PORTADOWN, (United Kingdom): UK Prime Minister Andy Burnam urged “calm” Sunday as thousands of people rallied to block a pro-British Protestant march from passing through a mainly Catholic area for the first time in 28 years, triggering an hours-long standoff.
The tensions spiked after a Belfast court in the early hours of Sunday cleared the march by the Orange Order to go ahead for the first time since 1997.
The Parades Commission, Northern Ireland’s independent body regulating contentious processions, had authorised 35 Orangemen to march silently along Garvaghy Road in Portadown, without bands or supporters from 8:00 am (0700 GMT) Sunday.
But hours later the group of Orangemen remained blocked in a church, while about 2,000 local residents ignored torrential rain to fill the streets and bar their path.
Burnham appealed for “calm on all sides”, adding in an interview with BBC television that “big gains” had been made in Northern Ireland “and we don’t want to see things go backwards”.
Northern Ireland was blighted for three decades by conflict between largely Catholic, pro-Irish republicans and Protestant, pro-UK unionists, and the Garvaghy Road became a major flashpoint during the late 1990s.
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