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

32.   Confrontations between Protestant marching groups and Catholic protesters have sparked street violence for the past three summers and look certain to do so again.

33.   Elsewhere, Catholic protesters clashed with marchers in the seaside town of Ballycastle, hurling rocks at one another before stoning police who tried to separate them.

34.   However, it outraged many within the ranks of the Orange Order while failing to placate hard-line Catholic protesters, who forced police to block several rural marches Saturday.

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

36.   In March a sophisticated booby-trap bomb killed the attorney who represented the Catholic protesters.

37.   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.

38.   In turn, Catholic protesters in Londonderry were plotting to block a bigger march of Orangemen through the city center if police cracked down on the Lower Ormeau protesters.

39.   Last year, police simply forced the march through Catholic protesters.

40.   Last summer, confrontations between Catholic protesters and Protestant marchers triggered widespread rioting in Northern Ireland.