Drumcree - Here we go... again
In Portadown, they are already calling it Drumcree Four. Here in northern Ireland's sectarian flashpoint, the battle lines in the unionist camp are clearly drawn.
Post referendum, and facing into volatile Assembly elections, Ulster hard-liners see Drumcree 1998 as their Alamo. They are determined to march their “ traditional route,” regardless of any decision by the Parades Commission to re-route the march away from the mainly Catholic Garvaghy Road. Portadown nationalists are equally determined to stop Orange feet parading down Garvaghy Road on July 5. They have decided, for the first time, to open up their protest to nationalists throughout Ireland. Here, where anger is still fresh over last year's traumatic events, this is the acid test of the Good Friday Agreement. “If it means anything,” said one Garvaghy Road woman, “it means equality, justice and parity of esteem. And that means no Orange marches down Garvaghy Road, ever again.”
“We will never again be looked upon as the least worst option,” added Cllr Breandán MacCionnaith, referring to last year's forced march down Garvaghy Road after RUC Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan bowed to the threat of loyalist violence.
Few in Portadown—including moderates on both sides—believe a formula can be found to prevent a repeat of the violent confrontations of previous years that made Portadown a byword for sectarianism and bigotry world-wide. Due to take place just nine days after the Northern Assembly elections, many including the UUP Lord Mayor of Craigavon, Kenneth Twyble, fear Drumcree has the capacity to de-stabilise the political situation, and possibly even derail the Agreement. “I am pessimistic. Both sides have become so intransigent that it's extremely difficult to find a solution that doesn't seem to be giving a victory to the other side. I am not confident that Drumcree is going to be any different this year,” he said. If Drumcree explodes into violence yet again, the net result could either make the new Northern Assembly unworkable or, “could bring it down,” says Twyble. Last year, when Unionists got the go ahead to return down Garvaghy Road, Twyble reckons they should have seized the moral high ground by not exercising it. The Orange Order's refusal to negotiate with Garvaghy Road residents, combined with the fact the Parades Commission will not announce its decision on Drumcree until July 1—five days before the event-makes another Drumcree crisis almost inevitable, concedes Twyble. “We're into brinkmanship again,” he sighed. “By this stage you would need to see movement on both sides, but I don't see any. Last year, Mo Mowlam came down waving her arms indicating that she was going to solve the problem overnight. We can't have a repeat of that. There is too much at stake now.” In Portadown town centre, where the militant Protestant Orange Order was founded, supporters of the paramilitary Loyalist Volunteer Force and the DUP plastered posters of UUP party leader, David Trimble, on various shops and lamp posts. Underneath is the caption: ‘“The Union is safe”—So was the Titanic'. Ivor Young, a former British Army soldier, and founder member of the Concerned Protestants Committee (CPC) says Unionists “will march the Queen's Highway” on July 5 or die in the attempt. “If they (The Parades Commission) were foolish enough to re-route the march, it would lead to a bad situation. There'll be no re-routing. We've given enough away, it's the only march we have left. When the Ulster man's back is against the wall, he'll fight,” he said. In a downstairs room in Young's terraced house lies a bundle of the Trimble/Titanic posters. Post referendum, the CPC (which according to Young has no paramilitary connections) sees Drumcree as Trimble's Achilles heel and say he would be a “foolish man” to attend this year's Orange march. “In 1996 Trimble donned a collarette and sash, but he'll not be wanted this year. He sold us out,” says Young. “There is unionist anger at David Trimble” acknowledged Kenneth Twyble, who supported Trimble in his Yes campaign. “There are many who believe he has gone more then a step too far. I personally believe he has put his future on the line. But it's important to remember there are elements behind the Drumcree affair—like Joel Patton and the IRA—who are using it for their own agendas.” Joel Patton, of the Spirit of Drumcree Group says bluntly: “Drumcree is a watershed. There are now two kinds of unionism, the pragmatic unionists and the siege mentality unionists.” It is clear that Drumcree has become a mirror image of the split in unionism. What was previously a focal point for unionism, has now become a rallying point for the anti-Agreement camp. Among the hard-line groups expected to support the Orange Order at Drumcree are the DUP, LVF, the Spirit of Drumcree and the CPC. “The situation is more volatile this year”, says Patton. “The Agreement is worse than they say. There is no recognition of the cultural identity of Orange parades. All the language in the Agreement is about the island of Ireland.
