Micheál Martin said the Drumcree conflict is not settled by last week’s Belfast High Court ruling on the annual Orange Order parade in Drumcree, Portadown. He told the Dáil the judgment was procedural and “is not an approval for the parade to take place.”
The Taoiseach said: “I have a strong personal recollection of the very traumatic, difficult history of this issue. This is a matter we will keep under constant review.” The Government is also monitoring the Parades Commission process after the Orange Order applied to march down Garvaghy Road in Portadown on September 27th.
Dáil scrutiny on Wednesday
Martin told the Dáil that the High Court decision was based on procedural grounds and that the Government had continued to monitor the situation. He also said he was aware of the High Court ruling, the Parades Commission ruling on the Orange Order application and a review announced by Chris Bryant.
Mary Lou McDonald raised the issue as the Dáil returned after the summer recess. She said “this hard-won progress cannot be put at risk” and pointed to the new application as a fresh test of whether the dispute stays contained.
Garvaghy Road history
McDonald said she had written to Martin, as had John O’Dowd and the Garvaghy Road residents’ coalition. She said the application reopens an issue that caused years of deep confrontation, fear and trauma for the Garvaghy Road community.
The community has had no Orange Order marches for 28 years. The Parades Commission has blocked the parade every July since 1998, after a dispute that was linked to 21 sectarian murders and the petrol-bomb attack in Ballymoney in 1998 in which three children were killed.
September 27th application
The immediate focus is the September 27th march application in Portadown. The High Court in Belfast quashed a Parades Commission decision to impose restrictions on the annual Orange Order parade at Drumcree because the determination had not been considered in its final form by all members of the commission.
That leaves the Parades Commission process as the next step, while the proposed route keeps the Garvaghy Road community at the centre of the dispute. Martin’s point was narrow but important: the court cleared a procedural flaw, not the parade itself.
