DRUMCREE WAS BACK in the news this year, decades after the parading dispute in the North first made headlines.

This 12 July, which fell on Wednesday, was a celebration for thousands of people who took to the streets to cheer on and participate in parades that marked the 333rd anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne.

But many in Northern Ireland will remember the Drumcree Crises as a flashpoint for violence and anger during the marching season in the years leading up to the Good Friday Agreement, and into the turn of the century. 

In the years 1995, 1996, and 1997 – when Northern Ireland was on the cusp of the Good Friday Agreement – a disagreement over the route of an annual Orange Order march on the outskirts of Portadown in Co Armagh became a focal point of the late-stage Troubles that gained international media attention. 

The crises centred on a demand by the Orange Order to maintain its ‘traditional route’ along a stretch of road from the Episcopalian church of Drumcree and the majority Catholic Garvaghy Road – against the wishes of the residents – on the Sunday before the 12 July. 

Many people in Northern Ireland feel the dispute is something they never want to see repeated. It took years to de-escalate, and the riots that swept parts of the region after the actual event day brought terror on local communities. 

However, others feel there is still an injustice that, years on, there remains a stretch of road in the North where the Orange Order is not allowed to march. 

History of the Drumcree Dispute

The first Drumcree standoff happened ten months into an IRA ceasefire in 1995. 

Back then, as a result of the decision made by the Catholic residents of Garvaghy Road to stage a counter-demonstration, the Royal Ulster Constabulary ordered that the parade should be re-routed. 

After two days of riots in loyalist areas which saw the port of Larne blockaded, the RUC agreed to allow the parade to travel down the Garvaghy Road on 9 July, on the condition that it would do so without bands, and it wouldn’t return on 12 July. 

Though the residents stood out to peacefully protest against the decision, there were no serious incidents until the following year. 

The 1996 dispute took place in a specific social and political context.

In February that year, the IRA ended its seventeen month ceasefire with the bombing of Canary Wharf in London. In the aftermath of the bombing, the peace process became delayed by the issue of decommissioning. 

Orangemen involved in the parade in Drumcree were once again told not to proceed along the Garvaghy Road, but vowed that they would stay in place until the police blockade was disassembled. 

From 7 July to 10 July, the Orange Order led efforts to block many main roads in Northern Ireland. Some Catholic villages became cut off, and began to lack in food supplies. 

Riots continued in Loyalist areas, and on 10 July, an excavator was added to the ranks of the Orange Order who continued in their stand off with police forces in Drumcree. 

Then, in a shock decision on 11 July, the RUC decided to let the Order proceed down the Garvaghy Road, and footage was shown on the evening news of officers baton-charging a crowd of Catholic residents who were conducting a sit-in on the road. 

From 13 July onwards, huge riots broke out in Catholic areas, as Belfast and Derry saw some of the largest demonstrations take place since the 1981 hunger strikes.

A 35-year-old man, Dermot McShane, was crushed to death during Drumcree-related rioting in Derry. A 2008 inquest found that the British army was to blame.

The standoff continued in 1997 when it continued to be a tense affair, albeit less so than the previous year

The IRA had started to carry out bombings in Northern Ireland again, and loyalist paramilitary organisations carried out attacks without claiming them, all while political representatives met at the negotiating table in a bid to end the Troubles.

A newly appointed British Secretary of State tried to establish a compromise between the Orange Order and the Garvaghy residents but once again, security forces cleared the area to allow the procession to go through in the marching season.

The RUC pointed to the threat posed by the terrorist organisation, the Loyalist Volunteer Force. Violence once again spread through Catholic areas, with the IRA playing a more front-and-centre role at times. 

The Parades Commission made the decision to reroute the parade in Portadown away from the Garvaghy Road in 1998. 

The Book of Condolence for the three Quinn Brothers that were murdered in Ballymoney at the height of the Drumcree standoff in 1998, being signed outside the GPO.

In the same year, the tragic murder of the three boys, Jason (8), Mark (9) and Richard Quinn (10) occurred at the height of another Drumcree standoff on the 12 July.

Wednesday marked the 25-year anniversary of their murder. They were killed by a UVF firebomb attack in Ballymoney. The attack took place at a house they had moved into just six days prior with their mother Chrissie.

The following year, the RUC erected a 15-foot steel barricade, put hundreds of feet of barbed wire in place, and filled a ploughed field with water to separate police from protestors. 

When the Sunday morning rolled around, several members of the Portadown District Lodge paraded to the barrier, and delivered a letter of protest to RUC officers. 

‘Hate and intolerance’ 

This year was a far cry from those years of tension and violence, however. A march this week marking 25 years since the beginning of a new ban on marching down the Garvaghy Road passed off without incident.

That has not stopped some from seeking to earn political capital from the ban, however.

DUP MP Carla Lockhart was one of those who put forth such a message on the BBC’s ‘The View’ last Sunday.

“I want to see in my constituency a shared society, a shared constituency, where people are welcome in all parts of it, and I think it is a very sad day that, 256 years on from this dispute, we are still in the same situation where orange feet are not welcome on a particular stretch of road,” she said.

“I want to see a society where our culture is respected, and our identity is respected, and it is no big think to ask that the Garvaghy Road Residents Association enter into some form of mediation. 

“Unfortunately. for many many years their intransigence has actually been rewarded by the Parades Commission.”

The pushback to her comments from other politicians was immediate on social media. 

Alliance MLA Eóin Tennyson said that it was “mind-boggling” that an MP would “undermine the work of the Parades Commission and reignite this issue 25 years later”.

“The vast majority of people have moved on,” he said. 

The Orange Order, however, has also insisted that the dispute is not over: its Grand Secretary Mervyn Gibson believes the “Drumcree situation”, as he calls it, is “still here”.

“25 years, and everyone thinks its sorted. On the radio I was told it was ‘it’s not sorted, and we will remain here until there is a resolution’,” he said. 

But the protest that Orangemen carried out when they marched to police lines last Sunday was peaceful, and brief. 

There were no scenes of violence from the area like those that dominated news bulletins from 1995 to 2000. 

Many people within the wider unionist community are determined for the yearly event to be a peaceful and cultural celebration that no longer contains overtures of sectarian bigotry. 

Lockhart’s message on Drumcree received little support from other Unionist leaders. 

A motion she tabled in the House of Commons on 28 June, asking the parliament to express regret that the Parades Commission continues to “deny the brethren of Portadown… their traditional route”, was only signed by three of her DUP colleagues. 

Speaking on 12 July, UUP leader Doug Beattie also said that it is right for unionists to stop and reflect on “how hate and intolerance can bring out the worst in some”.