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.<\/p>\n
Loyalists and unionists have the declared the outcome a \u2018seismic victory\u2019 even though the Parades Commission<\/a> says future decisions will not be impacted by a High Court ruling. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s most unfortunate that this has been constructed, or put forward, as an issue because by and large many people regarded the Garvaghy Road settled,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe now see a thriving community and post primary school that is going from strength to strength.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Kelly said there has also been a growth in \u201cmixed housing estates\u201d where people from walks of life are \u201ccoexisting side by side\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s a bit of distraction politics going on from some parties who don\u2019t want to be looking at what\u2019s happening within….nor indeed the abject failure of the executive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In recent days unionists have called for members of the Parades Commission to resign.<\/p>\n Ms Kelly said it \u201cneeds to be remembered\u201d why the Parades Commission came into existence.<\/p>\n \u201cIt came into existence to take the decision making out of the hands of policing because the whole thing was purely toxic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were commitments made by the then Secretary of State Mo Mowlam, those should be honoured.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Kelly recalls the fear that gripped the Garvaghy Road at the height of the Drumcree protests.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were afraid to go out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an atmosphere of fear and high tension.<\/p>\n \u201cThe constant drone of the helicopters for weeks on end above people\u2019s houses, plastic bullets being fired, I remember it very well.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember when there was actually a compromise reached and there was an agreement and Paisley and Trimble pranced down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Kelly said she also remembers all those who lost their lives \u201cas a direct consequences of the violence around Drumcree\u201d.<\/p>\n She believes the Orange Order and its supporters have \u201coverplayed their hand\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cCarla Lochart (DUP MP) and the Orange Order have still to explain, other than saying it\u2019s a traditional route, why they want to go down the Garvaghy Road, whenever there\u2019s a perfectly reasonable return route for them.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy is it they want to disrupt their neighbours?\u201d<\/p>\n The DUP and Orange Order were contacted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former SDLP Policing Board member Dolores Kelly has accused unionists of \u2018overplaying their hand\u2019 after the High Court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[9972,34517,3932,14,6880,5398,5,6],"class_list":["post-111879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-dup","tag-orange-order","tag-parades-commission","tag-politics","tag-portadown","tag-sdlp","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117164900647048957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"High](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/LTBFVFCEEZCB5GCV7CGG4KL6AQ.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787794406_788_ZL5JXOBY2BGA3CQWO2BJF452YA.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"SDLP](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IS2QBHU6BJNA3PNHATPB2RFMCU.jpg\")
SDLP assembly member Dolores Kelly <\/p>\n