Orange Order given permission to march down nationalist Garvaghy Road for first time in 29 years

Members of the Orange Order have been granted permission to parade down a street which was a notorious flashpoint during the Troubles for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Garvaghy Road in Portadown is a predominantly nationalist road, and the Orange Order’s Drumcree parades have been banned there since the late 1990s.

In a decision published on Friday afternoon, the Parades Commission said that the march could go ahead, which a number of restrictions.

The parade, which will start at 8am on 27 September, is to have a maximum of 35 participants.

That is a reduction from the application from the Portadown District of the Orange Order, which proposed that 60 Orange Order members take part in the procession.

The conditions also include that the parade must disperse from Carleton Street Orange Hall no later than 9.30am, and that only the Portadown District banner may be carried or displayed during the Garvaghy Road section.

No supporters are to accompany the parade or congregate along the parade route, or in the vicinity of homes on the Dungannon Road and Drumcree Road, and no bands may participate.

Residents of Garvaghy Road strongly opposed the parade going along the route, while the Orange Order and the DUP argued it was an opportunity to right an historic wrong.

It comes after a High Court ruling quashed the commission’s most recent determination over the march.

The body has blocked the order from marching along the Garvaghy Road in July every year since 1998.

The Drumcree parade dominated headlines in the 1990s when violent clashes and political tension necessitated a major security operation for several summers, as Garvaghy Road residents rejected the march passing through the community.

A number of people were killed during tensions in the 90s linked to the dispute.

The application for Sunday’s parade was made following a High Court case earlier this year that exposed a series of process errors in how the commission made previous determinations on the Garvaghy Road parade.

Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O’Neill said she “strongly condemns” the decision by the Parades Commission to “force an Orange march through the Garvaghy Road community”.

“There is no reasonable or logical basis for the Parades Commission’s announcement that permission has been granted to force an unwanted Orange march through the Garvaghy Road community this Sunday,” she said.

“For 28 years, the Garvaghy Road community has lived in peace and the people of that community have been able to get on with their lives.

“28 years of peace was not a problem that required a solution. It was a peace that needed to be protected.”

Ms O’Neill insisted it is a “march steeped in a history of hate, sectarian violence and murder”.

“People right across the North are absolutely dismayed,” she said.

“Sinn Féin stands fully with the Garvaghy Road community and they will have the full support of nationalists from right across Ireland in the period ahead.”

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