Following some feedback on the previous Megathread about the number of comments to wade through, this shall be a new Megathread for use.
Due to the amount of engagement on the subreddit following developing news about the ongoing Drumcree/Garvaghy Road situation, and to keep the subreddit from ending up with multiple posts related to the same issue, we're using a Megathread.
Continuing on from the previous one and for the foreseeable, this thread is to be used for any Garvaghy Road/Drumcree related discussion, news, memes etc.
This frees up the subreddit for business as usual posts, so they will not to be drowned out.
Otherwise?! Complaining? This thread.
Enjoying? This thread.
Meming? This thread.
LARPing, as Bryant or otherwise? This. Thread.
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Some posts can be given exemptions, e.g. big news, but this will be up to mod discretion if you feel your post deserves an exemption please contact us via modmail rather than replying here. Thank you!
•Nolan show (30/9) saw Jamie Bryson, Jon Burrows (UUP Leader & MLA), Jonathan Buckley (DUP MLA), Gerry Carroll (PBP MLA) and Dessie a resident of the Garvaghy Road attended for a discussion. Honourable mentions:
Jonathan Buckley shoehorning immigration in while talking to and claiming that Gerry Carroll uses distraction politics.
Jon Burrows referencing that years ago they didn't need to have police present as the OO would march down to the line and then call up the peelers to come and stop them from marching beyond the line.
•Carla Lockhart attended the orange fund fair in Portadown last night (30/9) stating the OO were not going to accept the deal and claimed that the Chief Constable and SoSNI were risking pushing NI into an abyss.
•The Orange Order had another march to the police lines last night (30/9). Vengaboys - YouTube
•SoSNI left NI for another engagement in England, but has since returned this evening with talks expected with delegations tonight/tomorrow (1/10-2/10)
•The legal challenge to prevent the march by Garvaghy Road residents is postponed until Monday (5/10). Originally meant to be heard tomorrow (Fri 2/10), it was postponed to allow for further talks in Hillsborough.
•Gavin Robinson claims Sinn Féin have given up on devolution.
The next issue is the legitimacy of the Parades Comission.
I can see the remaining members standing down after this debacle. However it's very unlikely we get the support from both sides to see it go back up. This vacuum could cause issues with the approval or rejections for parades in the future.
Honestly every single thing she said in that statement is indicative of the wrong side. Love to see it. Fuck her and the horse she rode in on. No, I don't mean Carla, you gowls
You're not aware of this dose? She's Irish, from republican background but is pro unionist, pro OO and pro Israel. Hard to think of anyone you could despise more. She's a mix of Carla, Jamie with some Maria Cahill on top.
The radio interview with Sarah McInerney is a thing of wonder. And great mirth. She tore him apart.
Wonder of he had his Barbara wig on during it. Though the moustache may have given him away.
It’s like a that officer has just discovered a time travelling tribe of inbreds who’ve arrived via wormhole from the 90s whose only only words are “we only wanna go home lak but fuckin taigs”
Whats everyone’s predictions for the upcoming weeks?
I cant see anything but it being overturned in the courts this week. The idea that there is no objection is absurd and clearly on show and there is no way it cant be anything but an overturn.
Nobody has the stomach for anything to escalate after so many years of peace Vs how it was in the past. It won't settle anytime soon either so more of the same of the last week.
I predict that the ruling won't get overturned and this will basically be a slow burning stalemate that will continue for a long time. The order will organise a march every Sunday, which will be blocked by the police. The police operation will be scaled back (they already are from what I gather) so costs aren't completely unsustainable. The march simply will not get down the road, the window for that was basically Sunday morning, now there's far too much political pressure for that as a possibility.
I feel if the march doesn't happen they'll double down on prosecuting people who blocked the road to save face. They have to show some semblance that they respect the law after all.
They won’t overturn it on its legal merits, as courts don’t want to overturn the PC’s decision, but what the residents can argue is how the PC interpreted what the PSNI had said. Which seems likely given that their appeal alleges that the Commission “materially misdirected itself” about the police assessment of disorder and did not accurately represent the evidence it received.
Do we know if the most recent police assessment differed from what it supplied to the PC on previous occasions or did the PC interpret the same advice differently on this occasion?
Is the current fiasco the fault of the PC or of the Chief Constable?
Apparently they provided a range of scenarios and responses they had prepared, from serious disorder to a peaceful march. The PC interpreted that as 'no specific information about disorder or violence'. So you could blame either or both tbh.
