Drumcree: 'Orange Order put us through hell' say Garvaghy Road residents

A residents group in Portadown has accused the Orange Order of putting their community "through hell" with parades.

Breandán Mac Cionnaith, a spokesperson for Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition, said the order should be apologising to the people rather than marching in the area.

Details of their planned parade are expected to be announced at a news conference in the town on Thursday morning.

In an interview with BBC News NI, Mac Cionnaith said that if any talks were to take place with the Orange Order, residents of Garvaghy Road should set the agenda.

"It should be up to the host community to set the agenda, not the visitors," he said.

"The community here has been put through hell by the Orange Order - 1995, 96, 97, 98, continue on.

"All those years the Orange Order have created hassle for this community. Never once was there an apology, never once did they ever say sorry, never once did they ever say 'we've had our march, there's another route, we'll take it home'."

The Orange Order have always said they had peaceful intent and the root cause of any violence in the 1990s was the fact that they were prevented from walking the traditional route of their parade. They accused the residents group of being intransigent.

He rejected suggestions by some unionists that he does represent the overall view of residents in the area.

He said: "I think if anybody goes out onto the Garvaghy Road now and takes a walk round and just asks people… they'll get the same response - 'no, it's over, put it to bed once and for all'."

He said: "The Orange Order has never, ever accepted the right of this community, or those who represent it, to put forward another possibility, that there should be no Orange march."

No date has been set for the order's planned parade but Sunday 27 September has been mentioned as a possibility.

The Parades Commission will access any notification of a parade and decide what restrictions, if any, to put on it.

The Orange Order and unionist politicians say an Orange Order parade down the Garvaghy Road should be allowed.

DUP leader Gavin Robinson said: "There is no benefit to good, positive cross-community relations if that means that one section of the community can deny their neighbours from walking home from church, none whatsoever."

It is expected that the planned parade would involve a walk to a service at Drumcree Church of Ireland from Portadown town centre that does not include the Garvaghy Road but would include it on the homeward leg of the march.

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