N. Ireland Parade Triggers Violence

Protesters hurled firebombs at security officers monitoring a Protestant parade in this town Saturday, and police fired back with plastic bullets.

Three police officers and a soldier were slightly injured and one man was arrested after about an hour of fighting, a Royal Ulster Constabulary spokesman said.

The Orange Order, Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant fraternal group, had received permission from the Parades Commission to march through Lurgan town center, about 20 miles southwest of Belfast.

Hundreds of troops and police in riot gear had sealed flashpoint areas in Lurgan, but they came under attack by dozens of anti-parade protesters who threw fire bombs, ball bearings, bottles and stones.

Orangemen’s parades commemorate a variety of events important to Northern Ireland’s pro-British Protestant majority, ranging from 17th-century victories over Catholics to Protestant casualties in World War I. The Orangemen say Catholic protesters are denying their right to public assembly.

But Catholic protesters complain that the Orangemen’s drum-thumping “kick the pope” bands are designed to make Catholics feel like second-class citizens.