Protesters block contentious Protestant march in Northern Ireland

Hundreds of protesters have blocked a route into the Catholic area of a Northern Irish town that a Protestant organisation was due to march down.

Northern Ireland’s High Court permitted the Protestant Orange Order organisation to march through a mainly Catholic area in the town of Portadown on Sunday for the first time in 28 years, reviving one of the region’s most contentious marching disputes.

The court rejected a final attempt by residents to stop the parade passing through the Garvaghy Road, after Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal overturned a temporary injunction granted on Saturday.

People, including Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill of Irish nationalists Sinn Fein and the party’s ‌leader, Mary Lou McDonald, gathered on the road overnight.

“This is madness,” McDonald told reporters shortly after 8am (07:00 GMT) when the march was due to begin. “This, in fact, is primitive treatment of any community in the year 2026. It is intolerable, and it will not be tolerated.

“This is a ⁠dignified and united community, and they are absolutely determined that ⁠they and we will not be drawn back into the past.”

McDonald and O’Neill urged the British government and police to intervene to put a stop to the parade. O’Neill said she ⁠had spoken to Britain’s minister for the region and the Irish government.

Police vans parked nearby had earlier played out ⁠a warning that anyone taking part in the protest ⁠was committing a criminal offence.

A small group of Orange Order members wearing traditional silk orange sashes and black bowler hats gathered at another part of the town, a picture posted on X by Democratic Unionist Party ‌(DUP) lawmaker Carla Lockhart showed.

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, from the DUP, which supports Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom, said on Sunday that threats of violence were unacceptable and added: “No one in Northern Ireland wants violence or disorder.”

The Orange Order is a Protestant organisation closely associated with unionism, the political tradition that favours Northern Ireland remaining in the UK.

The Parades Commission, the independent body that rules on disputed marches in Northern Ireland, approved Sunday’s procession with a 35-person limit, barred bands and accompanying supporters, and required the march to finish by 9:30am (08:30 GMT).

The dispute over the Drumcree parade and Garvaghy Road became one of the most bitter marching confrontations of the “Troubles”, the decades-long conflict over Northern Ireland’s political status that largely ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Repeated attempts by the Orange Order to return from Drumcree church along Garvaghy Road triggered protests, violence and major security operations during the 1990s.