MOST residents on Portadown's Garvaghy Road, including a number of visiting TDs, were blocked on their return from early-morning Mass services by a massive security presence.
The residents of one part of the estate went to an open-air concelebrated Mass near the community centre. The Mass was held in front of a line of army vehicles in the Churchill Park estate shortly after 9 a.m.
A small number of residents close to the Ballyoran Park estate did manage to get through police lines to go to Mass but were initially not allowed to re-enter the estate. Accompanied by Mr Noel Treacy TD and the parish priest of St John's Church, Father Sean Larkin, the group remonstrated with police but was refused entry. Eventually the RUC agreed to allow them back to the Garvaghy Road, 15 people at a time.
Mr Treacy said he was extremely disappointed with the RUC's decision to allow the Orange march. "I would have thought the first thing would have been respect for the people who live here on this road and they would have the right to go and come particularly to church this morning.
"I attended Mass this morning and it is very sad that people who went to Mass in good faith and were told they would be allowed back to their homes are not now being allowed back. I believe this is quite an incongruous situation against the Catholic nationalist community. It's very sad."
Mr Treacy said such a situation did not help the peace process. "It doesn't help when you don't respect all sides. There are two traditions in Northern Ireland," he said. "You have to respect both traditions. She (Dr Mowlam) has a very difficult job to do but I would have hoped at least that the views of the people on the Garvaghy Road would have been respected in that they would be allowed to go and come from their homes.
Father Larkin said the events of the last 24 hours were "outrageous". He said: "People are being denied their basic civil rights to go to Mass. We are going to have to go and do an outdoor Mass to facilitate people who can't get freely to Mass and back. They are afraid to leave their homes.
"They have been forced to take humiliating by-paths, through gardens and little side roads to go to Mass and they're not accepting it," said Father Larkin. Regarding the early morning security situation yesterday, Father Larkin said: "As far as I am aware, people were beaten off the road, kicked and brutalised generally.
"There was no violence from the people as far as I can gather apart from one or two isolated incidents perhaps of hot-headed youths. Generally though, people have acted with great calm, great restraint and dignity.
A Garvaghy Road Coalition member, Father Eamon Stack, explained the circumstances leading to the open-air Mass. He, the parish priest and the local curate, Father Michael Woods, spoke to a senior officer about getting the residents to Mass at St John's.
However, the officer pointed out a tiny lane as a possible route. Father Stack said: "He was going to reroute us in the most undignified way to church with no guarantee that we would get back. These people live on the Garvaghy Road. They have a right to Mass. So we opted to come down here."
Father Stack explained that the people on one half of Churchill Park could not come to the other for Mass while the people of Ballyoran could. This was ludicrous, he said. "The police said they couldn't have people of combatant age coming through the lines."
"They have been provoked," Father Stack said. "They have been walked on. They've been bullied. They've been deceived. They've been betrayed.
"They respond by going to Mass and some people even shook hands with the soldiers."