Police blocked a fresh attempt by Orange Order marchers to parade down a nationalist-majority street in Northern Ireland early this morning after protesters blocked their route yesterday.
Footage captured this morning in Portadown, Co. Armagh, showed the orange-sashed members of the hardline Protestant unionist order attempting to begin the parade for the third time in silence from Drumcree Church around 4am.
But they were stopped by armoured police Land Rovers and it is understood the group of around 30 Orangemen remained at the starting point this morning more than 24 hours after the parade’s scheduled start.
Senior Labour MP Stella Creasy blamed Brexit for the disorder – insisting the Good Friday Agreement was being tested ‘as never before’.
She told a Labour Movement for Europe rally: ‘Chris (Bryant) really wanted to come, those of you who were here last year know how passionate he is about Europe.
‘He is now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and because of what is happening in Northern Ireland, because of the instability that we have created in Northern Ireland in a situation that was already incredibly sensitive, he has had to fly back there this evening.
‘I know that all of you will be wishing him well in that work, trying to keep people together given the difficulties caused by the marches, but also fundamentally the risks that because we left the European Union, things like the Good Friday Agreement are being tested as never before.’
Protesters blocked the Garvaghy Road yesterday after a late-night High Court ruling upheld the decision by the Parades Commission to permit the Orange Order’s Drumcree parade for the first time in 28 years
Northern Ireland’s Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill and the party’s president Mary Lou McDonald called for the march to be banned as they joined protesters yesterday
Demonstrators, some masked, gathered to block the Garvaghy Road, which was the scene for some of Northern Ireland’s worst public disorder in the 1990s before the parade’s ban
Protesters linked arms to block the march in the largely Catholic enclave of the majority-Protestant town in Co. Armagh
Banned in 1998 after some of the most serious disorder in the province’s history, the Drumcree march – which includes the nationalist-majority Garvaghy Road in its route – was controversially approved this year despite its turbulent history.
After nationalist protesters congregated on the Garvaghy Road to disrupt the march, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) came under fire from all sides for its handling of the chaos.
Gavin Robinson, the DUP leader, said the police response was a ‘facilitation of mob rule’ after accusing Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill of breaking the law by joining protesters in Portadown, adding there had been ‘no danger of public disorder’ from the march.
This afternoon he said there was a ‘fundamental public interest in senior elected representatives being prosecuted for their unwillingness, their inability, their intransigence and their intolerance and bigotry that led them to break the law yesterday’.
He added it was his party’s ‘expectation’ that the PSNI would investigate those at yesterday’s protest.
The hardline Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party named four Sinn Féin politicians it had complained to the Northern Ireland Assembly’s standards commissioner about because of their attendance at yesterday’s protest, including Mrs O’Neill.
Meanwhile Sinn Féin said police had ‘failed’ the community on the Garvaghy Road, who had been through ‘trauma’ and ‘want to be left in peace’.
In the Northern Ireland Assembly this afternoon Sinn Féin MLA John O’Dowd, who was on the Garvaghy Road yesterday, said the previous 28 years of relative peace had come from a solution ‘that some people can’t continue to observe’.
He added the Orange Order parade at Drumcree was steeped in a ‘history of murder, violence, intimidation and supremacy’.
The PSNI said this afternoon there had been an estimated 1,000 people on the Garvaghy Road at one stage and to remove them would have ‘required such a significant use of force that public safety would have been significantly jeopardised, people seriously hurt and disorder inevitable’.
Assistant chief constable Ryan Henderson said such force would have been ‘disproportionate’ but that officers had gathered evidence which will be investigated.
Mrs O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s first-ever nationalist First Minister, joined protesters on the Garvaghy Road yesterday and was condemned by Mr Robinson for having ‘debased herself and debased her office’.
Mrs O’Neill in Stormont today as the DUP leader said there was a ‘fundamental public interest’ in prosecuting senior elected officials who have broken the law
Armoured police vans blocked the road in Portadown yesterday
She was accompanied by her party’s former leader Gerry Adams and its current president Mary Lou McDonald as she told reporters the parade should be cancelled to ‘restore calm’.
Referencing the body which adjudicates disputes on Northern Irish marches, she said: ‘Why after 28 years of determination to block a march down this road had the Parades Commission thought this was the right idea today? To bring this mess back on to this community.’
The First Minister added the Drumcree dispute brought into question ‘how this whole peace process works’ as some in the Garvaghy Road crowd were heard shouting ‘bring Stormont down’, referring to the seat of the province’s devolved executive.
She said: ‘The progress of the last 28 years has been brought into question by the actions of the Orange Order and those within political unionism that want to drag us backwards.
‘You heard it about the people’s view of Stormont. You heard it about the terms of politics working for them, and you hear it here time and time again and we’ve certainly heard it over the last 24 hours.
‘But I can tell you what we’re about. We’re about the future. We’re about building on our peace and progress. We’re about not allowing people to bring us back.’
Sinn Féin’s president Mrs McDonald said it was ‘madness’ for the parade to go ahead.
‘We have spent all night here, all night talking to people, listening to people, seeking to reassure people that actually this can be resolved, and it must be,’ she said, calling for Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant and the PSNI’s chief constable to intervene.
She said the treatment of Drumcree’s nationalists had been ‘primitive’ and ‘intolerable’.
