The Orange Order has applied to march down Portadown’s Garvaghy Road on Sunday when Armagh compete in Sunday’s All-Ireland final
The DUP’s Carla Lockhart has described an application from the Orange Order to march down Portadown’s Garvaghy Road during Sunday’s All-Ireland football final as “forward-thinking”.
Since 1998, the Parades Commission has repeatedly told the Orange Order they could not march down the Garvaghy Road at the end of their annual march from Drumcree Church.
The Upper Bann MP denied the latest application from the Portadown Lodge was a stunt to increase tensions, calling the application “forward thinking”.
“I think it’s a positive attempt on the part of the Portadown District to complete their church parade which would consist of a 10-minute parade down the Garvaghy Road in ranks of four with two accordion bands, something they have been seeking to do for the past 26 years,” she told BBC Good Morning Ulster.
“They have been at the hill at Drumcree every Sunday – 52 Sundays in a year – and I believe this is a real opportunity for their civil and religious liberties to be upheld.”
She added: “Their assessment is right, most of the people on the Garvaghy Road – I would assume – will be cheering on and supporting the Armagh team.
“So I think this is a real forward-moving step and supporting the application and meeting the Parades Commission at 2pm today.”
Ms Lockhart then accused the Parades Commission of making “cut and paste determinations” over the years and failed in their legal obligation to facilitate mediation.
“This is an opportunity for the Parades Commission to do something different and for our culture and heritage to be respected.”
She also said that “demographic change” on the Garvaghy Road, including young families with no memory of the previous tensions, had changed the situation.
Former SDLP MLA Dolores Kelly called the application “absolutely crazy”.
“Talk about being chancers, and for Carla to suggest that this is because of demographic change.
“If she wants to talk about demographic change she should look at the route out to the church, which is actually now through quite a built up area.”
Saying the application was “picking at old wounds,” she said not too many would forget the worst years of Drumcree when “the British army and police were there en-masse.
“There was barbed wire across the fields where there were people killed.”
Ms Kelly continued: “I spoke to a senior member of the Orange Order a few years back.
“It wasn’t about just a return parade, it was about asserting a right. And Carla and others should realise that there’s no absolute right to march in any area.
“The desire of the Orange Order to march wherever they want, those days are long gone and they’re not going to be resurrected, regardless of any demographic change.
“It’s only going to be where there’s consultation, communication and good neighbourliness.
Calling it an act of “bad faith” from the Orange Order, she said Ms Lockhart would have better served her constituents by sharing her good wishes with the Armagh team.
On that point, Ms Lockhart said: “I don’t take any interest in it and I don’t follow it, I’ve obvious issues with the GAA around naming of clubs after republican terrorists, their constitution.
“But certainly, on a very local level I wish them well.”
by staghallows
38 comments
She really is a special kind of stupid, isn’t she?
What. A. Clown.
They manage to raise the irony levels every so slightly every day, it’s impressive
Is she the horsey looking cunt?
Carla was later seen walking to up and down her drive to deliver a motion, proposed and seconded by herself into her letterbox.
Trying to answer the age old question if a tree falls in the woods when no one is around does it make a noise? Is a sectarian march through a nationalist area really that sectarian if everyone’s away to or watching the all Ireland final?
What happens next year if Armagh don’t make the final?
The answer remains No Ms Lockhart, off you fuck with your abhorrent views.
she really is a shit
You don’t get to have a veto on which pride parades walk up your street
This cunt personally blocked Irish language signage in an estate down this very road only weeks ago and now comes out with this civil & religious liberties muck!
Swear to fuck the mental gymnastics these fucking clowns play would win Gold/Silver/Bronze everytime at the Circus Olympics!
This is an innovative application. Those that don’t want to participate will be at or listening to the GAA final anyway, so I don’t understand what the problem is.
My suggestion is that they can walk down the road but they have to play rebel tunes – a fair compromise that annoys everyone /s
“This is an opportunity for the Parades Commission to do something different and for our culture and heritage to be respected.”
nope, this is about pure and utter domination. 99.9% of parade commission determinations go their way. that last 0.1% does not and it becomes a culture and heritage and respect shit show. They are not happy with 99.9%, they will stomp their feet until they get 100%. Fuck off Lockhart. You would not know about respect for culture even if it slapped you up the face.
The haunted fascist needs to go back to her coffin.
Looks like theres neigh chance it’s going down that road..the Orange Order can do one..that horse has bolted.
WE WANT THE LIBERTY TO TRAMPLE OVER DIRTY FENIANS AND FOREIGN NATIONALS SO WE DO.
Fuck off.
Allow the march to be completed, but only by the Artane Band and the only song allowed is The Sunday Game theme.
Compromise.
Equal opportunity zoom crop
https://preview.redd.it/5jowysw1khed1.jpeg?width=677&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ef355bf7cdc217052e26723b0c1c94272baff7e
Every time i see post about this nonsense i think to myself, what would/will it be like if there was a united ireland and nationalists decided to mark and celebrate the date by marching through unionist areas?
Id love to hear their reasons for why it shouldnt happen
Just remove policing from contentious parades and the cowards will be nowhere to be seen.
Ah yes, the best source of knowledge
“I assume”
Great
Is it aye
But the real question is, could she could eat an apple through a tennis racquet?
enjoyed the interview with the OO fella yesterday. When asked if they weren’t just being opportunist said no & proceeded to explain how they were just taking the opportunity……
Stooge
Why are they asking Dolores Kelly and not an SF rep? SDLP totally rejected by people of the G Road last three elections.
All wearing Armagh tops?
Political posturing on ol faithful, drumcree. Wish a lot more Unionists would speak out and say, get fucked. Now what about waiting lists????
Orange Order and forward-thinking aren’t words that belong in the same sentence.
https://preview.redd.it/yb5qpwhl1ied1.png?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=643cf94437b7c3a3213458b91ae2b6038e816cf6
No.
Drumcree escalated to the point of these three young boys being murdered and having their lives cut short. That prompted condemnation from all over the world.
Violence throughout this country too.
So Carla you fuck off wanting to march down that road again. You can keep on applying until every last member of that fucking lodge draws their last breath and it dies too.
She’s so hateful. Slightly ironic that her constituency office has ‘Everyone Welcome’ plastered above the door.
This cunt refused to shake hands with Catherine Seeley because she was a (at the time) unelected member of the public and catholic, teaching at a protestant school. She refused to shake hands specifically because *and* during Catherine being inundated with death threats from Jamie Bwyson and Willie Frazers ilk of loyalist troglodytes.
Now **that** is forward thinking, and evidence Of Carla being a voice of authority on such matters.
It’s only forward thinking in the sense that the proposed marchers intend to walk forwards.
The logic of this is so daft. It’s like something a child would come up with. ‘Dur, them fenians like that there gaelic so we can sneak past when they’re watching it’
Just enjoy the match and fucking ignore them. They’ll be furious if no one cares.
She is just a horrible person
Scundered de a hundred…
What a bunch of weirdos…
She’s as bright as a power cut. I’d put more faith in Jolene Bunting’s spelling.
Your reminder that the hideous harridan Lockhart lives on her big farm outside Fivemiletown Co.Tyrone, far away from the council estates of Portadown and Lurgan.
I don’t know how some people go out and vote for an evil cunt like her, then a few weeks later tell a survey that they support ‘integrated education’.
Does her bigotry absorb all the nutrition from her food?