Former SDLP Policing Board member Dolores Kelly has accused unionists of ‘overplaying their hand’ after the High Court quashed a decision to ban the Orange Order from marching through the nationalist Garavghy Road.
Ms Kelly, an ex-Upper Bann assembly member, was speaking after the Parades Commission conceded a procedural error in how it dealt with an annual application for permission to walk along the route in majority Catholic area of Portadown.
During a recent legal challenge it emerged that six members of the commission had signed off on the final determination before it was issued last month.
Loyalists and unionists have the declared the outcome a ‘seismic victory’ even though the Parades Commission says future decisions will not be impacted by a High Court ruling.
SDLP assembly member Dolores Kelly
The Drumcree Church parade has been banned from walking through the Garvaghy Road district since the late 1990s, when the dispute sparked violence and saw several loyalist murders, including the deaths of three children.
Ms Kelly served as a councillor in the old Craigavon area from 1993 and was a regular visitor to the Garvaghy Road during the years of the Drumcree protest, which began in 1995.
“I think it’s most unfortunate that this has been constructed, or put forward, as an issue because by and large many people regarded the Garvaghy Road settled,” she said.
“In fact, you can see it is very much a settled community that suffered as a consequence of the violence around Drumcree and how people had to live their lives, and the atmosphere they had to live in.
“We now see a thriving community and post primary school that is going from strength to strength.”
Ms Kelly said there has also been a growth in “mixed housing estates” where people from walks of life are “coexisting side by side”.
“I think there’s a bit of distraction politics going on from some parties who don’t want to be looking at what’s happening within….nor indeed the abject failure of the executive,” she said.
In recent days unionists have called for members of the Parades Commission to resign.
Ms Kelly said it “needs to be remembered” why the Parades Commission came into existence.
“It came into existence to take the decision making out of the hands of policing because the whole thing was purely toxic,” she said.
“There were commitments made by the then Secretary of State Mo Mowlam, those should be honoured.”
Ms Kelly recalls the fear that gripped the Garvaghy Road at the height of the Drumcree protests.
“People were afraid to go out,” she said.
“It was an atmosphere of fear and high tension.
“The constant drone of the helicopters for weeks on end above people’s houses, plastic bullets being fired, I remember it very well.
“I remember when there was actually a compromise reached and there was an agreement and Paisley and Trimble pranced down the road.”
Ms Kelly said she also remembers all those who lost their lives “as a direct consequences of the violence around Drumcree”.
She believes the Orange Order and its supporters have “overplayed their hand”.
“Carla Lochart (DUP MP) and the Orange Order have still to explain, other than saying it’s a traditional route, why they want to go down the Garvaghy Road, whenever there’s a perfectly reasonable return route for them.
“Why is it they want to disrupt their neighbours?”
The DUP and Orange Order were contacted.