ireland, irish, ulster, belfast, northern ireland, british, loyalist, nationalist, republican, unionist

(Editorial, Irelandclick.com)

Once again, when it comes to a choice between the rights of residents to be consulted about contentious parades and the demand of the Orange Order to do whatever it pleases, the forces of the state are turned against defenceless Catholics.

The violence which erupted in North Belfast on Friday night was as predictable as it was depressing. In any normal society, any group demanding to do something controversial or contentious while refusing to debate the issue would be told to catch themselves on. Here, the Orange Order is repeatedly rewarded for its anti-Catholic intransigence.

For the people of Ardoyne – and too many other areas of the North – enough is enough. Plenty of people can and will blame the residents of Ardoyne for the ugly scenes which filled the TV screens over the weekend, and there is no doubt that local people played a large part in the violence. But when people's rights are trampled underfoot, when they are hemmed into their houses to clear the street for a drunken, bigoted rabble who have travelled across the city to spit in a community's face, and when the backs of the PSNI are turned on loyalists and their batons are turned on nationalists, then there is going to be trouble, that much is as clear as day.

It is also clear that this community is as unprotected today as it was down the dark years of the Stormont regime and through the bloody years of the Troubles. A cry has gone up for the Irish government to make its voice heard and to intervene before this summer degenerates into a maelstrom of riot and mayhem. Bertie Ahern must make it clear to the British that the Orange Order cannot be allowed to walk on the rights of Irish citizens in the North.

This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web site on June 20, 2005.