Paramilitary shows of strength marked the first hours of the Twelfth of July early yesterday. Gunfire echoed around a number of bonfires in and around Belfast as groups of loyalist paramilitaries fired hundreds of rounds into the air.
On the Shankill Road in west Belfast, masked loyalist paramilitaries - thought to comprise four men and a woman - fired volleys of shots from a variety of automatic weapons and handguns, as a chanting crowd looked on. Shots were fired at another bonfire on Sandy Row near Belfast city centre, as well as in Newtownabbey and in Bangor.
An Orange hall on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast was extensively damaged by fire. The cause of the blaze was not certain but republican involvement was suspected.
Petrol bombs were thrown at police at an illegal roadblock at Ballycraigy in Antrim town. The crowd was dispersed and the road reopened with no reports of injuries.
Rioting in the Waterside area of Derry lasted from 12.30 a.m. until after 4 a.m. Between 80 and 100 petrol bombs, as well as stones, were thrown at police. Three RUC officers were injured, several arrests were made and a spokesman said more would follow.
At one stage in the disturbance, a man collapsed with an epileptic fit. Officers helping him were attacked by the crowd as were an ambulance crew who arrived on the scene. In west Belfast, one ambulance man was seriously injured and two others also hurt in an attack on a crew answering an emergency call in the Forth River Drive area.
The attack seemed to have been intended to be an ambush on the security forces as the crew had been called out on a hoax call and were set upon by a mob. An ambulance supervisor who also answered the call was attacked as well and the ambulance was withdrawn for the rest of the night.
A woman driving along the Crumlin Road in Belfast was wounded in the hand by a crossbow bolt.
The fire service dealt with more than 400 calls during the late night and early morning.
After 11 days of protest and violence, the North returned to a kind of normality yesterday.
In contrast with recent days, the RUC had no reports of roadblocks during the day. What disruption there was came from the many parades and demonstrations throughout the North.
Yesterday evening a suspect device in north Belfast was examined by British army bomb disposal officers who later declared it a hoax.