It was fucking obvious there would be disorder if it went ahead given the history involved, so it was disingenuous of the PSNI to present 'the march goes ahead peacefully' as an equally likely outcome. On the other hand the PC should know that without needing to be told.
I think PC is more to blame, should have asked for more information from the CC but it was the Commission who made the decision, can the court recommend a review of the PC's workings or better still an inquiry?
Must be getting old - can't read the text on the image on my phone at full zoom. Here's the (Ai-generated) transcript for anyone else:
Three little boys were sleeping in their beds just after 4am when a car slowed down in front of their home and the petrol bomb thrown from it burned them to death. It was 1998, July 12th, the apex of triumphalism in the loyalist calendar and, in Drumcree, the Orange Order was demanding a “right to walk the queen’s highway” in triumphalist parade on the Garvaghy Road.
When photographs of the Quinn boys were published, the world abruptly stopped spinning. Richard (11), Mark (10) and Jason (8) glowed with guiltlessness. The UVF killed them simply because they were Catholics, regardless that their school and their mother’s partner were Protestant.
Four years of Drumcree protests had already sparked numerous sectarian killings. A taxi driver shot dead in his car. A 12-year-old boy killed while running from a chasing pack. The PSNI’s predecessor, the RUC, recorded 144 houses damaged, 178 vehicles hijacked, 284 arrests, 76 police officers injured, 632 petrol bombs and 837 plastic rounds fired by the RUC in a period of four years from 1995 to 1998 inclusive. But it was the image of the Quinn children that captured the lethal lunacy of Orangemen insisting on showboating an ancient battle victory over ancestors of Portadown’s minority, the nationalists living on Garvaghy Road.
Even after the three white coffins went into the ground, the Orange Order persisted with its attempts to parade on the road, but their numbers dwindled and a facade of peace descended when the Parades Commission refused them permission year after year. Until now.
Had he been let live, Mark Quinn would be the same age now as Christopher Nelson, who has been speaking about his horror at Drumcree’s convulsions since Sunday. He was 11 when his mother, Rosemary Nelson, the solicitor for the Garvaghy Road residents, arrived outside her daughter’s primary school one lunchtime and a bomb hidden under her car exploded. It had been planted by the Red Hand Defenders, a dissident group comprised of members of the LVF and the Orange Volunteers. The human rights lawyer died on the operating table. A mother of three school-age children with a client book featuring Protestants as well as Catholics, she had previously been assaulted by RUC officers.
On RTÉ’s Liveline, Christopher said he had not told his own child where her mother has disappeared to since Sunday. He pretends she came home while the child was sleeping and left before she woke. The truth is she has been protesting with her community against the diabolical decision to allow Orangemen on to the Garvaghy Road for their Battle of the Boyne church commemoration. When experts talk about the intergenerational trauma bequeathed by the Troubles, the Nelson family is a textbook case.
There is near consensus that the reopening of Drumcree’s tinderbox proves Ireland is not ready for reunification. Taoiseach Micheál Martin prescribes reconciliation between the North’s divided communities – a noble proposition, but a wishful one. Reconciliation only works when all sides accept equal status.
The Orange claim to superior consideration in Drumcree, despite all the grief and horror it has caused, is a rejection of the Belfast Agreement’s requirement for a parity of esteem. This is not just about entitlement to walk a stretch of road. It is about entitlement to rule the roost.
It is no coincidence that this came a fortnight after the US president fan-boyed Irish reunification and ahead of next year’s Assembly elections. The mistake made by “not yet” rejectionists of unification is that they cling to the hope that people steeped in the history of their own presumed superiority can be won round to equality by rational persuasion.
Loyalist chauvinism did not start last Sunday or in Drumcree in 1995 or with the Troubles in 1969 or in 1920 with partition and the establishment of a sectarian Northern state. It is centuries old. The first Orange parade in Drumcree took place in July 1795, instigated by a Protestant minister whose sermon “so worked up the minds of his audience [they] gave full scope to their anti-papistical zeal” on their way home. Thus recorded historian Francis Plowden. In History of Ireland, published in 1809, he described the ensuing mob “falling upon every Catholic they met, beating and bruising them without provocation or distinction, breaking the doors and windows of their houses, and actually murdering two unoffending Catholics in a bog”.
Behind the salubrious tourism images, Northern Ireland is a precarious state with dysfunctional political institutions, segregated education, nationalists fleeing over the Border every marching season and a so-called peace wall still separating the sides. Government ministers say this week’s Garvaghy Road impasse is a rogue episode and that most parades are peaceful. Have they forgotten the 2019 Apprentice Boys parade when the flute band flaunted the insignia of the British Army’s parachute regiment on their uniforms in Derry, where the paras killed 13 Catholics on Bloody Sunday?
