UK leaders called for calm Sunday as a tense standoff with residents seeking to halt a pro-British Protestant march through a Catholic flashpoint area stretched into the night, in one of the worst crises for Northern Ireland in recent years.
The tensions were triggered after a Belfast appeal court overturned a High Court injunction in the early hours of Sunday to clear the march by the Orange Order to go ahead for the first time since 1997.
The Parades Commission, Northern Ireland’s independent body regulating contentious processions, had authorised 35 Orangemen to march silently along Garvaghy Road in Portadown, without bands or supporters from 8:00 am Sunday.
But as night fell Sunday the Orangemen were still trying to carry out their march, blocked by police and about several hundred residents.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham appealed for “calm on all sides”, telling BBC television that “big gains” had been made in Northern Ireland “and we don’t want to see things go backwards”.
Northern Ireland was blighted for three decades by conflict between largely Catholic, pro-Irish republicans and Protestant, pro-UK unionists.
During the late 1990s, the Garvaghy Road became a major flashpoint.
The Orange Order is a pro-British organisation that takes its name from William of Orange, the Protestant Dutchman who seized the English, Scottish and Ireland throne from Catholic King James II in 1689.
– Heavy security –
There was a heavy security presence on Sunday in the Portadown area, 25 miles southwest of Belfast, with armoured police vehicles and a helicopter whirring overhead.
Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill, of the Irish republican Sinn Fein party, condemned the late-night court ruling.
She said she supported “the right of the Garvaghy Road residents to protest against this unwanted sectarian march”.
Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald told reporters as she walked with the counter-protesters that the “residents and community have come out to defend their right to live free from sectarian harassment”.
Since the 1998 Good Friday peace accords ending the so-called Troubles in Northern Ireland “there has been lots of progress … it has been transformational. People’s lives have been changed fundamentally,” she said.
“We are not going back.”
– Legal challenges –
But Democratic Unionist Party leader Gavin Robinson called for “unanimous condemnation” of O’Neill, accusing her of “breaking the law” by ignoring the will of the courts.
“Our party is maintaining the dignity of the Portadown Orangemen as they have shown determination and patience so will we,” he told reporters.
Around 6:00 pm a group of Orangemen left the church and walked down the hill, where they were met by a line of police who refused to let them pass.
Northern Ireland minister Chris Bryant flew in from the Labour Party conference in Liverpool to try to ease the situation through talks.
He said he wanted to meet “face to face” with political leaders and community leaders “to see if we can get to a settled position”.
A Belfast High Court judge had temporarily blocked the parade on Saturday, warning the long-running dispute could escalate across Northern Ireland.
But just before midnight, a three-judge Court of Appeal panel overturned the injunction.
Carla Lockhart, a local MP from the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party, called the ruling “seismic”. She insisted residents had nothing to worry about.
“Thirty-five men walking down a road silently with no bands in an orderly fashion; there is nothing to fear,” she said.
The Parades Commission was established in 1998, the year the Good Friday Agreement largely ended three decades of conflict over British rule known as the Troubles.
It barred the Orange Order from completing the route that year and has consistently rejected subsequent applications.
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