Northern Ireland: Pro-UK march to go through Catholic area

In Northern Ireland, the Protestant, pro-British Orange Order plans to march through a predominantly Catholic and nationalist neighborhood on Sunday for the first time since 1997. A court ruling allowed the march after legal challenges, permitting 35 members of the Order to walk silently through Garvaghy Road in Portadown without any bands or supporters.

Approximately 2,000 people protested the march in the street early Sunday. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for calm on both sides, emphasizing that significant progress had been made in Northern Ireland and that the country doesn't want to regress. First Minister Michelle O'Neill, from the Irish republican Sinn Fein party, firmly stated that there would be no going back and supported the local residents' protest, labeling the march as unwanted and sectarian.

Pro-British Democratic Unionist Party MP Carla Lockhart assured that local residents have nothing to fear from the 35 men walking silently and orderly down the road. Garvaghy Road was a key site of conflict between Catholic, pro-Irish republican and Protestant, pro-British unionists during the late 1990s, known as the Drumcree dispute.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 established the Parades Commission to regulate contentious processions, which repeatedly rejected the Orange Order's requests to march through Garvaghy Road. A High Court ruling overturned the Commission's rejection this year due to a procedural error, leading to the Order's fresh application being approved.