Portadown's Garvaghy Road Community Will Be No Walk-Over For The Orange Order
By Breandán Mac Cionnaith
The Belfast High Court judgment issued earlier today (Tuesday) against the Parades Commission is far from the successful outcome that unionist political representatives such as Jim Allister MP (TUV) and Carla Lockhart MP (DUP), along with loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson, have all sought to portray it as.
The outcome was only reached after the Commission conceded that there had been a procedural error in how it dealt with the annual application by Portadown District Orange Lodge to parade along the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown on the 5th of July last month.
It emerged that not all six members of the Parades Commission had signed off on the final determination before it was issued. While that technicality negated the decision, it does not mean that the Orange Order is automatically guaranteed permission to hold any sectarian marches along the Garvaghy Road in the future.
But that threat will still linger, particularly as elections to the Stormont Assembly are due to take place in May next year, with the various shades of red, white and blue set to battle it out to be unionism's top-dog - a battle which will have absolutely no holds barred in the aftermath of the Jeffrey Donaldson scandal and his subsequent conviction.
The Orange Order organised stand-offs at Drumcree (particularly in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998) were regularly used by unionist death squads as a rallying cry and pretext to launch attacks, block roads, and intimidate Catholic families. At least ten murders were carried out in Portadown and other areas during this period by those same death squads.
Nevertheless, the recent court challenge shows that twenty-eight-years after being halted from having their annual hate fest, forces within Orangeism and unionism are still desperately striving to place ‘Orange feet’ on Garvaghy Road in a supremacist attempt to assert unionist dominance in Portadown.
But they conveniently choose to ignore the everyday reality that the north-western area of Portadown is a growing, thriving and expanding nationalist community. An area with both an Irish language naíscoil and bunscoil; an area where GAA clubs in both football and hurling are flourishing; an area where annual exam results demonstrate the commitment of parents and their children to achieve the best; an area with strong community structures which help and support those in need; an area with several dozen local businesses providing a full range of services to everyone.
Like most towns and communities across Ireland, the area is not perfect; it too has its issues with drug dealing and illegal drug use which the state authorities refuse to effectively tackle in any concerted manner.
During the recent race riots in unionist areas of Portadown, Belfast and several other parts of the Six Counties, community organisations in the Garvaghy Road area opened their doors and allowed access to their facilities to aid and support those members of migrant families who sought shelter and assistance as their homes and businesses were wrecked in predominantly unionist areas. Elsewhere in Portadown, so-called community organisations, in receipt of significant state funding, closed their doors when these people desperately needed their help.
Perhaps it is that sense of community, that sense of unity which exists throughout all the housing estates and new housing developments around Garvaghy Road that unionists cannot tolerate, and it is that which they wish to destroy.
The nationalist people of Portadown had to fight hard to secure their rights in the past. There can be no doubt that they will struggle just as hard again against those who would again try to condemn them to second-class citizenship.
Breandán Mac Cionnaith is a Portadown-based Éirígí activist and former spokesperson for the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition. Breandán was instrumental in putting a stop to Orange Order marches going through his area in the mid-1990s.
In episode 18 of For A New Republic Podcast, Breandán talks about the Orange Order as Ireland's first hate group, the Garvaghy Road community's fightback against the organisation marching through their area, and what the future holds for an organisation who's ideology has changed little since their foundation in 1795.
Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/episode/5pKvEB7D0a1WiAs22rMNlF...
Apple Podcasts: http://podcasts.apple.com/.../for-a-new.../id1743519189...