UK reverses decision on Orange Order march in Portadown
The UK government has reversed a decision that would have allowed a Protestant hard-line parade through a Catholic district in Portadown, Northern Ireland. The move, announced late Friday by Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant, has overjoyed Irish republicans while infuriating British unionists. It marks the first time in 28 years that the Orange Order has been barred from marching through the town’s main Catholic area, following a nearly two-week standoff.
A controversial reversal
Bryant’s decision overturned a ruling by the Parades Commission, the independent body that manages chronic conflicts over Orange Order demonstrations. The Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal group reviled by many Catholics, has been barred from the Garvaghy Road route since 1998, after years of violence triggered by the annual sectarian showdown. Hundreds of Catholic locals, backed by Sinn Féin, gathered along Garvaghy Road and cheered the reversal.
Bryant called for all protests, rallies, and demonstrations to be stood down, saying there was “no excuse for a continued ratcheting up of tensions.” Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, expressed relief for residents, saying they had been living with “constant fear” that an “unwanted sectarian march” would be forced down their road. However, the Democratic Unionists, the main pro-British party in the coalition, denounced the move as capitulation to mob rule, with leader Gavin Robinson saying the system for managing parade conflicts “now lies in tatters” and the rule of law has been “fundamentally undermined.”
