Advertisement

Violence Mars March in N. Ireland

Share via
<i> Times Wire Services</i>

Roman Catholic rioters burned at least eight vehicles and threw gasoline bombs at police Saturday after Protestants marched through a restricted route here.

Riot police prevented a confrontation between the two groups in Northern Ireland’s second-largest city and arrested three people--two Catholics and a Protestant--but reported no serious injuries.

Earlier, some of the Protestant marchers from the Apprentice Boys fraternal group clashed with police who prevented them from parading a second time into the central square of the city.

Advertisement

When the marchers passed in the morning, Catholic youths shouted abuse and threw stones and bottles from a nearby street. The march commemorates the start of the 1688-89 siege of Londonderry by the forces of Britain’s King James II, a Catholic.

The trouble came just a day after the Irish Republican Army ruled out the hand-over or destruction of any of its weapons to help ease a stalemate in implementing Northern Ireland’s Good Friday peace accord, reached in April.

Advertisement