There's no mention of loyalists' British identity. The Ancient Order of Hibernians gave up their traditional parades in favour of a more aggressive culture-the GAA.” Referring to the recent march in Dunloy, which went ahead with the approval of nationalists, Patton claims nationalists may tactically allow Orange parades through “for a year or two,” but opposition would soon flare up again.
To the objective outsider, it seems incongruous that Drumcree Church, perched at the top of a hilly road, overlooking serene countryside and the town of Portadown could be the scene of so much violent confrontation. Indeed, there may never have been a Drumcree one, two or three if the Drumcree parade had been re-routed in 1985, when every other parade through the nationalist “tunnel” area of Portadown was re-routed under the auspices of the impending Anglo-Irish Agreement.
During the tumultuous years of 1985, 1986 and 1987 when unionist opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement was at its zenith, riots inevitably accompanied the re-routing of marches in Portadown. Such was the intensity of the rioting at this time, Keith White became the first Protestant victim of a plastic baton round, when he was hit during clashes over the banning of an Apprentice Boys Parade in Portadown on the March 31, 1986. A leading nationalist politician said: “the Drumcree Parade should have been axed then, as they were going to riot anyway and security wise it would have made no difference.”
When nationalists allude to Catholic murders, Orangemen in Portadown refer to the death of Keith White. His death is inextricably linked to the signing of the “insidious” Anglo-Irish Agreement and partly explains why Unionists regard Drumcree One as their first victory against the 1985 Agreement. At the time of White's killing, the then local MP Harold McCusker expressed his shock on learning that the RUC were shooting at the Protestant Ulster people. He then went on to infamously state: “Up till now, I thought the claim that plastic bullets kill was just Republican propaganda, but now I know different.”
Prior to the re-routing in 1985, the Orangemen paraded each year nine times along Obins Street, a small nationalist enclave in Portadown.
Each year, on Drumcree Sunday—a week before the 12th July—the Orangemen paraded up Obins Street on the outward journey to a religious service in Drumcree Church and returned along the Garvaghy Road. On the 12th July, the Portadown lodge paraded along Obins Street to meet up with neighbouring country bands who then marched back up the same Catholic street, whereupon they boarded buses which whisked them off to wherever that year's festivities were being held. In the evening, the Portadown lodge would then accompany the country bands back up Obins Street, bid them farewell before rounding off the day's proceedings by walking back up the nationalist street.
This coat-trailing exercise was repeated on the 13th July and when unionists allude to Orangemen jettisoning nine marches in Portadown, they are referring to their marching up and down a Catholic street four times on the 12th and 13th July respectively to meet their country brethren who could have made their way to the town via another route. Since the building in the mid 60s of the Corcrain Road parallel to Obins Street, Obins Street was no longer the main road out of this part of Portadown.
The ninth march, which commenced on 12th July1987, was scrapped in 1995 as Orangemen considered it too provocative a few days after the first Drumcree stand-off.
A seasoned observer in Portadown believes that the 1,700 strong Portadown district Orange Lodge is caught between Loyalist extremists and the majority of Orangemen, who deplore any kind of conflict with the RUC. But the bomb planted by the Continuity IRA in February that destroyed the town centre has strengthened the unionist resolve to march down the Garvaghy Road.
“We are having our normal church service on July 5 and we are marching our traditional route,” said spokesman David Jones. “If the march is banned or re-routed, Orangemen plan to assemble at Garvaghy Road and deal with the situation as it unfolds. “The Orange Order will not walk away from confrontation. The Order never sets out to break the law, but it's a bad law that contravenes civil and religious liberty,” he said. Jones said the Order would not negotiate with nationalists, because they feel they “have given too many concessions already.
