THE ANNUAL Orange Order parade at Drumcree passed off peacefully again yesterday, with just some 350 Orangemen and bandsmen participating in the event and a small group of supporters following the march. There was no nationalist protest.
The Orange Order members from the Portadown district were again barred from making their return journey along the nationalist Garvaghy Road yesterday afternoon.
In heavy rain, a group of Orangemen paraded behind a band to the Drumcree bridge seeking permission from the PSNI to parade home to Portadown through the nationalist area.
Again, under the Parades Commission ruling, they were prohibited from taking this route.
The huge difference between yesterday and the Drumcree years of the mid- to late-1990s and into the early years of this century was the level of security and the numbers participating.
In the turbulent years, up to 3,000 Orangemen would have paraded to the bridge, with thousands more Orange and loyalist supporters joining them at the hill at Drumcree, against a backdrop of steel fortifications and a heavy British army and police presence.
But yesterday there was just a small traffic barrier at the bridge when the Orangemen paraded from the religious ceremony at Drumcree church – marking the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme – to the bridge. At the barrier there were just a token PSNI presence of eight police officers.
Ritually too, the Portadown District Master Darryl Hewitt, after making a formal protest to the police, called for the Parades Commission to be wound up.
But unlike in other years there was some degree of movement towards a resolution this year. Mr Hewitt noted how the Orange Order had held a “straight-talking and honest meeting” with the Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady, how it had also held discussions with the SDLP, and how unionist leaders were “now more fully engaged in helping solve the Garvaghy Road problem than ever before”.
He then adverted to the recent meeting between Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams and the Portadown district. “It was not an easy decision to reach and there are those who still disagree with it, but I have been heartened by the number of people who have told me that it was inevitable, and others have said that they back the decision,” he said.
“By meeting Gerry Adams we did not surrender our views. In fact for the first time he heard the views of Orangemen directly across a table, and he listened.”
Mr Hewitt said there was an “overwhelming desire from the public” for mediation between the Garvaghy residents and Portadown district. “In fact everyone is talking to us, except the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition,” he added.
“Our message is simple – and the same as last year – we remain committed to face-to-face talks under an independent chairman, and we have no precondition to talks. To the people of the Garvaghy Road I would say, ‘It is over to you’,” said Mr Hewitt.
Breandán Mac Cionnaith, chairman of the Garvaghy residents’ group, said he supported the proposal for talks under an agreed chairman that would have no pre-determined outcome, but that there must be a proper framework for such dialogue. He believed, however, the order was being “cynical” in its position on dialogue.
