(Demonstrators block the Donegal Road in the village area of south Belfast December 11, 2012. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton)
Petrol bombs on the streets of Belfast this month reveal anger and frustration among pro-British Protestants at a loss of dominance in Northern Ireland but do not – yet – pose a serious threat to a 15-year-old peace.
Launched after local councilors voted to end a century-old tradition of daily flying Britain’s union flag from City Hall, 10 days of brick-throwing battles with police provided an outlet for a build-up of grievances among a community that new figures this week showed no longer forms a majority of the population.
But for all that the unrest stirred black-and-white memories of the early days of the “Troubles” in the 1960s or that it may have been organized by long dormant “loyalist” militant groups, a new armed conflict against the state, or with violent splinter units of anti-British Catholic republicans, seems still remote.
It was, however, a measure of lingering division that makes governing its 1.8 million people a complex affair as Northern Ireland, severed from the rest of the island 90 years ago as a Protestant-majority province, sees its demographic balance tip toward Catholics, who tend to favor joining the Irish Republic.
