Loyalist protesters laughed, jeered and shouted the name of a young Catholic suicide victim from the Garvaghy Road, a Sinn Fein Assembly member told a symposium on marching and sectarianism in Dublin on Saturday.
Speaking at the Justice, Peace and Marching symposium held at the Unitarian church in Dublin, the elected representative for Upper Bann, Dr Dara O'Hagan, said the incident occurred at a recent loyalist demonstration in Portadown.
Dr O'Hagan said that the high level of anxiety caused by loyalist marches was particularly affecting young people in the area.
She said three young men between the ages of 17 and 22 had committed suicide since March of this year, and that there was a real danger of copycat suicides.
A member of the Apprentice Boys and Derry historian, Mr Tony Crowe, said that Protestants in the Fountain area, which is "perched precariously on the mainly Catholic west bank of Derry", experienced similar problems.
He said: "I know Protestants who won't go to the west bank of Derry to do their shopping anymore but go to Coleraine instead . . . Protestants are asking, are we not part of this city too?"
Mr Crowe said that parades were an affirmation of identity and that this could not be be taken away or usurped.
Mr Billy Robinson, of the anti-sectarian trade union organisation, Counteract, criticised employers for not standing up to sectarianism in the workplace.
He cited two examples of companies in Northern Ireland having endangered lucrative contracts with British firms by flying Union flags over their premises and failing to offer a non-sectarian workplace.
The symposium was the first in a series of events celebrating multicultural Ireland organised by the Justice and Peace Desk of the Unitarian Church.
Mr Chris Hudson, who is chairman of the Peace Train Organisation, a leading member of the Unitarian Church, and was recently awarded an MBE for his work for peace, presided over the debate.