Home News WATCH: Garvaghy Road stand-off continues
STANDOFF: Police prevent Orange Order members from lproceeding down Drumcree Road on Monday Thomas McMullan

WATCH: Garvaghy Road stand-off continues

News September 29, 2026 by Aodhán Ó Baoill

THE stand-off at Drumcree continued on Monday and into Tuesday morning as protesters lined the Garvaghy Road and police prevented Orange Order members from departing Drumcree Church. 

Jamie Bryson, legal advisor to the Portadown District, said that he hopes "the law is applied" and that "the law has determined that the parade should proceed"

Referring to Jon Boutcher, Mr Bryson said that "as Chief Constable of the Police he is responsible for what they do, so he probably should consider his position".

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Sinn Féin MP for North Belfast, John Finucane, told our sister paper in Belfast, the Andersonstown News that 28 years of peace on the Garvaghy Road "must be protected" and questioned why the Orange Order seek to "open one of the darkest chapters of our history".

"It's important that we do revisit what this is all about. I'm not from this area, but I felt that in the 1990s. The fear, the threat, the intimidation. I watched as twenty-one people were murdered right across our society as a result of the violence and tension at Drumcree."

'SPARTANS': A refreshment station on the Garvaghy Road was doing steady business at 9pm on Monday evening

'SPARTANS': A refreshment station on the Garvaghy Road was doing steady business at 9pm on Monday evening

Mr Finucane said he had spoken to families who have a memory of the "hurt and fear", but that he was also struck by the generation who had no memory of Garvaghy Road (in the 1990s), and who had "enjoyed twenty-eight years of peace".

"The time ahead needs to be walked through very carefully," he continued. "We believe in the Good Friday Agreement. 

He said that the DUP had "put themselves in lockstep with right-wing loyalism and the Orange Order". He asked why the Orange Order "sees to re-traumatise this community" and that the Drumcree dispute "touches something quite deep right across this society and across the island and around the world".

Gerard Rice from the Lower Ormeau Resident's Action Group in South Belfast said that the Ormeau Road has also "suffered at the hands of sectarianism", and that following the Good Friday Agreement, "our children were promised the right to live free from sectarian harassment".

"Fundamentally, the Orange Order is a sectarian organisation," he said, "People power is going to prevail. There was no threat of violence from the residents of Garvaghy Road, but equally, there was no tolerance on the Garvaghy Road for sectarianism. Sectarianism has no place in our society."

Desmond Trainor, a resident of the Garvaghy Road, said he is "concerned for his community and how (the current situation) it is affecting them".

"There has been great community cohesion," he said, "and it's great to see people coming out to support this community."

Speaking about being back on the road twenty-eight years later after the last dispute, Mr Trainor said that people of the Garvaghy Road are the "Spartans of their day".

"No more marches. Never again," he said.

The spokesperson for the Garvaghy Road Resident's Coalition, Breandán Mac Cionnaith, met with the Secretary of State Chris Bryant MP on Monday afternoon, with Mr Mac Cionnaith telling reporters that here's no consent for an orange march through the community, and that any mediator would have to be someone from outside the UK and Ireland with international experience. 

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