Northern Ireland's Protestant, pro-British Orange Order was set to parade through a mainly Catholic and nationalist area on Sunday, marking the first time such a march has been allowed through Garvaghy Road in Portadown since 1997. The decision came after a series of last-minute legal challenges that reached Belfast's High Court overnight, which ultimately ruled in favor of allowing the parade to proceed.

Thirty-five members of the Orange Order are to march silently through Garvaghy Road, without any bands or other Order supporters participating. Despite the scaled-back nature of the march, about 2,000 people gathered on the street Sunday morning in a counterprotest to prevent it from taking place. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for "calm on all sides." In a BBC interview, he said "big gains" had been made in Northern Ireland "and we don't want to see things go backwards."

Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill, a member of the Irish republican Sinn Fein party, spoke out against the decision to allow the march. "Our message tonight is clear. There is no going back. Not tomorrow. Not ever," she said, also voicing her support for local residents to protest against the march, which she labeled "unwanted" and "sectarian." Carla Lockhart, an MP from the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party, countered that local residents have nothing to fear from "thirty five men walking down a road silently and with no bands and in an orderly fashion."

Garvaghy Road was one of the epicenters of the conflict between Catholic, pro-Irish republicans and Protestant, pro-British unionists in the late 1990s. Back then, clashes between residents and the marchers repeatedly triggered disorder, also known as the Drumcree dispute. As part of the Good Friday Agreement, a deal signed in 1998 that largely ended three decades of conflict between the two sides known as the Troubles, an entity was established to regulate contentious processions named The Parades Commission.

The Commission repeatedly rejected the Orange Order's requests to march through the area, with a High Court ruling quashing the rejection this year due to a procedural error. The Order then issued a fresh application, which was approved. The march is proceeding amid heightened tensions, with political leaders and local residents deeply divided over the decision.

Source: www.dw.com