Word: unionists
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...change of heart is both a symptom and a cause of the hope that has settled over Northern Ireland - precisely because the new peace agreement has been brokered among the hardliners of both sides. The peace process had initially been built around moderate parties - David Trimble's Democratic Unionists and the Social Democratic Labor Party of John Hume - but voters from each community gradually opted to be represented at the negotiating table by tougher parties. A majority of Protestant voters thought Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, which had rejected the earlier process, offered the best to chance to stop Sinn...
Like Belfast, the PSNI has managed to shed its sectarian colors only in stages. For decades the Royal Ulster Constabulary, as the PSNI was known until 2001, was seen as pro-unionist. A police report in January revealed that officers colluded with Protestant paramilitaries throughout the 1990s, ignoring murders carried out by police informers. But today the PSNI reflects the region's broad move toward reconciliation, which took another step forward on March 26, when leaders of the long-feuding Democratic Unionist Party and the nationalist Sinn Fein Party agreed to form a power-sharing government...
...drizzly afternoon, Constable Neill Simpson makes his rounds in an armored Land Rover through North Belfast, one of the few districts where it's still too dangerous for routine foot patrols. His first visit is to Jim Potts, a unionist community official. A tall green "peace fence" winds between the streets, separating unionist Glenbryn from nationalist Ardoyne. Potts tells Simpson about a small riot over the weekend involving 40 or 50 people from each side of the fence. In times past, such altercations might have had deadly consequences. Potts himself was charged with fighting during a high-profile 2001 protest...
...Fitzpatrick, "I don't tell people I work for the police. I tell them I'm in court services." Simpson, like many other officers, declines to say whether he's Catholic or Protestant. But in Belfast, even one's soccer team can reveal identity: most Glasgow Ranger fans are unionist, most Celtic fans nationalist. Simpson avoids this and just says he's a fan of neutral Liverpool...
...court services." Simpson, like many officers, declines to say whether his background is Catholic or Protestant. When he talks to boys playing football in the street, they ask which team he roots for. Support for the Glasgow teams Rangers or Celtic is a sectarian marker. Most Rangers fans are unionist, and Celtic fans nationalist. Simpson dodges the coded query by saying he supports Liverpool, a team with no such meaning...