What the latest Drumcree standoff proves is not that a united Ireland must be put back on the shelf, but that the reunification of this island is the North’s best bet.
Birthright privilege is the essence of a monarchy, such as the UK. A republic such as Ireland, on the other hand, pledges itself to the ethos that all citizens are equal. Of course, governments have failed to always honour that principle but the very requirement for it sows its value in the psychology of a country. That is not so in Northern Ireland. Long after life was viciously extinguished for the Quinn brothers, loyalism still demands its birthright privilege.
The ghost of Drumcree has come back to haunt and taunt Garvaghy Road residents in the days when Germany is celebrating Unity Day, marking its reunification in 1990.
“Did Germany make any mistake with reunification that Ireland could learn from?” I asked a very clever German official who has been deeply involved in the project. He considered the question for a while before answering. “You can wait too long,” he said.
Sometimes, we humans get too bogged down in the past to be able to recognise a better future.
There is a large car park at the chapel at the top of the road and then a lot of parking at the Mayfair Business Centre in the middle of the road. You should get sorted between those two.
I’ve never been in Portadown nor the Garvaghy Road, so very much don’t want to say something incorrect out of pure ignorance.
But I saw on TikTok there was a post informing people about tomorrow. It advised parking in a church car park at the very top of Garvaghy Road and there is also parking for coaches further down the road.
Can we get a new MegaThread for the weekend? This one has nearly 4.5K comments already and with events planned for the weekend on both sides, I can only imagine how quickly that will rise tomorrow.
Sarah Bunting claiming the UVF weren’t responsible for the Quinn brothers deaths after their home being set on fire, but it was in fact because of a drug debt and it was dealers set their house on fire.
There are no depths they will not sink to.
Yeah, that's the excuse the loyalists have been going with for ages now. They don't actually care who they kill so long as they aren't blamed for it. Literally the day after their murders it was already being proclaimed an anti loyalist conspiracy against the lodge.
Do the Ancient Order of Hibernians have 2,500 marches a year? Do they march in loyalists areas? Were there 21 people killed because of one of their marches?
Misleading (what's new from Belfast Live), they aren't talking about live arrests and a current police presence lifting people on the road. It's all good.
Not sure if this has made it in to the thread as it hasn't really been in mainstream media...
The Orange Order have been locked out of Drumcree Church and hall.
When they left for one of their walks down to the police line earlier in the week, the door was locked behind them. So they're leaving each evening now instead of maintaining their presence.
The minister has been taking a lot of abuse by email and phone, but he doesn't seem too concerned. To be fair to him, his wife is ill with cancer, so he doesn't need that crowd causing bother in the name of the Church.
Does anyone know if they have had any attempted marches down to police lines? Or have they given up and gone home? Seen videos a few days ago marching down in the dead of night but nothing noted since.
It has been mentioned on here. Haven't heard a peep anywhere else. Someone shared a very interesting link which seemed to imply that it being opened for them was in direct contravention of rules, or at least some kind of agreement that the church has introduced re: political groups.
there was a synodal decision i think in 1999?? to do with something like that, but i dont fully know and im not confident i could dig it up in any reasonable timeframe.
What is it with the loyalist mentality of "Do YOU live on the 'Garvacky' Road?", "Michelle O'Neill and Mary Lou Mcdonald aren't from the 'Garvacky' Road", "Mac Cionnaith isn't even from there"? Seems to be you aren't allowed to form an opinion unless you're from the Garvaghy Road.
When Mountbatten was assassinated, was it only the fish who were allowed to have an opinion on that?
I assume they see it as a Portadown District only issue and also they are following the law whereas the crowds getting bussed in are not due to unlawful gatherings etc.. loada dung, they are just clinging to how they follow the law and using it as an arguing point tbh
What is it with the loyalist mentality of "Do YOU live on the 'Garvacky' Road?"
I've said it before on here but the Loyalist notion that 'bussing people in' to the protest is something underhand and should be criticised is just remarkably daft.
As if having wide public support all across the island for your cause is a bad thing.
Nah, they want to isolate and bully the residents.
It's a stupid argument to begin with, seeing none of them are residents of the area they want to march through
He was absolutely fantastic. Nolan and Clarke could only tone police him rather than address what he actually said, because they can't and you can't either
He said thousands of us will mobilise to block the road then Trevor Clarke pretended to cry about how "intolerant" he was without explaining why
Get this through your head; blocking a group of sectarian bigots from marching through an area to traumatise the community there is good actually
No tolerance for supremacist sectarian scum. Fuck the orange order and its dogshit ideology xxo
Aww right. The "supposed hate group" that put the garvaghy road under seige back in the 90's?
