With their protest now in its eleventh month, Orangemen held another token march today outside the County Armagh Church. This week, they took part in two days of proximity talks chaired by the Scottish trade union official appointed by Tony Blair. He had suggested a march down the Garvaghy Road this year, but a re-routed march thereafter. The pill was to be sweetened by substantial grants for the order and a commemorative field and heritage centre.
However, the order said that it would not be bought off and accused the talks chairman, Frank Blair, of bias. Orange spokesman, David Jones, left a question mark over the Order’s continued involvement in the talks, which were due to reconvene later this week.
SDLP Assembly member Bríd Rodgers warned against, what she called, a quick fix solution to the Drumcree crisis. She said that the real problem was about poisoned relations within Portadown and she called on the local Orange Order to wind down their activities, which she said were helping to create the conditions for sectarian bitterness.
The Sinn Féin President has said that the onus is very clearly on Tony Blair and the British Government to uphold the rights of the people of the Garvaghy Road. Gerry Adams said that the beleaguered community had suffered greatly at the hands of Orange fundamentalists and the killing of Mrs. O'Neill was the latest in a series of killings in the area.
There was, however, some good news today: Nationalists in the Ormeau Rd. said they'd embarked on a series of face to face meetings with the Loyalist Apprentice Boys to promote understanding of each other’s positions in the North’s other parade flash-point. It seems that, as difficulties in Drumcree pile up, the parades row in Belfast is set to be resolved.
