By Amanda Ferguson
BELFAST, Sept 27 (Reuters) – A Protestant parade may proceed through a Catholic area, Northern Ireland’s High Court ruled early on Sunday, reversing a temporary ban on the highly charged march in an area that has historically been a flashpoint of sectarian disputes.
The High Court dismissed a new application to stop the Orange Order from going through the area of Portadown after the Court of Appeal vacated a temporary injunction granted on Saturday to residents who opposed the parade.
Residents of the Garvaghy Road area had challenged Friday’s ruling by Northern Ireland’s Parades Commission that permitted the Orange Order to march along their road, a Catholic enclave in the largely Protestant town, overturning an almost 30-year ban on the route.
A crowd gathered on the Garvaghy Road early on Sunday morning to protest against the ruling allowing the march. In the crowd were Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill, who is also vice president of the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party, and her party’s leader, Mary Lou McDonald, video posted on social media showed.
“Although the forces of darkness may want to stop us creating a new united Ireland, they will fail,” McDonald told a crowd of protesters in the clip, posted on X.
Carla Lockhart, a member of parliament from the Democratic Unionist Party, told reporters outside the court that it was up to Sinn Fein and other nationalist politicians to abide by the rule of law and allow the parade to pass through.
The original dispute over the route became one of the defining flashpoints of the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Annual attempts by the Protestant Orange Order to march through the area triggered unrest across the British-run region before the route was banned in 1998, the year the Good Friday Agreement largely ended the three decades of violence known as the “Troubles”.
The Parades Commission’s determination on Friday stipulated that a smaller-than-usual 35 people could take part in the march, that it should begin by 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and finish by 9:30 a.m. and that no supporters or bands would be allowed.
The commission had initially maintained its ban, but the High Court quashed that decision in August over a procedural error.
(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson, Writing by Graham Fahy and Padraic Halpin, Editing by Timothy Heritage and William Mallard)
