Garvaghy Road residents give cold shoulder to talks
Garvaghy Road residents repeatedly refused to negotiate with police representatives today, greeting attempts to talk with a cold shoulder.
With their protest lasting through rain and shine in Portadown, both community representatives and ordinary members of the public rejected the idea of trying to reach some compromise with authorities.
Breandan Mac Cionnaith from the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition repeatedly addressed protesters over the course of the day, exhorting them to stand firm – at one point saying “they’re not going to clear this road” after informing gathered people the PSNI had suggested entering into talks.
“They’re looking to negotiate, but they’re also putting on their riot gear,” he said. “Those are the negotiations we’re going to face.
“At the minute we’re doing nothing but staying here.”
Addressing a large crowd blocking the Portadown street shortly before 12.30pm, he stated through a loudhailer: “This community will make the decisions, nobody else.”
Stating he “remembered negotiations before”, he claimed “promises were thrown back in our face before they reached the end of this road”.
“It’s not going to happen again,” he added. “We will not let it happen again. If they have to use force against us, well then let them use it.”
Shortly before his words, a group of police negotiators had walked up to the protesters though soon afterwards returned to the PSNI’s lines.
Early in the evening, a group of Orangemen walked halfway down a hill on a nearby road before turning back. Protesters, who had become a little scattered by that point, dashed back to the centre of the area to once more link arms to block the road.
Although their obvious fears of members of the Orange Order trying to fulfil their Parades Commission permission by walking along the contentious road didn’t come close to materialising, Mr Mac Cionnaith accused his opponents of “stirring the pot”.
Again taking to a loudhailer, he claimed: “They must have done that 20 times a day at Drumcree in the bad old days.
“What they’re trying to do is what they’ve done in the past, stirring the pot here. It’s same thing they were doing in the nineties and that’s all they’ll be doing here – coming down to the police lines and going back up again.
"There’s nothing to worry about, there’s nothing to worry about.”
A former militant republican who was jailed for his part in a 1980s IRA bomb attack on a British Legion hall in Portadown, Mr Mac Cionnaith emerged as a major voice on the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition during mid-1990s disputes over the parade route that sparked provincewide disruption when unionists took to the streets when the march was banned, as well as widespread nationalist rioting when it was allowed to go ahead.
Meanwhile First Minister Michelle O’Neill insisted there is “no reasonable or logical basis” for the Parades Commission’s decision to permit a Sunday morning silent parade of 35 Orangemen along the road.
She claimed that the community has “lived in peace for 28 years” which “was not a problem that required a solution, it was a peace that needed to be protected”.
“Sinn Fein stands fully with the Garvaghy Road community, and they will have the full support of nationalists from right across Ireland in the period ahead,” she added.