Parades Issue
Inter-communal tensions rise and violence often breaks out during the "marching season" when the Protestant Orange Order parades take place across Northern Ireland. The parades are held to commemorate William of Orange's victory in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, which secured the Protestant Ascendancy and British rule in Ireland. One particular flashpoint that has caused repeated strife is the Garvaghy Road area in Portadown, where an Orange parade from Drumcree Church passes through a mainly nationalist estate off the Garvaghy Road. This parade has now been banned indefinitely, following nationalist riots against the parade, and also loyalist counter-riots against its banning. In 1995, 1996 and 1997, there were several weeks of prolonged rioting throughout Northern Ireland over the impasse at Drumcree. A number of people died in this violence, including a Catholic taxi driver, killed by the Loyalist Volunteer Force, and three (of four) nominally Catholic brothers (from a mixed-religion family) died when their house in Ballymoney was petrol-bombed.
Disputes have also occurred in Belfast over parade routes along the Ormeau and Crumlin Roads. Orangemen hold that to march their "traditional route" is their civil right. Nationalists argue that, by parading through predominantly Catholic areas, the Orange Order is being unnecessarily provocative. Symbolically, the ability to either parade or to block a parade is viewed as expressing ownership of "territory" and influence over the government of Northern Ireland.
Read more about this topic: The Troubles
Famous quotes containing the words parades and/or issue:
“The era of long parades past an official podium filled with cold faces is gone. Celebrating is now a right, not a duty.”
—Lothar De Maizière (b. 1940)
“Your child...may not call you or other people names.... Don’t be tempted to gloss over this issue. You may be able to talk to yourself into not minding being called names, but this decision may come back to haunt you in later years. If you let a preschooler speak disrespectfully to you now, you’ll have a much harder time of it when your child is a preteen and the issue resurfaces, which it is likely to do then.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)