LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Police and barricades have supplanted diplomatic efforts in Northern Ireland this morning. The 12th of July marches, the biggest in the four-month marching season, are under way. CNN's Nic Robertson is in Belfast this morning, where the barricades are up blocking a mostly Catholic neighborhood, and that is part of a problem -- Nic.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Leon. Indeed, this barricade behind me designed and put in place by the army to keep those marchers out. Now, the way these marches work today, they feed in to the center of Belfast, from the various different lodges, Orange Order lodges. And there they gather. There are thousands of them now marching in the center of Belfast, and they will be coming back here, up to this same barricade, and they will be then passing into a park very close to this Catholic community. In that park, they will hear speeches by leaders of the Orange Order. It has to be said at this time, the Orange Order is very divided. The moderates opposed to the violence of recent weeks. The more hardliners see the violence and the protests as their only way to be allowed to march through some of the Catholic neighborhoods they want to go through. Last night, the 9th consecutive night of violence, 21 police were injured in clashes with demonstrators in the town of Portadown. Police there fired plastic bullets, so-called baton rounds. They also used water cannons, as the stone-throwing mobs also threw petrol bombs and glass bombs at them. In the north of Northern Ireland, in the city of Derry, three more policemen were injured. And in other places, ambulance service workers came under attack, as they went in to try and help out injured civilians. It is a very tense time here in Northern Ireland. The marches today are far from over. And it is generally later in the day that the trouble, if it happens, will goat getting, when the passions have been raised, and as the Orange Order marchers march back to their own local communities. I am Nic Robertson reporting live from Belfast.</s>HARRIS: All right, thank you, Nic.
Violence Escalates at Orange Order Marches