Northern Ireland marching season ends with new outbreak of violence

Youths attempt to block path of Ardoyne parade as police count cost of rioting
Ardoyne in north Belfast
Nationalist youths clash with police in Ardoyne in north Belfast, after police cordoned off the area to allow an Orange Order parade to pass. Photograph: Paul Faith/PA

As Northern Ireland reached the climax of the Ulster loyalist marching season on Tuesday, police reported that 24 officers had been injured in violence surrounding the parades and new rioting flared in north Belfast.

Most of the police casualties were caught up in riots in Greater Belfast. In trouble that flared into the early hours of Tuesday morning, nationalist youths threw missiles including petrol bombs and, at one stage, drove a hijacked bus at police lines.

Violence erupted again in the republican area of Ardoyne in north Belfast on Tuesday evening with riot police confronting nationalist youths just before a controversial Orange Order march was due to pass by the district.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) deployed two water cannon vehicles in order to quell disturbances and prevent republican demonstrators blocking Crumlin Road, the main route home for the Protestant Orangemen and their supporters. Bricks, bottles and fireworks thrown at police lines.

The Greater Ardoyne Residents' Collective were denied the right to gather on the Crumlin Road because police feared they would mount a sit-down protest.

As loyalists marched through Belfast city centre, the republican residents amassed along Berwick Road to protest against the Orange parade passing by their district.

Gerry Kelly, the Sinn Féin assembly member for the area, said he was concerned at the rising tension in north Belfast.

"We have a situation where we have two parades at one time," he said as he appealed for locals to keep protests against the parade peaceful.

Kelly condemned nationalist youths behind the violence of the previous 24 hours – "some of them would have been involved in torturing the community throughout the year," he said – but he also blamed the Orange Order for failing to reach a compromise with Catholic residents along contentious parade routes.

Dozens of PSNI Land Rovers were deployed along the Crumlin Road to deal with any violence.

On the same spot last year, about 80 PSNI officers were injured during three days of rioting that followed protests against the loyalist parade.

A small number of republican dissidents opposed to the peace process gathered in Ardoyne, an area that is home to a unit of the anti-ceasefire republican organisation Óghlaigh na hÉireann.

The first leg of the parade passed off relatively peacefully on Tuesday morning. Amid driving rain and the drone of a police helicopter overhead, the Orangemen and two loyalist bands were accompanied by two rows of protesters shortly before 8.30am. As marchers reached the Protestant Twaddell Avenue, they were given a heroes' reception by local loyalists.

The loyalists marched behind a banner accusing local republicans of imposing "cultural apartheid" due to their continued opposition to the Orange Order march.

In the early hours of Tuesday, plastic bullets were fired and water cannon was deployed to deal with a mob of up to 200 youths in the Broadway area in the west of Belfast.

The rioters attacked police lines separating the area from the loyalist Village district close to the M1 motorway.

Baton rounds were fired during disturbances in the Oldpark area of north Belfast close to the so-called peaceline separating nationalist and loyalist communities.

A bus was hijacked on the Falls Road with the driver dragged from the vehicle and passengers ordered off it. It was then driven at police lines on the Donegall Road, but crashed a short distance away. A van was also set alight on the Donegall Road.