
The Orange Order and nationalist residents remain in a stalemate over the Drumcree parade in Portadown, with police blocking attempts to march down Garvaghy Road due to an unlawful protest, despite legal permission granted after 30 years, as political leaders trade accusations and urge compromise.
AI-generated summary
The Drumcree parade has been a flashpoint of sectarian tension in Northern Ireland since the 1990s, when Orange Order marches through the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road sparked riots, roadblocks, and killings. The Parades Commission, established in 1998, had banned the march until this year, when legal challenges allowed it to proceed with restrictions.
The main parties involved in a parading dispute in Northern Ireland are still in a stalemate, as talks to resolve the issue continue.
Members of the Orange Order are waiting to begin their permitted parade, which was due to take place on Sunday morning, and walk down the mainly-nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown.
Protesters had blocked the road over the weekend, and after a meeting with the Northern Ireland secretary, a representative of the road's residents said the Orange Order should focus on a different route for its Drumcree parade.
The Drumcree parade, which in the 1990s sparked some of the most serious disorder in Northern Ireland's history, was due to go ahead for the first time in 30 years after a series of legal challenges.
Since 1998, the Orange Order had been banned from completing its Drumcree march - and until this year had been repeatedly refused permission to finish the route by the Parades Commission, which was set up to adjudicate disputes.
The Orange Order is a Protestant pro-British organisation, while the area where it wants to walk - specifically along the Garvaghy Road - is largely Catholic and predominantly inhabited by pro-Irish nationalists.
The protesters on the Garvaghy Road were joined by members of Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) throughout the day on Sunday.
Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O'Neill joined the protest, prompting the Democratic Unionist Party to accuse her of acting unlawfully.
Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant urged both sides to "double down on compromise".
He said "nobody should be attending an unlawful protest", but he added it was not his job "to decide whether somebody has or hasn't broken the law".
The two most senior members of Portadown Orange Order met Sir Chris at Hillsborough Castle on Monday. They described the hour-long talks as "constructive".
Asked if they still intended to walk down the Garvaghy Road, district master Nigel Dawson said "the law needs to be applied".
Democratic Unionist Party MP Carla Lockhart, who has been with the Orange Order members in Drumcree, called on police to ensure the parade can go ahead. She said "mob rule" cannot win.
Breandán Mac Cionnaith, from the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition, also met the secretary of state.
He said the Orange Order should use their outward route to Drumcree Church as their return route, rather than the Garvaghy Road.
Mac Cionnaith said he was agreeable to some form of mediation but did not trust the Orange Order.
People have gathered again on the Garvaghy Road, but traffic is flowing freely.
Just before 04:00 BST, a group of Orangemen tried to begin their parade but three police Land Rovers blocked the route.
They tried a number of times since then but the police denied them permission.
The police said a significant public safety operation remains in place on the Garvaghy Road.
Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson welcomed the lack of violence over the weekend.
He said they were unable to allow the Orange Order their "lawful right" to parade because of an "unlawful and unnotified protest".
"Our assessment was that to remove, at one stage, an estimated 1,000 people from the Garvaghy Road, including women, children and older people would have required such a significant use of force that public safety would have been significantly jeopardised, people seriously hurt and disorder inevitable," he said.
"In all of those circumstances use of police force would have been disproportionate."
Speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday, First Minister Michelle O'Neill said she was proud to protest with the residents who "have suffered generations of sectarian domination, intimidation and violence".
"May I invite all those within unionism into 2026? The days of unionist supremacy and domination are gone," she said.
"We will not be going backwards. We are about the future."
Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said there had been a "total abdication of leadership".
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician said: "When the situation called for calm heads, Michelle O'Neill called people on to the streets, joined them and called for them to stay there.
"When her obligations were to uphold the law, Michelle O'Neill not only broke the law but encouraged others to do so."
DUP leader Gavin Robinson said he would refer assembly members and elected representatives who were at the Garvaghy Road protest to Stormont's standards commissioner.
He stopped short of saying that the party would collapse the Northern Ireland institutions.
SDLP leader Claire Hanna said collapsing the executive over the dispute would achieve nothing but "create a vacuum".
She did not think she and her party colleagues broke the law by joining Garvaghy Road protest on Sunday.
Alliance leader and Justice Minister Naomi Long said it was a very difficult situation for everyone involved and it was not helpful for people to be "issuing ultimatums" and "ratcheting up the tensions around it".
Long added she "cannot say for sure that there is a resolution" and that she questioned "the wisdom of picking at this scab and unleashing this pain".
The Orange Order, the most prominent of the loyal orders associated with Protestants in Northern Ireland, holds thousands of parades every year and the vast majority pass off without incident.
However, many Catholics see the marches as sectarian and object to them passing through, or close to, Catholic or nationalist areas.
The Garvaghy Road had been part of the Drumcree route, but by the mid 1990s nationalist residents protested against the parade. The row sparked some of the most serious public disorder in Northern Ireland's history and was linked to several murders.
The row reemerged after a court case in which a ruling by the Parades Commission - the organisation formed during the Drumcree dispute to decide on contentious marches during Northern Ireland's parading season - was overturned.
On Friday, following 28 years of unsuccessful applications, the commission decided the march could go ahead with restrictions in place.
Rather than start at 13:00 on Sunday as intended, the commission said it could begin no later than 08:00 and with 35 participants rather than the 60 the Orange Order requested.
However that decision was challenged in several Belfast courts on Saturday, before finally being given the go ahead just hours before it was due to take place.
The Drumcree dispute was one of Northern Ireland's most serious parading disputes during the 1990s, when stand-offs over attempts by the Orange Order to march along the Garvaghy Road were accompanied by riots, roadblocks and killings.
When the Orange Order was prevented by police from walking down the route in July 1995, there was a tense stand-off. It was the same for the next three years.
Violence related to the dispute resulted in riots, roadblocks and murders across Northern Ireland.
In 1998, the newly-established Parades Commission ruled that the Orange Order should not march down the road - a decision upheld until Friday.
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
The Orange Order will continue to seek permission to march down Garvaghy Road in future parading seasons.
Likely · Within months
Political negotiations or legal challenges will determine the parade's fate for the next year.
Possible · Within months

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