Main Points
- Thousands of protesters who blockaded a road in Portadown to prevent the Orange Order parade from Drumcree Church passing along the route have mostly dispersed.
- The protest was organised after Orangemen were granted permission to parading down the predominantly nationalist road for the first time in more than a quarter of a century.
- Shortly after midnight, Breandán Mac Cionnaith from the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition, told protesters they had secured a “victory”.
- Mr Mac Cionnaith is to meet Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Jon Boutcher this morning for talks on the Drumcree parade.
- Stormont’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill had encouraged protesters to the “stay the course” and remain on the road until at least midnight.
- The presence of Ms O’Neill and other senior Sinn Féin figures at the blockade prompted accusations of law breaking from unionists.
- Under parading legislation, protests against parades must be notified and approved by the Parades Commission adjudication body.
- The blockade on the Garvaghy Road was an unnotified gathering and police repeatedly told protesters they were liable for arrest for blocking the road.
- St John the Baptist PS Bunscoil Eoin Baiste Irish-medium primary school on Garvaghy Road to stay shut on Monday.
Key Reads
- As it happened: Coverage of the protests on Sunday
- Standoff as PSNI forms barricade near Drumcree to prevent Orange parade down Garvaghy Road
- Decades after flashpoints of the 1990s, Drumcree is just as dangerous
- Claim Orangemen must march on Garvaghy Road because of tradition ‘a nonsense’, former SF staffer says
- Concern Stormont executive may collapse amid escalation of tensions over Drumcree parade
Police maintain presence in Portadown
Police are maintaining a presence near Drumcree Parish Church in Portadown this morning.
Five PSNI Land Rovers are lining the road close to where a small group of Orange Order members have stayed overnight.
A contentious Orange Order parade was unable to proceed on Sunday after protesters had gathered on the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road about a mile away.
There were no protesters on the Garvaghy Road early on Monday. - PA
Stormont ‘has to survive’, SDLP leader says
Stormont “has to survive” the fallout of the Drumcree parade, SDLP leader Claire Hanna has said.
Speaking on Monday morning ahead of another meeting with Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant, Hanna said the collapse of Stormont “does nothing”.
“The institutions should survive because collapsing them solves nothing, and no matter how much we’re grinding each other’s gears at the moment, somebody has to make decisions about the everyday.
“Too often, we have reached for these collapse mechanisms only to have to come back six months later, and health services and economic opportunities and infrastructure have declined.
“It’s difficult, but creating a vacuum and taking away the place where we have a chance to resolve these issues solves nothing,” she said, speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland.
Hanna said it was a “very challenging situation”, though she argued that those behind the application to march on Garvaghy Road “framed it as part of a culture war”.
During a meeting between Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant and party leaders on Sunday night, Hanna said they called for de-escalation and a political process to “get the dispute off the streets”.
DUP ‘unclear’ on future of powersharing Executive
For now, the next steps of the Orange Order are unclear, writes Mark Hennessy
It has made clear that it will stay “an hour, a day, or 10 days” to vindicate its rights.
However, it cannot do this under the legislation without going back to the Parades Commission to secure fresh permission to march down the road.
The Parades Commission’s permission last week was based significantly on a judgment by the PSNI that a march by the Orange Order on Garvaghy Road would not provoke major public order issues – a judgment regarded as “madness” by Sinn Féin and sharply criticised by the SDLP.
The escalating political row over the parade has tested Stormont’s stability, less than nine months before Northern Ireland’s voters go to the polls.
In Belfast, Gavin Robinson, the DUP leader, was asked whether he was prepared to continue to work with Sinn Féin.
If either the DUP or Sinn Féin withdrew from Northern Ireland’s powersharing Executive, the devolved government would effectively collapse.
“Our party is maintaining the dignity of the Portadown Orangemen as they have shown determination and patience, so will we,” said Robinson.
“I can look at you all in the eye today and say we are being plunged into difficult territory because of the actions of people who are expected to be lawmakers in our country breaking the law.
“The fundamental principle of upholding the rule of law in this society are sacrosanct and cannot be tarnished.”
