Word: portadown
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...Unionist and Republican leaders this week transformed their eternal battle from paramilitary in nature to parliamentary, Unionist extremists began torching Catholic churches and Republican militants responded in kind. The escalating violence followed a British-appointed commission's ruling forbidding Unionist militants from marching through a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in Portadown. The Unionists have vowed to defy the prohibition on the annual ritual, which has provoked rioting in each of the last three years...
Viewed from one direction, the scene early last week in Portadown, Northern Ireland, evoked a country fair. The meadows surrounding the Protestant church Drumcree, 25 miles southwest of Belfast, were dotted with people, tents and a large marquee. But the sight on the opposite slopes was anything but bucolic. Two rows of razor wire separated the church and the main road into town. Behind this first barrier was a second: a gray wall of armored Land Rovers, parked nose to tail. And behind the second cordon was a third: a phalanx of policemen from the Royal Ulster Constabulary...
...Protestants commemorate July 12, the day in 1690 that William of Orange vanquished his Catholic rival, King James II, at the Battle of the Boyne. The victory established England's Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, and it was in memory of this event that 1,300 Orangemen had gathered in Portadown. The town's Catholic minority, however, regard these marches as provocative. Drumcree church has become a flash point because the Orangemen's route takes them along a stretch of Garvaghy Road, where the majority of residents are Catholic. Thus on July 7 police ordered the march to be rerouted...
...past 189 years to commemorate the 17th century victories over the Catholics. "The Catholics were furious," Gibson says. "There were violent confrontations between demonstrators trying to block the routes and police, who lashed out on all sides with batons." Within an hour, she reports, rioters in the town of Portadown torched dozens of cars and many Catholic residents fled the area. The violence, reminiscent of Ireland's "troubles" in 1969, is not likely to end Thursday. "July 12 is the equivalent of July 4 in the U.S.," says Gibson. "Protestants start the eve of the celebration with huge bonfires...
...militant Loyalists. Convinced that the new assembly represents a British sellout of Protestant Ulster-men, the Loyalists are determined to make it fail. Speaking from the back of a Union Jack-draped truck in Portadown last week, King Billy Craig declared: "For four years now, we have had defeat after defeat, humiliation after humiliation. The only thing that is really left to lose is Ulster itself." Faulkner, in turn, has attacked the Loyalist leaders for consorting with the extremist paramilitary Ulster Defense Association. Craig and Paisley, he says, have "bloodstains on their joint program...