“Over the years the nature of the marches has changed, in recent times we haven't played (bands) at all and we now march six deep to make it pass quicker.” The Order has previously refused to negotiate on the grounds that the Resident's spokesman Breandán Mac Cionnaith has “a paramilitary past”. However, nationalists retort that the leader of the Portadown lodge, Harold Gracey, happily shared a platform with the late Billy Wright who was implicated in the murder of Catholics in mid-Ulster.
Jones repeated the Unionists' mantra that there's much ado about a 10-minute religious march. In reality, the marching season in Portadown runs from May through to late August. This year, it kicked off with a march and a rally by the “Women of Portadown” in support of their “menfolk's right” to parade down Garvaghy Road on July 5. Some 30 rallies and marches are planned in the run up to Drumcree. It was after such rallies that the murders took place of Catholics Michael Mc Goldrick, Robert Hamill and most recently Adrian Lamph.
Robert Hamill was kicked to death in Portadown centre in May 1997 by a loyalist mob that delighted in screaming “Kill the Fenian bastard.” What was particularly galling to nationalists is the fact that this killing took place within feet of a parked RUC Land Rover with four fully armed officers inside it. The four have not been suspended from duty and in a complete departure from procedure some of them were allowed off duty without making a statement on the incident. “The rallies whip up anti-Catholic feelings. Every time this happens, it makes the town a no go area for Catholics”, said a young father of four, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals. “Outside of the marching season, the centre of the town is safe for nationalists to go during business hours, but after that we daren't go near the town. When the marches start, we can't even go in during the day. We're locked into a ghetto,” he said.
Portadown's nationalist population of some 6,000 is outnumbered by the unionist population by four to one. To them, the Drumcree parade cannot be viewed in isolation from their relationship with the town itself. In 1996, 25 per cent of the residents of the Garvaghy Road were unemployed for five years or more and 50 per cent were unemployed for over one year. In contrast, unemployment for the whole Portadown area was only nine to ten per cent.
In the workplace, those nationalists with jobs claim they are subjected to taunts and name-calling, especially as the marching season draws closer. In many ways they perceive themselves as a community within a community, as the library and the Swimming pool are located in the Protestant side of town.
In 1984, at a time when Orange Marches were permitted to pass through nationalist areas with impunity, a St Patrick's Day parade was re-routed on the Garvaghy Road, near King Street which has a small smattering of 30 to 40 Protestant houses. The residents of this area objected to the parading of the tri-colour—a foreign flag—and so the march was halted in its tracks. This incident hardened nationalist resolve and reinforced the feeling that they were second-class citizens in their own town. Protestants could march at will through Catholic areas but Catholics could not march along a predominately Catholic area.
The Garvaghy Road is for the most part a highly politicised community, whose members spent four weeks discussing the Good Friday deal in the run-up to the referendum. “This community wants to say yes to peace and No to the Orange Order,” is how one woman in the Garvaghy Road community centre summed up the nationalist mood. “We're looking at how Garvaghy Road is going to affect the Assembly, but more importantly, how the Assembly will affect Garvaghy Road.”“If the Agreement stands for anything, it stands for consent. When that community doesn't give its consent and the march is forced through anyway, that is an abuse”, said another. “Both governments need to wake up to the fact that there's an explosive situation in Portadown. This community has suffered for years and those who say ‘compromise, let the march through' are asking this community to keep on suffering. We had it in ‘95, ‘96 and ‘97. We're not going to sit back and get humiliated again in 1998.” The women argue that Drumcree has less to do with religion than with triumphalism and domination. “It's about letting us know who runs this town, you feel like you're lying on the ground and they (Orangemen) are trampling over you,” said another woman who, like others in the centre, asked not to be identified.