Earlier, Sinn Féin vice-president O’Neill told reporters on the Garvaghy Road that the reignition of the Drumcree dispute “brings into question how this whole peace process works”.
Calls for calm from Martin, Burnham
British prime minister Andy Burnham has appealed for “calm on all sides” over the Drumcree march dispute, saying there have been “big gains made in Northern Ireland, and we don’t want to see things go backwards”.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin also urged calm as he expressed concern about the situation.
Martin has described the decision by the Parades Commission to allow a parade to go down the Garvaghy Road for the first time in nearly three decades as “incomprehensible and wrong”.
The parade was finally given the go ahead at a court hearing that concluded at 2.15am on Sunday after opposing legal teams outlined their arguments over the parade.
The hearing was one of three separate emergency legal challenges before the courts in Belfast across Saturday and into early Sunday.
Northern Ireland Secretary to meet disputing sides
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Bryant is set to face fresh demands to block any possibility of the Orange Order being allowed to march down Garvaghy Road, writes Mark Hennessy
The legal permission won by the Orange Order after lengthy court battles on Saturday to march from Drumcree Church of Ireland to its headquarters in Portadown expired at midnight.
The order now requires a fresh application to the Parades Commission to see if its march is legal under 30-year-old legislation.
However, the Northern Ireland Secretary has the power to overrule everyone, including the courts, and ban the march, though it is clear that Bryant, who was appointed to the job just two months ago, does not want to follow that route.
On Sunday night, Bryant urged “everybody to keep calm” and to co-operate with police as he pushed for a resolution and to find “some kind of compromise so that people are able to go home”.
He confirmed he would continue talking to all the main political parties on Monday following discussions on Sunday after cutting short his attendance at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool to travel to Belfast.
He has said he did not have the powers to call off the march unless police formally requested him to do so.
Michelle O’Neill claims ‘victory’
Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill has said the Garvaghy Road community had won a “victory” in the Drumcree march dispute.
“This community do not want this, they do not want this march,” she told reporters before leaving the area shortly after midnight on Monday morning.
“And tonight, I believe, is another victory for this community in standing steadfast for the right to live free from sectarian harassment and intimidation.”
The presence of O’Neill and other senior Sinn Féin figures at the blockade prompted accusations of lawbreaking from unionists.
Under the North’s parading legislation, protests against parades must be notified and approved by the Parades Commission adjudication body.
The nationalist blockade on the Garvaghy Road was an unnotified gathering. O’Neill and other ministers in the Stormont Executive are bound by a pledge of office that contains a commitment to uphold the law.
“We can’t have a situation where people who have the privilege of holding high office in Northern Ireland so flagrantly disregard the pledge of office and statutory underpinnings of their office,” DUP leader Gavin Robinson told media in Belfast on Sunday.
Protesters disperse after being told of ‘process’ to address Drumcree dispute
Nationalists who blockaded a road in Portadown to stop an Orange Order parade have mostly dispersed after being told by a community leader that a fresh process to address the dispute was being initiated.
The stand-off between residents of the Garvagy Road, a Catholic estate in a largely Protestant town, and Orangemen seeking to march down the road follows two days of rising tensions that raise questions over the ability of Northern Ireland’s Stormont institutions to survive.
At the height of the blockade, thousands of people gathered on the Garvaghy Road throughout Sunday to prevent the Orange Order parade from nearby Drumcree Church from passing along the route.
The protest, which was illegal under parading legislation in Northern Ireland, involved senior Sinn Féin politicians, including Stormont’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill and party president Mary Lou McDonald.
The blockade continued through the day and late into the night.
At about midnight, Breandán Mac Cionnaith from the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition, told protesters they had secured a “victory”.
He said he would meet Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Jon Boutcher on Monday morning for talks on the Drumcree parade.
Mac Cionnaith said he had received “commitments” that the parade would not be proceeding overnight.
He asked for 20 to 30 volunteers to remain on the road to ensure those commitments were not broken.
“We’ve stopped them once. The process now is to ensure we stop them permanently,” he said.
