Orange Order parade dispute continues after main players hold talks

The main parties involved in a parading dispute in Northern Ireland are still in a stalemate, following a day of political talks and heated exchanges at Stormont.

Members of the Orange Order are still waiting to begin their permitted parade, which was due to take place on Sunday morning, and walk down the mainly-nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown.

Protesters blocked the road at the weekend and after meeting the Northern Ireland secretary, a representative of the road's residents said the Orange Order should focus on a different route.

The Drumcree parade, which in the 1990s sparked some of the most serious disorder in Northern Ireland's history, was due to go ahead for the first time in 30 years after legal challenges.

Since 1998, the Orange Order had been banned from completing its Drumcree march - and until this year had been repeatedly refused permission to finish the route by the Parades Commission, which was set up to adjudicate disputes.

The Orange Order is a Protestant pro-British organisation, while the area where it wants to walk - specifically along the Garvaghy Road - is largely Catholic and predominantly inhabited by pro-Irish nationalists.

Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant, who hosted talks on Monday, said he was "grateful to all" who took part in the negotiations and that constructive dialogue was the route to a solution.

A crowd of up to 400 people gathered on the Garvaghy Road at one point on Monday night.

Traditional musicians set up stall in one of the gazebos, with those gathered joining the songs.

Breandán Mac Cionnaith, from the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition, spoke to the crowd via loudspeaker telling them to stay on the footpaths.

Meanwhile, 35 Orangemen remained at Drumcree church and there were only a handful of supporters.

Police scaled back their operation with only two police cars and one Land Rover in place. The road was not blocked.

Sir Chris said talks had been "positive so far" and that there were many people acting "in good faith for a good outcome".

"Through the mist maybe I can see what that might look like," he added.

The two most senior members of Portadown Orange Order met Sir Chris at Hillsborough Castle and described the hour-long talks as "constructive".

Asked if they still intended to walk down the Garvaghy Road, district master Nigel Dawson said "the law needs to be applied".

Democratic Unionist Party MP Carla Lockhart, who has been with the Orange Order members in Drumcree, called on police to ensure the parade can go ahead. She said "mob rule" cannot win.

Breandán Mac Cionnaith also met the secretary of state and said the Orange Order should use their outward route to Drumcree Church as their return route, rather than the Garvaghy Road.

Mac Cionnaith said he was agreeable to some form of mediation but did not trust the Orange Order.

Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald said her party "remain concerned" for the community, that even though the march did not go ahead, they need to know they can "breathe easy again" and "that they don't have the threat of a march being forced through their neighbourhood".

The protesters on the Garvaghy Road were joined by members of Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) throughout the day on Sunday.

Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O'Neill joined the protest, prompting the Democratic Unionist Party to accuse her of acting unlawfully.

Just before 04:00 BST, a group of Orangemen tried to begin their parade but three police Land Rovers blocked the route.

They tried a number of times afterwards, but the police denied them permission.

Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson welcomed the lack of violence over the weekend.

He said they were unable to allow the Orange Order their "lawful right" to parade because of an "unlawful and unnotified protest".

"Our assessment was that to remove, at one stage, an estimated 1,000 people from the Garvaghy Road, including women, children and older people would have required such a significant use of force that public safety would have been significantly jeopardised, people seriously hurt and disorder inevitable," he said.

"In all of those circumstances use of police force would have been disproportionate."

The Portadown district has called for the resignation of the Chief Constable, Jon Boutcher, and ACC Henderson.

Liam Kelly, the chair of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, said officers showed "incredible restraint and professionalism" and managed "a near-impossible situation".

The actions of the chief constable and senior colleagues "were exemplary and certainly beyond reproach", he added.

In a statement, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland said there were "major political questions" to be asked about the "illegal actions and subsequent repercussions" of a number of elected representatives.

Protesters started gathering on the Garvaghy Road in the early hours of Sunday and remained there until about midnight.

For most of the day, police maintained a sterile zone between the two sides, while officers repeatedly called on protesters to disperse.