It was in this community centre on May 6, that residents voted by more than four to one in favour of extending their protests to outsiders. But as seasoned observers pointed out, there would be little enthusiasm among the Republican leadership for widespread confrontation at Drumcree, with the possibility of nationalist anger spilling over into other areas of the north. According to a local reporter, the mass mobilisation of nationalists on the streets is a scenario they would actively try to prevent, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the elections. Just how much influence they could bring to bear though is debatable. “They wouldn't do it publicly, but they would get the message down through the usual channels,” said a senior Sinn Féin member. “Some would listen and not go to Drumcree, but not everyone would. A lot would go anyway”. Among those fully supportive of the nationalist protest is a disillusioned Protestant woman, who believes republican paramilitaries should strike at the economic heart of Portadown. “I am against violence, but each year, just at that moment when the march passes through I say, ‘I wish they'd blow the fuck out of Portadown',” she told Magill. “As long as no one gets hurt, I wouldn't care if they blew it to hell.”
Given past experience, Garvaghy Road residents believe it will be nationalists who will once again be the target of the security forces' batons and plastic bullets if the situation descends into conflict. In 1995, after a stand-off between the residents and marchers, a compromise was reached, which involved the marchers passing silently through hushed lines of nationalist protesters. But in the immediate aftermath of that compromise, David Trimble danced down the centre of Portadown hand in hand with Ian Paisley and exulted: “There was no compromise.”
This inevitably made compromise more difficult in 1996. In July 1996 RUC Chief Constable Hugh Annesley initially supported the residents, ruling that the Orange Order could not march down the Garvaghy Road. During a five day standoff, loyalists blockaded roads, shut down airports, killed one Catholic and burned hundreds out of their homes. In the face of this loyalist rioting, Annesley reversed his decision and scenes of the RUC beating unarmed protesters off the streets sparked some serious nationalist rioting in Belfast and Derry.
Last year, a leaked document known as the “gameplan document” established that the Parades Commission chairman Alastair Graham, together with Mo Mowlam and Ronnie Flannagan, had decided to force the parade along the Garvaghy Road on June 20, a week before proximity talks at Hillsborough involving the Garvaghy Residents Association, the Secretary of State and the Orange Order. This leak and the failure of Mo Mowlam to keep her word and tell the residents personally of the decision to force the march through has hardened attitudes on the Garvaghy Road in regard to this year's march. Breandán Mac Cionnaith wants the RUC not to bow to loyalist brute force this year but, as he told the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in a recent meeting in Dublin, Mac Cionnaith has “little faith in this happening.” Mac Cionnaith gave Bertie Aherne a transcript of a TV interview with Ronnie Flanagan due to be screened in the US after Drumcree which is said to contain references to the security situation in Drumcree. Nationalists who have seen it have drawn the inference that the RUC will again yield to loyalist pressure if Orangemen defy a Parades Commission ban.
Nationalists also have a jaundiced view of the Parades Commission, arising partly from the controversial appointment of two Catholics with links to the police authority, but also due to statements by its chairman Alistair Graham. In a 1997 televised interview, Graham said a “controlled march down Garvaghy Road was the best option,” and afterwards said he was “pleased it passed off without incident”. As one observer put it: “Graham has put his foot in it so often he has nowhere left to put it.” Parades Commission spokesman, Richard Gordon, denied that a preliminary decision had been made to re-route the march back down Corcrain Road, but that the report had been delayed so as not to infuriate unionists before the referendum. “We have not yet made a formal determination. When we have, we will announce it five days before the parade, as is normal for contentious parades, along with a background report.” The main factors that will influence the decision are: disruption to the community; impact on community relationships; compliance with the code of conduct; possible public disorder; a viable alternative route; the right to march a traditional route. SDLP member, Brid Rogers contends that the Garvaghy route contravenes five out of the six factors and, consequently should be re-routed.“At some stage there must be a recognition of what we are doing to our society,” said PUP leader, David Ervine. “There are those on both sides who are hell bent on causing mayhem and there seems to be a lack of preparedness by both traditions to compromise. Protestants perceive (re-routing) as a subjugation of our culture. They say it's only a 20-minute march, it passes in silence. I believe the passing of the Agreement will create a different climate, as it contains the methodology by which these and other differences can be resolved.
“But whether this year's Drumcree will be diffused, I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.”