The Orange Lodge in Portadown are insisting on their right to march down the Garvaghy Road when they return from a service commemorating the Battle of the Boyne at Drumcree Church. The Garvaghy Road is home to many Catholics who feel intimidated and humiliated by the triumphalism demonstrated in the past by the Orange Order marchers.
There is an alternative route for the march available to the Orange Order that has been used since the violent confrontations of the 1980s. Why that route has not been adopted by the marchers as their new permanent route seems like petulance.
The other way of looking at it is that a small group of nationalists in Portadown are thwarting the tradition of the majority unionist population.
To outsiders, this may look like a trivial dispute, but it has the potential to ignite ancient hostilities born out of bigotry and hatred. The precarious peace process is at stake. All the gains of negotiations and mediation could be undone unless cool heads find a compromise solution.
The legal process may have let down the residents of the Garvaghy Road, but the Orange Order could adopt a more conciliatory approach and voluntarily use the alternative route.
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