Top > World > 2006 > February > 2006-02-27

Sectarian Violence in Dublin

Several hundred Irish Republican Army supporters attacked police in Dublin on Saturday to protest an unprecedented parade through the capital by Protestants from Northern Ireland. In scenes rare for the Republic of Ireland, protesters threw bottles, bricks, concrete blocks and fireworks at police officers trying to clear the hostile crowd from Dublin`s most famous boulevard, O`Connell Street.

Even though the Protestants abandoned their parade, the battles spread to streets near the Parliament and museums, as well as a shopping center and the major tourist district, Temple Bar. Ireland is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and the tensions in Northern Ireland rarely spill over into the Republic to the south. Ireland gained its independence in the first half of the 20th century after years of domination by Great Britain.

The violence is also significant in that the Irish Republican Army last year announced and supposedly carried through a disarmament and a plan to give up violent struggle against British rule in the northern corner of the island, where scores of Catholics and Protestants have died in decades of fighting. There is no sign yet that the violence could spread over into Northern Ireland from the south, but that doesn`t mean it couldn`t happen.