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Dublin Rioters Attack Police, Burn Cars; 40 Arrested (Update1)

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Irish republicans set vehicles alight in Dublin's city center, looted stores and hurled stones and missiles at police in some of the worst street violence since the country acceded from British rule 84 years ago.

As many as 300 protesters, seeking to block loyalists from Northern Ireland staging their first march in the city since 1936, clashed with about 100 riot police on O'Connell Street and Nassau Street, close to government buildings. Forty people were arrested, and six police officers and eight civilians were injured, police said.

Republican Sinn Fein, a breakaway group from the Sinn Fein political movement, organized the protest to counter a loyalist demonstration, which ended up being abandoned. Loyalist protesters say the Irish government has too much influence over the North under a 1998 accord that helped start negotiations to end the conflict.

Loyalist protesters ``knew what was going to happen if they tried to do this,'' said Kelly Ann Moore, 20, a republican protester wearing an Irish flag around her waist. ``They were trying to provoke this violence.''

The troubles, as they are known in Ireland, have claimed at least 3,500 lives since 1969. Nationalists and republicans want a united Ireland, while unionists and loyalists advocate continued alliance with Britain.

More than 1,000 loyalists had planned to join the march, which was organized by a group representing victims of republican terrorism, Families Acting For Innocent Relatives. The Armagh, Northern Ireland-based group said it agreed a route with the Dublin Police Department for the parade. Politicians from the Democratic Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland planned to join the march.

Shop Windows Smashed

Trouble flared at 12:45 p.m. when republicans blocked loyalists from beginning their march down O'Connell Street, the main shopping street in the north of the city. Rioters smashed windows at stores including a McDonald's Corp. restaurant. A Locker Room sports store was looted, police said.

Republican protesters continued down O'Connell Street in a bid to reach government buildings. Two cars opposite Trinity College were torched, and windows on other vehicles smashed, as police, some on horseback, blocked access to the Kildare Street parliament.

Rioters, some bearing Ireland's tricolor flag and chanting republican slogans, smashed a window at an office belonging to the Progressive Democrats, a political party allied to Fianna Fail in the ruling coalition, using a café table. Stores along the street closed.

Riot police pushed protesters down the quays away from the city center. O'Connell Street and nearby College Green were closed to traffic, as municipal workers cleared debris.

Adams: `Unjustifiable'

``It is the essence of Irish democracy and republicanism that people are allowed to express their views freely and in a peaceful manner,'' Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said, according to state broadcaster, RTE.

Sinn Fein denied any involvement with the violence, the BBC reported.

``There is no justification for what happened this afternoon in Dublin,'' Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said in a statement. ``Sinn Fein had appealed to people to ignore this loyalist parade and not to be provoked by it. Our view was that it should not be opposed in any way and we made that clear.''


To contact the reporter on this story:
Dara Doyle in Dublin at  ddoyle1@bloomberg.net and
Rodrigo Davies in London  rdavies13@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 25, 2006 12:52 EST

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