There were continuous Loyalist strikes and protests of all sorts, including an invasion of the Republic. Peter Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party heightened the temperatures of the marching season by leading some 500 Loyalists on an after-dark descent on the Monaghan town of Clontibret, two miles inside the Republic’s border, on 7 August. The raid, which terrorised the villagers, won Robinson some favourable publicity in DUP circles, particularly after it generated some Belfast-style rioting and petrol-bombing in Dundalk when his case came to trial on 15 August.
