Pointing out the portable barricades in a Belfast parking lot, a Northern Ireland police chief explains: “Normally, they are used in case of biological or nuclear attack, but we are using them for the parade.”
It is “difficult to know” what if any disorder will accompany this year’s July 12 parades, marking the victory in 1690 of Protestant King William III over Catholic rival James II, said Mark Lindsay, chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland (PFNI).
Last year was peaceful, unlike 2013 when more than 800 police officers were injured during street battles that recalled the darkest days of the sectarian conflict, which left more than 3,000 dead.
“If it kicks off, it gets very violent very quickly,” Lindsay said.
Planning for the worst, police have recently taken delivery of the mobile armoured barricades, whose flanks unfold to form a wall against rioters.
On a table in his office, the PFNI boss keeps photographs of all his colleagues killed during the “Troubles”, as the conflict is known locally.
“Some were friends of mine, it just never goes away,” he said.
Seventeen years after the signing of the 1998 peace agreement, the situation in Northern Ireland has improved significantly.
The rivalry is now “being played out in the political form” in the province’s regional assembly, where Republicans and Unionists share power, according to Katy Hayward, conflict specialist at Queen’s University Belfast.
But the tension is palpable on the streets of Belfast, where “peace walls” still separate the two communities.
Omnipresent frescoes depicting hooded gunmen and hunger strikers illustrate the painful past. Schoolchildren learn quickly that some bus stops are only for Protestants and others for Catholics.
Graffiti marks streets corners, reading “Kill All Taigs” (Kill All Catholics) or KAH, for “Kill All Huns” (Kill All Protestants).
– Catholic majority –
For police, the primary threat is posed by the dozens of Republican dissidents yet to renounce violence.
“Over the last year, we had at least six very serious attempts to murder police officers,” said Lindsay, as he showed videos of militants firing Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers at officers.
They also have to contend with high passions in the loyalist camp, where paramilitary organisations are still very influential.
Tensions usually come to a head during the parades season between April and August, when over 4,000 marches take place.
Most pass without incident, but the parade that will go through Belfast’s Catholic Ardoyne area on Monday is a historic flashpoint.
Catholics denounce it as an offensive procession whose margins often witness the burning of Irish flags and singing of Protestant supremacist songs.
For the Orange Order, the Protestant fraternity that leads the march, it is a way of preserving a “culture” they feel is threatened.
Feelings of inferiority in the minority Catholic population fuelled the conflict during the 1960s, but today it is the Protestants that feel they are on the wrong side of history.
They highlight the decision not to permanently fly the Union Jack on the roof of Belfast’s town hall and the handshake between Queen Elizabeth and former leaders of the IRA as painful concessions.
Demographics further fuel Protestant insecurities and the Catholic population is soon expected to assume the majority, possibly as soon as 2016.
“It will have switched” by the next census in 2021, said Hayward.
Some Unionists fear that Republicans will succeed thanks to babies where they failed with weapons, but a former IRA fighter dismissed such concerns.
“A lot of Catholics are not Republican and support British rule. Catholic middle classes will always support the status quo,” said Michael Culbert, who oversees the reintegration of Republican ex-prisoners.
Culbert, who served 16 years in prison for killing a policeman, said he did not regret his past actions but he now renounced violence.
“If the IRA was not able to fully push the British military out of Ireland, there is no chance smaller groups would do it,” he said.
“I’m a political activist and work to improve the life of former political prisoners. I promote no violence but my aims are still the same: I want to see a united Ireland,” he added.