Tony Holland

The chairman of Northern Ireland's Parades Commission, Tony Holland has faced the ire of the Orange Order for banning the Portadown lodge from the contested route of the Drumcree march.

Mr Holland, a solicitor by profession, has consistently stressed that only agreement between the Orange Order and the residents will guarantee a parade taking place along the Garvaghy Road.

Earlier this year he said: "I believe a solution to Drumcree is not an impossibility. I think there are ways forward. It is not for me at this stage to say how I see those ways forward.

"But I do believe that people do realise that remaining on the hill indefinitely is not good, either for Portadown, or for Northern Ireland generally."

Harold Gracey

District Master of the Portadown Lodge since 1986, Mr Gracey has led the local Orangemen throughout the entire dispute.

He has accused the Parades Commission of being blatantly anti-Orange but insists that this has only stiffened his resolve.

At the height of the dispute in 2000, he sparked controversy when he first called for loyalists to protest across Northern Ireland and then said that he would not condemn any violence because Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams never condemned republican violence.

Speaking at a rally to mark 1,000 days of the stand-off at Drumcree, Mr Gracey appealed directly to members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

"The vast majority of you come from the Protestant community and it is high time that you supported your own Protestant people," he said.

David Jones

Spokesman for Portadown Orange Lodge who has sought to better promote its position and is an assured media performer.

He has described the mood of the Portadown Orangemen since the dispute began as being one of "frustration but also determination" to walk their traditional route along Garvaghy Road.

Mr Jones is an independent councillor for the Portadown area.

He has said that the Orangemen had pulled out of the mediation process because "very little had been achieved" over more than two years and "the thing was in a state of limbo".

Breandan MacCionnaith

The main spokesman for the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition since the dispute developed.

He is an outspoken critic of the Portadown Orange Order and previously sat as an independent nationalist on the local Craigavon Council.

He previously served a jail sentence for his involvement in a republican bomb attack in Portadown.

His critics in the Orange Order accuse him of being "so entrenched in his position he has no desire whatsoever to reach accommodation".

Brian Currin

A leading South African human rights lawyer, Mr Currin entered the fray as independent mediator in 2000.

Mr Currin was a co-chairman of the Northern Ireland Sentence Review Commission and said that he hoped he could achieve a breakthrough in the mediation role because he was a completely independent outsider.

But he quit his role in December 2001, saying that as Portadown Orangemen had withdrawn from dialogue, he was "unable to take the process any further".

He said the Orangemen had blamed their decision a lack of trust in the nationalist Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, which opposes their proposed Drumcree parade route.

"In any mediation, where there is no trust there cannot be a successful process," said Mr Currin.

Denis Watson

Grand Secretary of the Orange Order and Grand Master of the County Armagh lodge, Mr Watson is a key figure in the Drumcree dispute.

He has attacked the authorities for dismissing its rights - but has also said that Orangemen should be expelled if they are involved in paramilitaries.

In 1998, the Ulster Unionists expelled him from the party when he decided to stand as an independent candidate for the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Following his election, he formed the United Unionist Assembly Party with two other members.

Mr Watson criticised the mediator Brian Currin for making public a paper he wrote on the dispute in February 2001.

"What Brian has done has damaged his own credibility as an honest broker," he said.