NORTHERN IRELAND: The Violent End of a Fragile Truce

IT was perhaps the most disastrous week in Northern Ireland in the past three years. First the Belfast leadership of the I.R.A.'s militant Provisional wing forced a showdown with the British army, thereby breaking the fragile cease-fire that had lasted for only 13 days. Then, in an effort to control the rising terrorism, Britain's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, William Whitelaw, ordered three battalions of soldiers to invade the I.R.A.'s "nogo" district of Andersonstown to put down gunmen who had been attacking an army command post for the past four days.

In the midst of the renewed fighting a potentially explosive event occurred. Defiantly risking the prospect of open civil war, some 75,000 Protestants marched in the traditional Orange Day parades to celebrate the victory 282 years ago of William of Orange over England's deposed Roman Catholic King James II. In cities and towns all over the province, bowler-hatted Orangemen in dark suits and orange sashes massed for the parades. General violence did not break out—partly because of the army's unusually severe security precautions and partly because of an unseasonable summer rainstorm that apparently dampened Protestant spirits—but eight people were killed nonetheless.

The cease-fire was broken by a dispute over housing—a subject that lies at the heart of Catholic grievances. Some 24 Protestant families, sick of living within range of I.R.A. gunmen on the edge of a Catholic district in Belfast, had abandoned their homes and moved to a wholly Protestant neighborhood. British authorities subsequently promised the empty houses to 16 Catholic families. But when the Protestants' troublemaking Ulster Defense Association (see box, page 32) protested, housing officials asked the Catholics to wait until the Protestant parades were over. If they refused, they would have to accept housing elsewhere.

Bottles and Bullets. That was exactly the kind of opportunity that Belfast's Provo leadership was waiting for. Early last week a procession of 1,000 angry Catholics marched down Lenadoon Avenue behind two trucks that carried the belongings of the 16 Catholic families. British soldiers barricaded the road in front of them, and a British officer begged them to turn back. Instead they rushed forward, throwing rocks and bottles as they advanced. The officer in charge responded by ordering his men to fire on the crowd with rubber bullets and water cannons.

"That's it," shouted a rumpled, middle-aged man triumphantly. "The truce has been violated!" The man was Seamus Twomey, hard-lining head of the Belfast Provos, who had bitterly op posed the cease-fire in the first place. Twomey was as good as his word. Within half an hour of the British action, the sporadic war of snipers' bullets and gelignite bombs had started up again. That night, six unarmed Catholics were killed after snipers halted their two cars. Among the victims were a man who tried to run for cover and another who ran to fetch a priest. Also killed were the priest and the 13-year-old girl to whom he had intended to deliver the last rites.