Hundreds Block Orange Order's 35-Member Garvaghy Road March After First Clearance in 30 Years
Updated
Updated · bbc.co.uk · Sep 27
Hundreds Block Orange Order's 35-Member Garvaghy Road March After First Clearance in 30 Years
3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Sep 27
Summary
Hundreds of protesters gathered early Sunday on Portadown's Garvaghy Road, blocking an Orange Order parade newly cleared to use the route for the first time since 1998.
The breakthrough followed the Order's successful legal challenge to a June ruling on procedural grounds and a fresh application for a scaled-back march of 35 participants instead of 400.
Nationalist residents say the parade through their largely Catholic area is triumphalist and reopens old wounds, while the Orange Order says repeated refusals have denied a traditional walk dating to the early 1800s.
The dispute has sharpened splits between Sinn Féin and the DUP inside Northern Ireland's power-sharing government, with Stormont relations described as close to breaking point ahead of next year's election.
Drumcree violence in the mid-1990s spread beyond Portadown and nearly derailed the peace process, underscoring fears that this revived row could again destabilize Northern Ireland.