IN MAPS: Compare the Orange Order's Twelfth route in Belfast right now with the slashed-down version planned for 2024
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The documents, as circulated online, are extremely blurry, but the News Letter has been able to study them and piece together the planned route.
In previous years, and for this year’s Twelfth too, the route begins at Clifton Street Orange Hall, at the Shankill / New Lodge interface in north Belfast.
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Hide AdIt then moves through the city centre, up Royal Avenue, and around the City Hall, before heading on to a long and straight stretch up the Lisburn Road.
It then starts veering east to assemble at the demonstration field in Barnett’s Demesne, a big park in the city’s south.
Finally it returns via almost the same route (but with a diversion alone Great Victoria Street instead of Royal Avenue).
Under the 2024 plans, the route is slashed right down.
Gone is the long march up the Lisburn Road.
Instead, brethren and bands would go about halfway up, turn east along Elmwood Avenue, and start heading down University Road, past Queen’s University and back down the way they came (but going via Bedford Street in the heart of the city centre, rather than Great Victoria Street on the edge of it).
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Hide AdThere appears to be no mention of a stop at any demonstration field.
The leaked documents say that all of this would amount to a cut in the route length from 10 miles down to just four.
Among the reasons given for the shorter route is “an ageing population”, and that it would keep supporters closer to the city centre where spectators will be “well catered for”.
