Catholics Northern Ireland

British Prime Minister John Major had a tense meeting with leaders of Northern Ireland's main Roman Catholic party as he fought to revive a peace process stalled by the worst violence in years. Parliament members from the Social Democratic and Labor Party, leaving Major's Downing Street offices, said they had accused his government of capitulating to pressure from the majority Protestants in the province.

Northern Ireland has endured 25 years of sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants and eight months of peace. Now, as hundreds of business and political leaders gathered this week for a White House conference to encourage U.S. investment in the economically depressed country, Irish Cardinal Cahan Daly and Presbyterian leader John Dunlop conceded that jobs alone won't end the enmity.

In his office on Dublin Road, George Patton, head of the 80,000-member Orange Lodge, sounded a theme often heard within Northern Ireland's Protestant community. "We Protestants have been in Northern Ireland for close to 400 years, and we remain very much British in our hearts and minds," he said. "How long do you have to live in your place until you can call it home?" "An American from West Virginia," he added, "may consider himself a West Virginian, but he is first an American.

Not long ago, parts of this great port lay burned and bombed out, a vast security fence encircled the central shopping area and the populace--both Catholic and Protestant--was grim and dispirited. People were calling the capital of Northern Ireland "the Beirut of Western Europe" and "Bloody Belfast." Today, there's a spirit of hope in the air. The 300,000 residents talk of a new Belfast.

In the cold, gray winter drizzle that makes West Belfast gloomier than usual, the whitewashed slogans on the dark stone walls along the Falls Road stand out: "Support the Peace Process" and "Back the Peace Initiative." The upbeat messages in this heavily Roman Catholic, republican area refer to the Dec.

Protestant and Roman Catholic soccer fans rioted despite tight security at a Belfast stadium and police fired plastic bullets into the stands to subdue the unruly crowd. The violence spilled into surrounding streets as buses were hijacked and set on fire. The police had formed a barrier between fans of Linfield, which has only Protestant players, and Donegal Celtic, from a Catholic neighborhood.