The Glorious Twelfth.

On July 12th 1690 the English Protestant King William defeated the Irish Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne leading to over 200 years of English rule over Ireland.

To this day the anniversary is remembered by Church of England Protestants as the "Glorious" Twelfth. In Northern Ireland it is celebrated in Protestant communities with festivities including parades by paramilitary groups, barbecues, firework displays and an informal competition to see who can build the biggest on bonfire on which to burn an effigy of the Pope. The semi-masonic Orange Order take the celebrations one step further by marching through Catholic areas singing songs about how much fun it is to kill Catholics. Obviously this doesn't go down well with the local residents who, in the past, have often tried to stop the marches taking place. Frequently this is ended in violence and on one occasion led to a five day stand off during which all of the provinces police and most of the army had to be deployed to keep the different groups apart.

Over the last five or so years celebrations of the twelfth have been largely trouble free. This is partly because of falling unemployment across NI but mainly due to a local council practice of using taxpayers money to pay for the Protestant celebrations on the condition that they do not overtly display sectarian regalia and sing Loyalist songs. Yesterday violence returned to the celebrations yesterday when the Orange Order, who had already held their main march, felt the need to march home through several Catholic areas. In County Antrim and LondonDerry were met by protesters who blocked roads and threw bottles. The worse of the violence took place in Belfast where rioters fought a seven hour running battle with the police in which they threw rocks, fireworks, petrol bombs and blast bombs at the police. Gunshots were also fired at the police but none found their target. The police responded with baton charges, water cannon and rubber bullets but were unable to prevent 21 police officer being injured and damage to property that included several police vehicles.

Aside from the obvious provocation of the Orange Order marches yesterday's violence seems to be a response to a perception that once again the police are giving Protestant groups a free reign across the province so government spending will be unfairly distributed amongst Protestant communities. In that case similar scenes of violence could back fire on Northern Ireland's Catholics because they are already being used to portray the rioters as a group stuck in the past and intent of sectarian violence while the Protestants who are marching to celebrate what is essentially a 200 year sectarian massacre come off looking like a group of forward thinking progressives peacefully exercising their democratic rights.