* Photographer shot in some of worst Belfast rioting in years
* Irish PM says economic problems damaging peace process
* Violence overshadows homecoming of U.S. Open winner McIlroy
By Ivan Little
BELFAST, June 22 (Reuters) - Northern Irish police said on Wednesday they fear rioting in Belfast could escalate to the point where someone could get killed, threatening to upset a delicate peace between Catholics and Protestants in the British-controlled province.
A press photographer was shot and wounded on Tuesday evening in the second night of clashes between pro-British loyalists and Irish nationalists in some of the worst rioting in east Belfast in recent years.
"There are people potentially at risk of being killed by the level of violence," Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay told journalists. "We need to see cool heads to pull this back."
The violence in the Catholic Short Strand enclave of mainly Protestant east Belfast comes at the start of the "marching season", a time of annual parades by Protestants which has triggered violent protests by Catholics in the past.
Police blame members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), one of the deadliest pro-British paramilitary groups of Northern Ireland's bloody past, for initiating the disorder, though they said they may no longer be in control.
The UVF said two years ago that it had completed the decommissioning of its weapons in line with other militant groups after a 1998 peace agreement mostly ended three decades of violence in the province.
The trouble flared only 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) from the airport in Belfast where golfer Rory McIlroy was arriving home last night after his historic U.S. Open win.
"These are the wrong headlines about Northern Ireland flashing around the world on the back of a day when the right headlines on the success of Rory McIlroy ... were making world headlines," Finlay said.
Northern Ireland was torn apart during the violent "Troubles" between loyalists, mostly Protestants, who want it to remain part of the United Kingdom, and Irish nationalists, mostly Catholics, who want it to form part of a united Ireland.
The peace deal paved the way for a power-sharing government of loyalists and nationalists. Violence has subsided over the years, but there are still dissident armed groups opposed to the deal.
Annual protestant parades commemorating notable British victories peak on July 12 and are regarded by marchers as an expression of cultural identity. Many Catholics see them as provocative and they are often accompanied by violent protest.
Police fired plastic bullets and used water cannons on Tuesday night as rioters threw petrol bombs, fireworks and bricks. They said 350-400 people were involved, cutting their earlier estimate of 700 people.
The photographer was hit in the leg but his injury is not believed to be serious. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny told Ireland's parliament that six shots were fired from the nationalist side and five from loyalists.
Kenny warned the violence threatened to undermine the peace process, and said economic hardship was fuelling discontent.
"Unemployment and lack of activity is the cancer that eats away at the heart of the peace process and that requires constant vigilance in communities," he said.
"Those who were involved in this cannot and will not be allowed to disrupt the normalisation of relations right across the community," he said. (Additional reporting by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by Conor Humphries and Sonya Hepinstall)
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