As Garvaghy Road Residents fought an all-day battle in the courts and mobilized in the streets to prevent a triumphal Orange Order march, last Saturday September 26th , Hibernians heard leading Irish experts explain what was at stake in a dramatic live webinar broadcast. With previously scheduled leader of the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition (GRRC) Breandan Mac Cionnaith made unavailable by the court hearings, Hibernians heard leading victims’ campaigner Mark Thompson, explain the deep feelings of nationalists, civil rights lawyer Niall Murphy update viewers on the legal issues, while Peadar Tobin TD, and member of the Good Friday Implementation Committee analyzed the politics, north and south. All three would join protestors on the Garvaghy Road later that evening. Hibernian participants were AOH President Sean Pender, Ladies AOH Freedom for all Ireland (FFAI) Chair, Rita O’Hara, and AOH FFAI Chair Martin Galvin, who moderated the program.
EARTHSHATTERING
The broadcast opened with a message from GRRC leader, Breandan Mac Cionnaith, sent around midnight on Friday evening, explaining that because of the shock ruling by the Parades Commission permitting a march, he would have to attend the Belfast High Court proceeding to overturn the ruling.
Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice called the unfolding events “earthshattering.” He noted there are thousands of Orange marches across the north each year, including marches in Portadown. This dispute involves a march to Drumcree Hill in which Orangemen walk directly to the Church without issue, but then demand to swing around, after the service to march triumphantly on the 98% nationalist Garvaghy Road, where 4,000 people have signed a petition against them.
After the first Drumcree march two centuries earlier, Orangemen had beaten to death two Catholic farmers. In the early 1990s, British troops and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, had beaten residents off the street to make way for the Orange Parade, including one where Official Unionist party head David Trimble, and Democratic Unionist Party head had danced a celebratory jig arm in arm.
LOYALIST COMMUNITY COUNCIL
From 1996-1999, 21 people were murdered including civil rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson, three young Quinn brothers, and Robert Hamill, kicked to death within view of an RUC Land rover. The prominent Gaelic Athletic Association official Sean Brown had been murdered at the height of the Drumcree dispute. The RfJ Chair quoted Breandan Mac Cionnaith as saying “this parade began with murder and thirty years ago ended in murder”.
In 1998, the newly appointed Parades Commission refused to allow a march and despite token annual protests by the Orange Order, the issue seemed settled for decades. Now due a procedural error, the Parades Commission block was reopened and in a shock ruling the commisssion gave the Orange Order permission to march.
The Orange Order has been directly allied with outlawed loyalist paramilitaries including the Ulster Defense Association, Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commandoes. In fact the Loyalist Community Council, representing these outlawed groups met with the Parade Commission. Mr. Thompson asked “why is the Parades Commission meeting and taking submissions from criminal groups who committed murders to force a march down the Garvaghy Road?”
RIGHTS DON’T MATTER
Mr. Thompson noted the shock decision by the Parades Commissionto allow a march after decades, “brought back all of the trauma, all of the heart break, all of the injustice of the past…it said to nationalists your rights don’t matter.”
There would now be questions about whether the Stormont Assembly, the Parades Commission or the PSNI Constabulary could ever be trusted to safeguard the rights of nationalists.
NIALL MURPHY
As the GRRC application was being argued in the Belfast High Court, civil rights lawyer Niall Murphy was not only able explain the legal issues, but was receiving updates on the arguments from the Courtroom. He explained that Parades Commission had been “sloppy” and guilty of a procedural error which led to its decision being overturned. However it seemed that the Orange Order was now using this procedural error to bludgeon the Commission into reversing itself.
An important factor in the decision was a formal recommendation by the PSNI Constabulary that the march could go ahead without public disorder. It then brought in 200 constables from Scotland and constabulary from around the north to deal with the threat to public disorder.
The solicitor correctly predicted that the High Court would issue an injunction but that this decision would be appealed to the Court of Appeal that evening in an emergency late night session. He said it was “a very dangerous day with implications that would carry across decades”.
Mr. Murphy said the Orange Order wanted to march on the Garvaghy Road, in an act of pure triumphalism to celebrate dominance at a time when the demographics in the north have completely changed and the leader of Unionism Jeffrey Donaldson is due to be sentenced for molesting children.
GFA IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE
Peadar Tobin TD, an elected member of the Irish parliament, party leader of AONTU, and an active member of the Dail’s Good Friday Implementation Committee said “it was impossible to understand the sheer terror and fear this is causing”. He had spoken to Garvaghy Road families “who were in tears because this march is steeped in murder, in terror and intimidation.”
These families believe that this parade is “the thin edge of the wedge in which Orangemen would seek larger parades in future and would use the ruling try to reopen marches blocked in other areas”.
The Dail representative will call on Taoiseach Micheal Martin to urge British Prime Minister Burnham stop the march and noted that the Troubles had been sparked in August 1969 when nationalists in Derry resisted a sectarian march.
All three speakers traveled to the Garvaghy Road that evening to join the protesters.
HIBERNIANS
The broadcast ended with reaction from Hibernians. AOH President Pender said that much of “what was happening was a reaction by the hard right within Unionism to changing demographics and growing support for Irish reunification”. He said “there are voices within the Protestant community who do not want this and are open to conversations about unity but they do not get the microphones”.
Rita O’Hara, said on behalf of Ladies AOH President Sandy Swift, “the LAOH stands with Garvaghy Road residents” and added that she was “personally appalled.”
Martin Galvin said,” Britain set up the six counties as an Orange state based on sectarian privilege. What is happening on the Garvaghy Road shows once again that this sectarian system remains a fundamental part of British rule.