It is reported that water cannons have been shipped into Northern Ireland ahead of Sunday's Drumcree Orange parade in Portadown. The RUC said that they had been borrowed from police in Belgium, and were being deployed to provide what police are describing as an additional flexible response. The leaders of the Garvaghy Road Residents and Portadown Orangemen are expected to have separate talks on the matter with Mr. Blair at Stormont.
Breandan MacCionnaith, of the Residents Association, has that, what he says is, a memo written by David Trimble's Chief of Staff, suggests that Orangemen would protest nightly for the next two years if they were not allowed through the Nationalist area on Sunday. He accused the British Government of appeasing the Orange Order. However, David Jones, of the Portadown District Orange Lodge, said that Orangmen intended to discuss the large security presence at Drumcree with Mr. Blair.
Mr. MacCionnaith said earlier that he was anxious that contacts between Tony Blair and the Portadown Orange Order could lead to a deal, before Sunday's banned parade. He claimed that residents had been deliberately excluded from discussions.
In Portadown, British soldiers are continuing to construct barbed wire defences around Drumcree Church. Hundreds of British troops have been sent to the North in preparation for the Drumcree parade in Portadown this weekend. Extra fortifications, including a huge “peace wall” have also been erected in the area in preparation for the flashpoint parade.
The Orange Order has been banned by the Parades Commission, for the second year running, from marching along the mainly-nationalist Garvaghy Road. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, met a delegation of Portadown Orangemen on Wednesday, led by District Master Harold Gracey, at Castle Buildings. The Orangemen described the 40-minute talks as “constructive”.
