The Orange Order's parade at Drumcree in Northern Ireland has passed off peacefully. Backed by thousands of supporters, the Portadown district lodge said that it would remain at Drumcree to protest the Parades Commission ban on the parade going down the mainly Nationalist Garvaghy Road. Earlier, Orange officials marched to the security barriers outside Portadown and tried to hand a letter of protest to the RUC, but it was not accepted. The Portadown District Secretary, Nigel Dawson, said that it was the first time in 104 weeks of protest that the RUC had refused to accept their letter.
In his address, the Portadown District Master Harold Gracey urged Orangemen to keep the protests peaceful. He criticised those who had attacked the Portadown district's call for protests over the past few days and urged Orangemen to resist the ecumenism which he claimed was attempting to destroy the Protestant faith. Security operations are now focusing on dealing with tonight at Drumcree and with expected demonstrations tomorrow. The Portadown Orangemen have called on other Orange institutions to join them in peaceful protests across the North on Monday. 100 Orangemen have already staged a protest outside the Northern Secretary Peter Mandelson's official residence at Hillsborough Castle.
Moments before Orangemen set off from Portadown this morning, prayers were said and Nigel Dawson read the determination by the Parades Commission forbidding them entry to the Garvaghy Road. Among those who joined the Portadown District Lodge for the parade were officials from the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, including United Unionist Assembly Member Denis Watson. The Orangemen were applauded as they made their way through the town centre with crowds lining both sides of the street. More Loyalists gathered to applaud at the Corcrain estate where a placard bearing the inscription: "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees" was on display.
There were minor disturbances overnight as protesters used catapults to target police officers across the barricade that has been erected to stop the march going down the Garvaghy Road. The RUC used water cannon to bring the protesters under control as a fire was started at the barricade and bottles were thrown. In an interview with Sky News, the former Grand Master of the Orange Order, the Reverend Martyn Smyth, blamed the Irish and British governments for the violence that had arisen from the Drumcree protest. The RUC are currently investigating an attack on an Orange Hall in County Tyrone. Fire damaged Ballybriest Hall near Cookstown early this morning, a few miles from Stewartstown RUC station where a bomb attack occurred.
The North's Minister for Agriculture, Brid Rodgers, said that the involvement of Loyalist paramilitaries in the Drumcree protests had created much fear within Nationalist areas throughout the North. She told RTÉ News that residents of the Garvaghy Road were extremely angry at the overnight car bomb attack on the RUC station in Stewartstown in County Tyrone, saying it is seen as an attempt to provoke reaction against the Nationalist community.
