Orange Order: 25th anniversary of Drumcree stand off will be significantly marked to highlight injustice

A Grand Lodge spokesman said: “In conjunction with Portadown District LOL No 1, Co Armagh Grand Orange Lodge and Grand Lodge, it has been agreed to significantly mark this anniversary and highlight this ongoing injustice.”

A decision is due tomorrow (Wednesday) on the application to return from the the annual service in Drumcree Parish Church along the nationalist Garvaghy Road. Regardless of the Parade’s Commission’s decision, Portadown District LOL No 1 has said the issue “is not a dead duck” and have asked representatives from every district lodge in Northern Ireland to join them on Sunday, July 9.

The Grand Lodge spokesman said: “While there will be no call for all members of the Institution to attend the service, there will be a greater number of brethren and sisters on parade than at the weekly protest. The intent to mark the 25th year will remind all that the bannerette of Portadown District remains at Drumcree and will do so until the return parade to Carlton Street Orange Hall takes place.

“It’s a credit to Portadown District for highlighting this injustice each Sunday, in stark contrast to the inactivity of the discredited Parades Commission who have done nothing to help resolve the issue.”

Upper Bann DUP MP Carla Lockhart, speaking ahead of a meeting with the Parades Commission, said: “For 25 years now Portadown District LOL 1 has been denied their right to return from worship at Drumcree Parish Church via Garvaghy Road. This ongoing dispute continues to sour community relations in Portadown, and whilst the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition (GRRC) claim the community has moved on, that is not the case.

"Division continues and does nothing to bring communities together in a spirit of mutual respect and understanding.

"Under the Public Processions (NI) Act 1998 the duties and functions of the Parades Commission include ‘to promote and facilitate mediation as a means of resolving disputes concerning public processions’. In this duty and function the commission is not only failing, but is actually rewarding those in GRRC who refuse to engage either indirectly or directly with the district lodge to find a resolution to this dispute.

"Portadown District remain ready and willing to engage, yet year on year their good intention and determination to find a compromise is ignored.”

“Sadly, the Parades Commission in their own determination makes clear that the threat of public disorder should the parade proceed is a key factor in the decision reached. I think that is a dangerous precedent, and an alarming message to send out to anyone who is hostile to any form of parade or public procession. Rights should not be sacrificed because of the threat of violence. That is a sad indictment on the interpretation of human rights law for any society.”

She added: “We keep being told in this fantasy new Ireland how the views and traditions of unionists will be respected. These words ring hollow to the PUL community when we’ve seen for the last 25 years no willingness to do that. What would change to allow this to happen, or is it about supremacy and not equality?”