NORTHERN IRELAND: RESIDENTS EXPECT PLANNED MARCH TO END IN VIOLENCE

(18 Jul 1996) English/Nat As Irish and British ministers meet in London today (Thursday) to try to agree a route for next month's march by Protestants through a Catholic neighbourhood in Northern Ireland, local residents say they expect the march to end in violence. The Anglo-Irish conference will focus on the so-called Apprentice Boys Parade through Londonderry on August 10, the next potential flashpoint following last week's upsurge in violence between Catholics and Loyalist marchers. The historic town walls which overlook Londonderry will next month become the setting for the latest showdown between the Protestant and Catholic communities of Northern Ireland. On August 10 pro-British Loyalists - the so-called Apprentice Boys - plan to march along the walls, testing the restraint of their Nationalist Catholic foes. The ''Marching Season'' has turned into a series of bloody confrontations since the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) allowed the Protestant Orangemen to parade through the Catholic Drumcree area after a four-day stand-off. Local residents predict more violence to come. SOUNDBITE: "There will be a serious amount of violence and all, but they have to do it, it's worth it. We just can't stand back and watch them taken over. We have rights as well not just them." SUPER CAPTION: Vox Pop (Catholic resident) SOUNDBITE: "It's going to be worse than it was a couple of days ago for us. As Amanda said there'll be more shooting (inaudible)...there'll be more funerals, just more and more." SUPER CAPTION: Vox Pop (Catholic resident) SOUNDBITE: "We're all just very very high at the minute and it will get higher like, and there's no way.. there's going to be a boiling point on August the 10th when it's really going to erupt and we're not going to stand for nothing." SUPER CAPTION: Vox Pop (Catholic resident) While British and Irish ministers meet in emergency session in London to agree a route for the parade, Londonderry's Bogside residents say if the marchers don't sit down and talk the event will end in bloodshed. SOUNDBITE: "Well I think it has all the makings of a catastrophe. If the Apprentice Boys refuse to sit down and talk with the residents of Bogside in an effort to resolve this thing through agreement and through sort of accommodation. We have attempted during the past eleven months to do that, we have appealed to the Apprentice Boys on numerous occasions for dialogue - they have rebuffed all our efforts." SUPER CAPTION: Donncha Macniallais, Bogside Residents' Group The Apprentice Boys march commemorates the victory in 1689 of the Protestant residents over the Catholic forces of King James who laid siege to the town. But the march has become a matter of principle, with neither side willing to be seen to back down. SOUNDBITE: "I'm prepared to fight for my right so that we can have as much free speech as what they have, you know, at the end of the day that's what we're trying to do. They're trying to say that they haven't got free speech, right? But at the end of the day they can go up and say well, you's aren't marching on that wall, you know, at the end of the day who are they to tell us they can, you know, when we can't march on that wall." SUPER CAPTION: William Jackson, Apprentice Boys of Derry The descent into violence in recent weeks has apparently set the Northern Ireland peace process back years. Hopes for a breakthrough have now been dashed, leaving residents despondent about the future. SOUNDBITE: SUPER CAPTION: Vox Pop (Protestant resident) Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...