THE patience of residents of the lower Ormeau was wearing thin as they appealed to the RUC at 9 a.m. yesterday to let them leaven their homes to buy bread and milk.
Most were refused. But some "sneaked out the back and up the alleyways to the shop to buy food for their families. "I'd no other choice," said one woman. "I've four hungry children in the house. They're going mad."
The small Catholic enclave in south Belfast had been under RUC curfew for 15 hours. A total of 2,500 people live there.
About 500 police and British soldiers had saturated the area to prevent residents staging a sit down protest and blocking an Orange march which was due at 9.30 a.m.
A ring of steel sealed off the lower Ormeau from the rest of the city. Outsiders were not allowed in. Residents were blocked in their streets by rows of RUC Land Rovers. "They treat animals better than us," shouted one woman.
Two helicopters hovered overhead. Police in full riot gear pointed plastic bullet guns at residents.
"We don't have any weapons but we'll resist you all the same, shouted a group of women who threw rubbish at the RUC from their bedroom windows.
"I'm worried about my kids," said Gerard Rice of the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community group. "My mother came over from west Belfast to take them out of this hellhole but the police wouldn't let her in."
"Shame on you, shame on you, a young woman shouted at the RUC. "There are no human rights in Northern Ireland, only Orange rights," a youth said.
"This is a sectarian police force. Its senior officers are bigots, its lower ranks are thugs," said John Gormley of LOCC. "They didn't take action like this when loyalists were looting and burning earlier this week. There's one law for them and another for us."
Dougie Hegney, who has worked tirelessly to improve cross community relations since his son Karl was killed by loyalists five years ago, said that the RUC had withstood the IRA for 25 years, yet gave into loyalists without a fight. "I feel sad, very sad," he said.
The residents banged bin lids a tool of protest from the 1970s as five Orange bands and six lodges came down the road. The marchers sported carnations in their bowler hats. The Pride of Windsor band played with gusto and the Orangemen wore tight little smiles as they passed the protesters.
Ku Klux Klan Burn Your, Crosses On Your Own Lawn, read one placard. Other nationalists carried posters emblazoned with swastikas.
I hope that Catholics will not the provoked. But unfortunately powerless sometimes turn to violence," said Father Anthony Curran of St Malachy's Church.
The marchers headed into the city centre to join up with the main Orange parade which went to Edenderry, six miles outside Belfast. The order was formed 201 years ago. It aims to stop the spread of "Popery" by all lawful means. Catholics, nor anyone to a Catholic, cannot join.
About 120 bands and 40,000 Orangemen took part. The loyalist faithful lined the route. For some, bit was a family day out. Mothers came armed with flasks and sandwiches. Children with plastic Union Jacks sat on the pavement in deck chairs. Their faces lit up as the blood and thunder bands' passed.
Old people from the City Hospital were taken out in wheelchairs to watch the march. It was the high point of their year.
The Orangemen carried lush ornate banners portraying scenes of Ulster's darkest days the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the Battle of the Somme in 1916. "Prepare to Meet Thy God" "The Wages of Sin is Death" were the messages.
But it wasn't all so sober. A group of young loyalists with bleached blond `Gazza' haircuts stood on top of a bus shelter. They wore sunglasses and red noses and were draped in Union Jacks. They shouted abuse about "Fenians".
It was only 11.15a.m. but many people were drunk. Women clutched glasses of cola filled with vodka and Bacardi. The tattooed, tee-shirted young men preferred cider, cheap wine or bottles of lager.
The Ladies' Orange Association marched solemnly in neat navy suits but many female loyalists were less prim. A woman in her 30s, wearing tight white jeans covered in curry stains from the night before and a low cut lacy black top, danced with abandon in Bradbury Place.
But despite some good humour, there was an overwhelming sense of menace in the air.
The UVF East Belfast band swaggered up the road, full of machismo. A stall at Shaftesbury Square sold pictures of masked Ulster Freedom Fighter gunmen. There were tee shirts of SAS men in full battle dress, taunting republicans. "Make My Day Terrorist Scum," the slogan read. We Hate The IRA tapes sold like hot cakes.
The crowd cheered loudly as the Ormeau Road Orangemen marched by. "They made it down the road despite the f...ing residents," said one man. "The people of the lower Ormeau should be tied to lamp posts and shot."