Drumcree and ‘The Right to March’: Orangeism, Ritual and Politics in Northern Ireland

Abstract

In characterisitic style the Reverend Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), suggested that the future of Northern Ireland lay in the right of members of the Orange Order to parade back from their annual Boyne commemoration church service along the Garvaghy Road, a predominantly Catholic, nationalist area of Portadown in County Armagh. Members of the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Group were holding a protest in the road against the parade. The service had been held during the middle of the previous day, a Sunday, and when the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) blocked their return route, the members of the Portadown District Lodge decided that they would remain on the road until they were allowed down. So began what became known as the Siege of Drumcree. There were violent clashes between the RUC and loyalists. Eventually, after mediation, an agreement, the nature of which is still contested, was arrived at to allow the parade along the road and back into Portadown. When the marchers reached Portadown, Ian Paisley and David Trimble, the local Ulster Unionist MP, joined the parade and held their arms aloft in celebration. Their message was that they had won a victory.

If we cannot go to our place of worship and we cannot walk back from that place of worship then all that the Reformation brought to us and all that the martyrs died for and all that our forefathers gave their lives for is lost to us forever. So there can be no turning back.

Reverend Ian Paisley — speech outside Drumcree Church, 9 July 1995