Letter: Drumcree Orange Order parade dispute was a disaster for unionists

I accept the article headline may not have been chosen by Ruth Dudley Edwards but it does unionism no favours. Your friends tell you the truth and no sane unionist can look back at Drumcree as anything other than a disaster for unionism and Northern Ireland.

Some uncomfortable truths need to be learned from the Drumcree disaster. Ruth Dudley Edwards is correct to say that Sinn Fein “were brilliant at winding up and then blaming the Prods”. No-one who lived through that time will doubt that Sinn Fein used the Drumcree parade for political advantage, seeking to portray themselves and nationalists as victims under attack from unionism. But knowing that trap existed, the correct response to recent attempts by the Orange Order and the DUP to argue for the completion of a parade from 25 years ago is to say to your Order friends to wise up.

Don’t walk into the same trap again. Let it go, Drumcree is a battle that is lost, and perhaps deservedly so.

Personally, I felt that once Michael McGoldrick was murdered to help force through the parade of 1996, the Christian response was that the Orange Order would have voluntarily cancelled the Garvaghy Road route and rejected the support of UDA and LVF paramilitaries.

Republicans will set up further traps for unionists in the future – note the incident at the Ballycastle parade, and well done for those exercising restraint. Leadership will be about predicting future problems and trying to deal with them before they reach a confrontation. The flying of UVF flags by bands leading Orange lodges is an obvious problem that needs to be addressed in the future.

Arnold Carton, Belfast BT6

Ruth Dudley Edwards: The Orange Order was not to blame for problems around parading disputes