‘This is a dignified and united community and they are absolutely determined that they and we will not be drawn back into the past.’
Protesters held signs referencing the war in Gaza, calling for resistance against ‘occupation’ and ‘fascism’
Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams joined protesters on the Garvaghy Road yesterday
A lone Orangeman stood outside Drumcree Parochial Hall in Portadown as members of the order retreated to Drumcree Church after being left unable to continue on the parade
But DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley said there seemed to be ‘one standard for Unionists and a different for Republicans.’
He said: ‘The public are right to be angry. There must be consequences for lawmakers who become law- breakers.
‘Seeing Sinn Féin and SDLP representatives linked arms illegally across a road with known violent dissident Republican terrorists must have consequences.’
Sir Chris Bryant appealed for calm, saying he did not think ‘any elected politician should be supporting an unlawful protest’ as he came under Sinn Féin pressure to ban the parade.
He can only do so if asked by the PSNI on the basis that it poses a serious risk to public order and has received no such request.
After flying to Belfast from the Labour Party conference in Liverpool yesterday, Sir Chris said: ‘It is only compromise that is going to get us through these difficult moments.’
He added: ‘The resilience of the political system in Northern Ireland is really important; we’ve made so many strides, I feel so frustrated. All I would say is that everybody should be co-operating with the police at the moment.’
Sir Chris also met with Portadown Orange Order bosses today after they called for the province’s chief constable and his assistant to resign.
He was joined by the PSNI’s chief constable Jon Boutcher for talks with veteran activist Breandán Mac Cionnaith of the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition, who said afterwards that this morning’s attempted march was a ‘stunt’ and had raised tensions.
Mr Mac Cionnaith made the comments after claiming ‘victory’ for his community last night as marchers were stopped from parading down the road.
A hardline republican, Mr Mac Cionnaith has led the residents’ coalition since the 1990s and was previously described by former prime minister Sir Tony Blair as taking ‘unreasonableness to an art form’ during talks around the time of the march’s ban.
Sir Tony added in his 2010 memoir: ‘He conceded nothing, and I mean nothing.’
Yesterday Mr Mac Cionnaith said he had asked for 20 to 30 volunteers to remain on the Garvaghy Road overnight and ensure the promises he received were not broken after protesters were asked to disperse at midnight.
He said before today’s talks that ‘we’re not going in to do deals with them, or to take half measures with them’ and ‘we’re not going back, we’re not turning the clock back’.
Breandán Mac Cionnaith, head of the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition, met with the Northern Ireland Secretary and the PSNI’s chief constable today
Garvaghy Road residents are ‘under siege by toxic Orange triumphalism’, People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll said, responding to criticism from the DUP.
He said: ‘What stopped the march at the weekend wasn’t a determination or a judge.
‘It was over thousands of ordinary people linking arms in the rain for hours on end, and there’s an important lesson in that that some should do well to learn.
‘[The DUP is] a party up to its eyeballs in scandals that reaches for sectarianism every single time to distract and divide and look the other way.’
Former first minister, DUP MLA Paul Givan, said Orange Order members have been vilified.
He said: ‘Thirty-five Orangemen silently parading at 8am on a Sunday morning on their way home from church.
‘And what is their crime? Purely for being Protestant. That is the sectarian motivation of those who are in opposition to it.
‘They are engaged in a direct attempt to incite violence, to instil hatred. Do not respond to their dog-whistle tactics. ‘
TUV MLA Timothy Gaston said: ‘Sinn Féin are gaslighting nationalism to hide their own failures, their failures of being on the wrong side of history when it comes to immigration which is putting people within Northern Ireland at risk.
‘No Casement Park, no A5, no Irish language signage at Grand Central, all those things that they were beating their chests and saying they would deliver.’
Speaking afterwards at Members’ Statements, Mrs O’Neill said she was proud to protest with the residents of Garvaghy Road who ‘have suffered generations of sectarian domination, intimidation and violence’.
The Sinn Féin deputy leader said: ‘May I invite all those within Unionism into 2026? The days of Unionist supremacy and domination are gone. We will not be going backwards. We are about the future.
‘I think those people that wanted to force this march down that road need to give their heads a shake.’
Yesterday Prime Minister Andy Burnham appealed from the Labour Party conference in Liverpool for ‘calm on all sides’, saying there had been ‘big gains’ in the province and ‘we don’t want to see things go backwards’.
The Northern Ireland Parades Commission’s decision to allow the march in Portadown was upheld in an ‘unprecedented’ nighttime sitting of the High Court in Belfast early on Sunday.
After a hearing which began at 12.20am and ended at 2.15am – hours before the scheduled 8am start of the parade – Mr Justice Michael Humphreys said his court ‘cannot substitute its own view or anyone’s view for that of the commission’.
The ruling came after Justice Patricia Smyth blocked the commission decision on Saturday afternoon, saying the ‘long-running dispute has the potential to escalate’ across the region.
After Justice Smyth’s ruling the Orange Order lodged an appeal, which was upheld, before the case was heard again at the High Court.
Marchers gathered at Drumcree Church, the parade’s starting point, yesterday morning but only proceeded a short distance before turning back.Today at least two schools in Portadown told pupils not to attend following the disorder.
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