As the Orange Order parades approached, Belfast's two warring tribes prepared for what is not only a national holiday but also an annual excuse as if any were needed for mindless bloodshed. In the Protestant working-class areas, houses and store fronts sported Union Jacks, freshly painted shields bearing the up raised Red Hand of Ulster and tacky portraits of "King Billy" of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne. On DESMOND BALL, a lean, tough machinery repairman who seems older than his 22 years, lives at the Protestant edge of the "peace line." Ball and his wife Maureen, 20,...
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