Word: belfast
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Sporadic street violence has been a fact of life for so long in Belfast that residents of the city refer cynically to "recreational rioters" - youths thought to spend weekend nights tossing bricks at each other and the police, only to retreat when the icy Irish rain or the working week intervenes. But the traffic jams that hit early Monday afternoon as commuters emptied the city were a sign that people knew something more serious was going on. That night saw the third successive outbreak of serious rioting in Protestant neighborhoods, violence that has caused another dip in Northern Ireland...
When British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Tom King arrived at Belfast city hall for a luncheon, he had to run a gauntlet of angry Protestants who pushed him, threw eggs and hurled insults. The Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the militantly Protestant Democratic Unionist Party, denounced King as "a white-livered cur" and "a yellow-bellied coward." On Saturday, tens of thousands of Protestants converged on the city hall, where they set aflame the Irish tricolor and an effigy of Thatcher...
...elected in balloting that could come early next year, they hope to return to Westminster with a new mandate to oppose the accord. The Irish Senate also approved the accord, clearing the way for the first Irish-British meeting, scheduled to take place later this month in Belfast. Security will be the major topic. Last week a soldier in the Ulster Defense Regiment became the 51st victim of terrorism in Northern Ireland this year...
...march began as a peaceful protest against the two-month-old agreement between Britain and Ireland, which grants Dublin a say in Northern Ireland's affairs. But after 2,500 Protestants arrived at the gates of Maryfield House, the headquarters of the Anglo-Irish secretariat outside Belfast, the march became a melee. Toughs hurled paving stones at Royal Ulster constabulary, injuring 26 officers. Unionist leaders denounced the violence but warned of a "complete collapse of government here" if Britain did not end the accord...
...British news of 1981 - a touchstone year of royal romance, race riots and Thatcherism in full cry - when she was sidetracked by a brief item on the death of Bobby Sands. Using lack of knowledge as her passport, Dean spent the next nine months flitting between Provence and Belfast to record the memories of republican and loyalist paramilitaries, British soldiers, prison officers and the Catholic and Protestant residents of Belfast's working-class housing estates. The hundreds of hours of tapes she amassed would have made a startling documentary, but using real names can cause trouble. Instead, she crafted...