PORTADOWN, Northern Ireland — Hard-liners in Northern Ireland are reviving an age-old dispute rife with bitter symbolism that pits the rights of British Protestants against those of Irish Catholics — and risks the destruction of their supposed unity government. Hundreds of residents of the Garvaghy Road, the main Catholic district in the otherwise staunchly Protestant town of Portadown, near Belfast, stood in the roadway in pouring rain overnight to block a Sunday morning parade by Northern Ireland’s main Protestant brotherhood, the Orange Order — a parade that had been banned since 1998 because of the widespread violence it triggered. The Parades Commission, the British government-appointed group that for decades has adjudicated such zero-sum disputes, stunned Garvaghy Road residents by ruling Friday that a drastically pared-down Orange parade should be allowed to pass through the area Sunday morning.
It had refused more than 1,300 previous requests from the group seeking to “finish” the parade it was blocked from completing in 1998. A series of unprecedented late-night legal challenges followed Saturday, capped by a ruling from Northern Ireland’s senior judge after midnight stating that the courts had no power to overturn the commission’s independent judgment. The scene is now set for a revival of a standoff with no obvious end point — and no apparent way to deliver a “win” for both sides.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland deployed several hundred officers to the site. Many of them sat Sunday morning in scores of armored Land Rovers parked on the narrow country lane that separates the would-be Orange marchers on a hilltop church from the Garvaghy Road demonstrators, out of sight beyond houses and hedgerows. The two main parties in Northern Ireland’s cross-community government — revived only two years ago following a lengthy breakdown over Northern Ireland’s peculiar Brexit rules — are lining up on opposite sides of this renewed street battle of wills, raising the political stakes.
Sinn Féin, the Irish republican party that represents most Catholics and has grown to become the largest party in Northern Ireland, rallied in force alongside the Garvaghy Road protesters. The Sinn Féin first minister of Northern Ireland’s government, Michelle O’Neill, won cheers as she told the partisan crowd: “The Garvaghy Road residents deserve to live free from sectarian harassment and intimidation.” “Does anybody think this is a good idea? No right-minded person would make this decision,” said O’Neill, who expressed bewilderment over the Parades Commission’s U-turn.
The last time this happened, in 1997, it triggered three nights of Irish republican rioting across Northern Ireland. Obviously we have had a seismic win within the courts. The law is on our side,” declared the Democratic Unionist MP representing Portadown, Carla Lockhart.
She singled out O’Neill for criticism, branding the first minister as a law-breaker leading a mob. We’ll ensure that the parade is put lawfully down the road.” Sinn Féin and other Irish nationalist politicians appealed to the British government to intervene. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he would reverse the commission’s parade ruling only if Northern Ireland’s police commander, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, recommended another policy U-turn on security grounds.
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