The Protestant retreat Protestants in Belfast are losing ground,
politically and economically, to Catholics. Hence this week's
vicious protests NORTHERN IRELAND has produced some ugly scenes
in the past, but this week the province outdid itself. Britain's
television news bulletins have been dominated by pictures of a
North Belfast mob hurling abuse at sobbing five-year-old
Catholic girls on their first day at school. The girls' offence
was to take the quickest route to school, which goes through a
Protestant estate in Ardoyne. These days Northern Irish politics
are played out mostly in conference rooms, by men in suits who
seem a world away from the Ardoyne bullies. But the changes that
have led to the explosion of hatred in North Belfast are
fundamental to social, and therefore political, change in the
province. Protestants are losing control, both of territory and
of political institutions, and this has made them fearful and
angry. Ardoyne has seen some of Northern Ireland's nastiest
episodes. It was here t