David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

neighborhood, they were then as
desperate as anyone to see law and
order enforced in Belfast. But they were
equally anxious about how law and
order would be enforced. Their world
did not seem fair. The Twelfth, when
either their flag or their Pope would be
burned in giant bonfires, was only days
away. The institution charged with
keeping both sides apart during marching
season was the police force, the Royal
Ulster Constabulary. But the RUC was
almost entirely Protestant. It belonged to
the other side. The RUC had done almost
nothing to try to stop the riots the
previous summer; a tribunal convened
by the British government concluded,
after the Protestant Loyalists had torched