Police Block Orange Order from Controversial Parade Route
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The police prevented the Orange Order from making a controversial parade down a road which had previously been blocked by protesters.
A group of men tried to march from Drumcree Church down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown in the early hours of Monday but a line of police Land Rovers stood in the way. They had been unable to make the permitted parade on Sunday morning because protesters had gathered on the mainly-nationalist Garvaghy Road. The stand-off continued throughout Sunday, with the Orangemen waiting at the church, around a mile from the road, for the go-ahead from police.
Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O'Neill joined the protest, prompting Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Gavin Robinson to accuse her of acting unlawfully.
Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant called for "compromise".
Breandán Mac Cionnaith, from the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition, said he was meeting the secretary of state and chief constable on Monday and that he would not prejudge those conversations.
What happened on Sunday?
Protesters started gathering on the Garvaghy Road in the early hours of Sunday, after the final court decision. Dozens of armoured police vehicles arrived in the town, calling on them to clear the route while members of the Portadown District Lodge waited in a hall at Drumcree Parish Church.
At one point Orangemen began walking down Drumcree Road before stopping and turning back. On Sunday evening, a large group of people joined the Orange Order, and police blocked the road with Land Rovers. The Orange Order was warned that they were breaking the terms of the determination by having more than 35 people there, but loyalist activists argued they had not asked for a crowd.
How did we get here?
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.