11.   Catholics offer olive branch to Protestant marchers.

12.   Catholics accuse the British government of forcing police to give in to the Protestant marchers massed at a church in Drumcree, near Portadown.

13.   Confrontations among Catholic protesters, Protestant marchers and the police have provoked widespread violence in Northern Ireland for the past three summers.

14.   Earlier Thursday, police blocking the Protestant marchers at a rural church field fired plastic bullets to repeal protesters who briefly broke through a security line.

15.   Facing a swelling mob, police pushed the Protestant marchers down the Catholic Garvaghy Road in Portadown, provoking five more nights of Catholic rioting.

16.   Following a summer of street confrontations between Protestant marchers and police, few Protestant politicians sitting around the conference table this week emerged clean.

17.   Frustrated Protestant marchers threw rocks and bottles at police Monday following a rousing sermon.

18.   In a related development, police late Tuesday separated rival groups of Catholic protesters and Protestant marchers at one end of the disputed road.

19.   In Dunloy, the violence erupted when Protestant marchers returning from Londonderry clashed with local Catholics trying to block their way.

20.   In recent years, confrontations between Catholic protesters and Protestant marchers in Portadown have triggered street violence across Northern Ireland, a pattern likely to be repeated next month.