Violence flares in Belfast with marches

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BELFAST, Northern Ireland, July 13 (UPI) -- The marching season turned violent Thursday in Northern Ireland, with nine police officers injured in clashes in a heavily Catholic Belfast neighborhood.

Most of the parades held by the Orange Order to observe the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne were peaceful, but there were also clashes in the Bogside neighborhood in Derry and in North Armagh, The Guardian reported. Nine police officers were injured in Belfast's Ardoyne neighborhood, and a man was arrested for driving a burning car toward Police Service of Northern Ireland lines.

Loyalists threw bricks and stones at police in Belfast's Shankill neighborhood.

In the Ardoyne, the Parades Commission allowed a republican counter-march shortly after the loyalist march. Gerry Kelly, a Sinn Fein member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said loyalists had yelled insults at Catholics in the area during the day.

"But we're through it -- it has been a lot worse in the past," Kelly said.

King William III, formerly Prince William of Orange, defeated his father-in-law, King James II at the Boyne in 1690. The victory ensured Britain's future as a Protestant country.