Orange Order submits new Drumcree parade plans

The Orange Order has announced plans for a new parade at Drumcree, one of the most contentious parade routes in Northern Ireland.

They said they had scaled back the plans and hoped the parade would be allowed along the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road. They said only 60 members would march along the road in Portadown in silence on Sunday 27 September.

The submission comes after a court case in which a ruling on Drumcree by the Parades Commission was overturned.

Their application will go into the Parades Commission. An immediate decision is not expected.

The commission had banned this year’s parade from entering the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road – a move which reflected every decision it has made since 1998.

In 1998, the Parades Commission ruled that the Orange Order should not march down Portadown’s Garvaghy Road on the end leg of its annual march from Drumcree Church.

It was a move that ultimately led to a decades-long parading dispute, sparking some of the most serious public disorder in Northern Ireland’s history.

Stand-offs continued in subsequent years as members of the Order walked to police barricades in protest at the restrictions. Protests were also held by residents living along the Garvaghy Road.