Violence flares again in N.Ireland

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (CNN) -- More than 50 police officers have been injured after serious clashes broke out in Northern Ireland following a day of marches by Protestants.

Police said 55 officers were hurt -- one seriously after being hit by a pickaxe -- in the violence, which flared as marchers from the Protestant Orange Order passed through a mainly Catholic area of the Ardoyne, north Belfast, after an earlier parade.

The same area was the scene of Northern Ireland's worst sectarian clashes in three years last month.

Police and soldiers in armoured vehicles cordoned off the area, and rocks, bottles and firebombs were thrown at police.

AUDIO "A serious stand-off has developed" 1.15 MB / 2 mins AIFF or WAV sound

CNN's Fionnuala Sweeney, at the scene of the violence, said a spokesman for Sinn Fein, the republican political party, said a number of Catholics had also been hurt as police fired plastic bullets.

Describing the fighting as "pretty vicious," she said water cannon were sent in to try to restore order, while rioters threw petrol bombs. Sweeney said police in riot gear were charging the lines of protesters.

Police tried to force demonstrators into a side street and Sweeney said the situation then moved into a stand-off between the Catholic demonstrators and police, with protesters setting cars on fire and continuing to throw objects at police and soldiers.

She said there had been some reports of firearms being seen among the nationalist protesters.

The violence followed a day of protests in Belfast and Londonderry on Thursday after the Orange Order was banned from marching traditional routes during the annual July 12 parades.

Drums thumping and bands blaring, an estimated 100,000 Orange Order members and supporters marched to rallies at 19 centres across Northern Ireland.

At each there were angry denunciations of the British Government and the political talks due to resume in Staffordshire in the English Midlands on Friday.

The Orangemen say the talks are weighted against Protestants with too many concessions to the Roman Catholic minority.

In Londonderry there was an hour-long stand-off when a lone Orange lodge refused to join the city's main "Twelfth" demonstration in protest at being re-routed.

In Belfast around 80 Orangemen and a small group of supporters protested at the Ormeau Bridge at again being banned by the Parades Commission from marching down the nationalist lower end of the road.

July 12 is the commemoration of the 1690 Battle of the Boyne, when the forces of Protestant William of Orange defeated Catholic King James II. It is the climax of a volatile "marching season."

It has long been seen as a "provocation" by Roman Catholics who view the marches as an unwelcome display of triumphalism by the Protestant majority.

Most parades are trouble free. But the marches that pass through Catholic neighbourhoods have often been the scene of sectarian confrontation.

The province's Parades Commission now bans the Orangemen from the flashpoint routes -- another source of anger to hardliners.

The parades went ahead after a night of loyalist violence in Portadown, Co. Armagh, during which 21 police officers were injured when they came under attack from petrol and blast bombs.

The violence came after the Royal Ulster Constabulary moved in on a traditional pre-July 12 bonfire in the Corcrain area to halt attacks on a neighbouring Catholic housing estate.