghy Road next Sunday. He said he would welcome crowds massing outside the church.