UK government blocks Northern Ireland unionist march through Catholic neighborhood

The British government on Oct. 9 intervened in a simmering dispute in Northern Ireland, ruling that a planned unionist march through a Catholic enclave in the province would not take place due to a “risk of serious injury.”

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Sir Chris Bryant said in a statement that Portadown District Loyal Orange Lodge — part of the national Protestant Orange Order fraternity — would not be permitted to hold its parade down Garvaghy Road through a historically Catholic section of Portadown in County Armagh.

The procession “cannot go ahead,” Bryant said, citing local law enforcement opinion that it would lead to violence, disorder and “a wider contagion effect across Northern Ireland.”

Bryant called for “all protests, rallies and demonstrations to be stood down,” arguing that there is “no excuse for a continued ratcheting up of tensions.”

The weeks-long tensions have stemmed from historical conflicts in the region between unionists in Northern Ireland who advocate continued rule of the province by the United Kingdom and Catholic-affiliated republicans who largely favor reunification with Ireland itself.

Garvaghy Road itself was the site of numerous conflicts amid the Troubles, the decades-long conflict that saw unionists and republicans engage in regular violent and often deadly clashes. The CAIN Archive at Ulster University estimates that more than 3,700 people were killed in the protracted fighting.

Police have largely banned loyalist marches from taking place on Garvaghy Road since the late 1990s due to regular instances of violence that broke out on that stretch of the unionist parade route.

The High Court of Northern Ireland, however, ruled in August against a ban on the march that had been instituted by the Parades Commission, offering unionists the potential opportunity to march down the street for the first time in years.

In his statement announcing the re-instituted ban on the march, Bryant urged residents to “work together to help repair the damage that has been done” over the past several weeks.

“The community in Portadown has been on the sharp end of intense attention for a number of weeks,” he said. “It will take time to rebuild relations. The least we can all do now is give them breathing space.”