The same group that had to be shamed into backing down after the deaths of 3 young children directly linked to the parade we're all discussing?
28 years penance, all water under the bridge, eh?
The man cut through the bullshit. Unionism would need to cast the beam from their own eye
Look, don't try and make light of this situation. Just because you and Nolan couldn't handle what Paul from west Belfast was laying down 😀.
But seriously, a large part of loyalist culture is total anathema to nationalists, even soft nationalists.
Parading, particularly in nationalist areas, due to the historical baggage it has accumulated, is something nationalists are loathe to accept. March away in your own areas, we don't care about that.
Also, there seems to be a constant need for provocation from loyalism. Flags draped from every lamppost, bonfires scraping the heavens. What's that all about?
I'm aware nationalism has aspects that loyalists would find deeply offensive, but it's a much more niche past time in nationalist areas. I'd guess most of us have never been near an easter march, we've mostly given up on bonfires. Unionism seems to be in a constant state of culture war escalation, nationalists, for the most part, don't really care about all that shit lol
Also, there seems to be a constant need for provocation from loyalism. Flags draped from every lamppost
I've never seen any tricolours on lampposts now that you mention it. Certainly not on the Garvaghy Road, either. 😅
There was one on my own street (fairly mixed area) for a good year or two. Didn't care, tbh. Kinda liked it (it's a nice flag and I'm Irish, too), but it maybe wasn't good for property prices.
bonfires scraping the heavens.
Bonfires provoke you how exactly? In Loyalist areas, too!
I actually wanted to see a bonfire lit for once this year, and had to try to find one. Even then, it was out of the way, so I just didn't bother.
Have you considered that maybe you just don't like Loyalism or unionism, and their very existence seems like a provocation to you?
Hence why you have to try to rationalise away your intolerance by falsely labelling the OO as a hate group?
All this fuss over the teeniest "parade" (it could barely be called that) seems a little mad.
A normal society would just shrug, stay indoors, and ignore it.
Unionism seems to be in a constant state of culture war escalation, nationalists, for the most part, don't really care about all that shit lol
If they didn't care, they wouldn't be camped outside breaking the law for the last week. 😂
Also, if that were true, trying to stick up Irish language signs in unionist areas wouldn't be a thing.
Or the constant defacing of Northern Ireland or Londonderry signs (plus the endless attempts to change the name).
The reality is that nationalist cultural symbols or events are often well accepted (St. Patrick's Day, the Fleadh), while something like the Twelfth largely isn't tolerated unless parades are limited to where nationalists are less likely to see them.
Breaking the law, eh? The brethren would never dream of that. Happy to stand side by side with Billy Wright the last time drumcree was on our screens.
Nationalists get everything, st patricks day, the fleadh. The poor wee twalfth! Hahaha.
How many loyalist parades were approved last year? How many in comparison to nationalist parades?
Name me one nationalist parade that goes through a protestant area.
You're that far gone you've mistaken catholics having any kind of cultural expression as some type of discrimination. Honestly, I think you'd probably need to have a think about your whole idea of fairness and tolerance
Look buddy, listen to the last few sentences you've came out with. "Teeniest parade," "stay indoors and ignore it."
What society would accept a group, who were at the centre of a dispute that seen the loss of 20 peoples, including children's, lives, to then finish the same march that caused all that murder and carnage?
You said that I was hateful and bitter. I mind my own business, go to work, spend time with my family. I accord the same respect to everyone I meet, catholic or protestant.
In a normal society the people who insist on walking through an area they're not wanted would be seen as the bitter ones
Jamie Bryson (the most popular man on this sub Reddit by all accounts lol) has just announced a let them home festival has been arranged tomorrow in Portadown.
The Let them Home festival tomorrow.
The call is going out across Ulster; everyone to Portadown tomorrow to stand behind the loyal 35. The time has come for the stand to be taken.
We will stand together as a peaceful, lawful community. This is a family event. There is no alcohol, no masks or face coverings. We are decent law-abiding people standing up for our rights.
We will not fall into the provocation and behave like the human-rights deniers unlawfully amassed on the Garvaghy Road.
The rights of the loyal 35 have been denied, and the law has been surrendered to a nationalist/republican mob.
For 30 years unionism has been expected to give, whilst nationalists have demanded that they get. Enough was enough long ago.
