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Orange to mark 20th anniversary at Drumcree with low-key event

Trouble flares close to Drumcree
Trouble flares close to Drumcree Trouble flares close to Drumcree

POLICE have said they have no plans to step up security in Co Armagh tomorrow as Orangemen gather in Portadown to mark the 20th anniversary of the Drumcreee stand-off.

In what is expected to be a low-key event only three bands and dozens of Orangemen are due to take part in a parade two decades after nationalists first blocked their route along the Garvaghy Road.

The parade has been banned from the Garvaghy Road since 1998.

However controversy first erupted in June 9 1995 when nationalist residents blocked the main parade route as Orangemen returned from Drumcree parish church which is nearby. The blockade sparked a tense stand off which lasted several days.

The deadlock was broken after a deal was brokered that allowed the order to return along the road with nationalists insisting no future parades should take place without the consent of residents.

The deal turned sour when former DUP leader Ian Paisley and his UUP counterpart David Trimble were pictured holding their hands triumphantly in the air as they led Orangemen into Portadown.

The following year the RUC performed a U-turn and allowed Orangemen to march down the road after several days of violent clashes with loyalists.

Tensions rose on July 7 that year when Catholic taxi-driver Michael McGoldrick was shot dead near Lurgan by the UVF, which supported the Orange Order’s stand at Drumcree.

Days later there was anger as images of nationalist residents being beaten off the Garvaghy Road to make way for Orangemen were beamed across the globe.

In 1997 the dispute came to a head when for a second year in a row when Orangemen were again forced down the Garvaghy Road after the RUC, backed by the British army, imposed a virtual curfew in the area.

A ban has been placed on Orangemen from walking along the road since 1998.

Garvaghy Road residents spokesman Breandán MacCionnaith said that a recent European Court of Human Rights decision means that the rights of host communities are now enshrined in law.

“Our community has moved on, others need to do likewise,” he said.

“A less contentious alternative route to accommodate such marches exists along the Corcrain and Dungannon Roads.

“Insistence by some that only an Orange march along the Garvaghy Road can form a resolution to this age-old dispute demonstrates a complete disregard for the views of those who would be most directly affected – residents and their families”

Portadown Orange District Mater Darryl Hewitt last night said he has been trying start talks with local residents.

“We are not going anywhere, it’s not settled,” he said.

“If you have a dispute between two neighbours it’s not settled until both are happy. The fact that one is happy is neither here nor there.”

He also called on senior Sinn Féin to urge nationalists to speak to the Orange Order.

A spokeswoman for the PSNI said: “Drumcree will be policed as it has over the last number of years.”