Orangemen set off down the Drumcree Road a few times throughout the day before stopping and turning back.

On Sunday evening, a large group of people joined the Orange Order, and police blocked the road with vehicles.

The Orange Order was warned they were breaking the terms of the Parade Commission's determination by having more than 35 people here, but loyalist activists argued they had not asked for a crowd.

Speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday, First Minister Michelle O'Neill said she was proud to protest with the residents who "have suffered generations of sectarian domination, intimidation and violence".

"May I invite all those within unionism into 2026? The days of unionist supremacy and domination are gone," she said.

"We will not be going backwards. We are about the future."

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said there had been a "total abdication of leadership".

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician said: "When the situation called for calm heads, Michelle O'Neill called people on to the streets, joined them and called for them to stay there.

"When her obligations were to uphold the law, Michelle O'Neill not only broke the law but encouraged others to do so."

DUP leader Gavin Robinson said he would refer assembly members and elected representatives who were at the Garvaghy Road protest to Stormont's standards commissioner.

He stopped short of saying that the party would collapse the Northern Ireland institutions.

SDLP leader Claire Hanna said collapsing the executive over the dispute would achieve nothing but "create a vacuum".

She did not think she and her party colleagues broke the law by joining Garvaghy Road protest on Sunday.

Alliance leader and Justice Minister Naomi Long said it was a very difficult situation for everyone involved and it was not helpful for people to be "issuing ultimatums" and "ratcheting up the tensions around it".

Long added she "cannot say for sure that there is a resolution" and that she questioned "the wisdom of picking at this scab and unleashing this pain".

Independent assembly member and former justice minister Claire Sugden said power-sharing at Stormont was "very vulnerable" to collapse, but added that "we all lose" if it did.

Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Jon Burrows said the protest might be non-violent but it was "still illegal".

He said the police would have to investigate and that could mean "knocking the door of the first minister".

Timothy Gaston, a Traditional Unionist Voice assembly member, said Stormont had been damaged "beyond repair" after events at the weekend and he had no confidence in the chief constable.

The Taoiseach (Irish prime minister), Micheál Martin, said the Irish government remained "very, very concerned" about tensions in Drumcree and added there was an "obligation on everybody now to stand back and to mediate an outcome".

Church leaders have appealed for a peaceful resolution.

Catholic Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin and Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh John McDowell called for an "urgent" and inclusive initiative to resolve the crisis, stating: "Too much is at stake."

Two schools in the area announced they would close on Monday because of the continuing situation, citing the safety and wellbeing of pupils, families and staff.

The Orange Order, the most prominent of the loyal orders associated with Protestants in Northern Ireland, holds thousands of parades every year and the vast majority pass off without incident.

However, many Catholics see the marches as sectarian and object to them passing through, or close to, Catholic or nationalist areas.

The Garvaghy Road had been part of the Drumcree route, but by the mid 1990s nationalist residents protested against the parade. The row sparked some of the most serious public disorder in Northern Ireland's history and was linked to several murders.

The row reemerged after a court case in which a ruling by the Parades Commission - the organisation formed during the Drumcree dispute to decide on contentious marches during Northern Ireland's parading season - was overturned.

On Friday, following 28 years of unsuccessful applications, the commission decided the march could go ahead with restrictions in place.

Rather than start at 13:00 on Sunday as intended, the commission said it could begin no later than 08:00 and with 35 participants rather than the 60 the Orange Order requested.

However that decision was challenged in several Belfast courts on Saturday, before finally being given the go ahead just hours before it was due to take place.

The Drumcree dispute was one of Northern Ireland's most serious parading issues during the 1990s, when stand-offs over attempts by the Orange Order to march along the Garvaghy Road were accompanied by riots, roadblocks and killings.

When the Orange Order was prevented by police from walking down the route in July 1995, there was a tense stand-off. It was the same for the next three years.

Violence related to the dispute resulted in riots, roadblocks and murders across Northern Ireland.

In 1998, the newly-established Parades Commission ruled that the Orange Order should not march down the road - a decision upheld until Friday.