What a weird little man. Most unionists don't even want this march to go ahead or even support the religious OO cult. They aren't going through the area, virtually everyone knows this. The PSNI know it. The British government know it. As always, and as with essentially everything he has tried to get involved with, Bryson will be left behind screaming like a petulant child on Facebook lol
Chris from Rhondda and Ogmore now appealing for calm over the weekend.
Portadown puts out a statement asking people not to go to the streets. Bryson calls out people to come to this parade. Has Bryson parted ways with Portadown because their statement lacked his usual inflammatory rhetoric.
They could have got the YES in court.. and then announced due to good faith they will not march the road and continue to take the alternative… until at some point maybe just maybe the residents would allow it in future if all sides agree.. to try make themselves look half sound.
But naw, bin boy got the yes and thought fuck this, we’ll settle the score !!
Kinda don’t blame them for trying after keeping it up for 28 years i guess.. we didn’t expect anything else lol😂
The vast majority of loyal order and band parades take place every year without controversy - and there are probably thousands of such parades.
They are enjoyed by many and tolerated by others. Our heritage and culture are not under threat.
This current crisis has been deliberately engineered by those following a ‘culture war’ agenda. We need to waken up to this reality.
It is not just about 35 men walking silently down a road at 8am on a Sunday. Everyone knows that. To push that line insults the intelligence.
This small silent march which, we are told, could not possibly offend anyone, is not the end of this matter. If it was, there would be some justification in it going ahead. Next year, they’ll want a bigger parade. And so on.
There’s a deep, traumatic and complex history behind Drumcree.
While some of the rhetoric emanating from the more extreme spokespersons on Garvaghy Road is only adding fuel to the fire, the primary blame for starting the fire must be laid at the door of those who knew exactly what they were doing when they skilfully revived this issue.
And as I’ve said on several occasions, I fear this will not end well. I pray I’m wrong.
However, I still feel that the matter could be resolved if the Orangemen, having won the legal right to walk, were to agree to relinquish that right and return to Portadown the way they came.
By so doing, they would not only have taken the high moral ground, but they would have made a major contribution towards taking Northern Ireland forward.
I don't want to sound dramatic, but my MH has taken a real nosedive this week. I can't stop checking the progress on this crisis, because I genuinely fear another assembly collapse and a return to violence. I have more family nowadays to think about in terms of healthcare and quality of life. A default to Westminster rule could seriously plight our already screwed health service. Our devolved assembly - sticking their noses up at £1.1billion, then blind-siding the electorate with archaic traditionalist bollocks, is both terrifying and on the global stage, fucking embarrassing.
I’m seriously going to try and plot my exit if I’m honest. Northern Ireland has worn me down. It’s wild when you go abroad and literally not a single person could’ve a shite about the small minded politics of this place. They must think we’re all mad.
Youve no control over this situation so try not to stress about it, and remember Stormont does fuck all anyway so you'll barely notice if it collapsed (again)
If anything a default to Westminster would get things done quicker and we could see some progress on issues, it's not ideal but the current shower in stormont haven't shown the political maturity to lead us.
I think the consensus is that Stormont is very unlikely to collapse. SF won't collapse it, the DUP is the only one with any motive for it and if another election had to be done due to a collapse, they wouldn't come out with more seats so it's in their best interest also to keep Stormont running.
If Sinn Fein hadn't stood on that road their vote and credibility with the nationalist community would have collapsed.
After the PC announced their decision a lot of nationalist were questioning the point of the GFA. If Sinn Fein stood this out they'd have left the door wide open for anti-GFA nationalists to gain ground.
Not that it's all politics, Sinn Fein members believe with a genuine conviction that what they are doing is right. Just because something is legal does not mean it is right.
Once again unionism has shot it's self in the foot, galvanised nationalism and brought the question of Irish unity and how our political system operates to the forefront.
The DUP would be extremely foolish to collapse stormont over this. If stormont goes away again I genuinely believe it should never come back, at least not without major reform. It's been proven over and over that power sharing does not work with idiots like the DUP involved.
The only message she telegraphed was "Nationalists, vote for me". She didn't care about pushing the non-sectarian position. 30 years after the GFA she was picking sides as the First Minister.
The non-sectarian position is to stop sectarian bigots marching in areas they aren't wanted.
Take the fence out of your hole. MON and Sinn Fein come out of this looking very well to all their constituents. The DUP are losing moderate unionist votes by spades.
And alliance as usual are sitting on the fence while parroting loyalist "rule of law" dog whistles.
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u/spectacle-ar_failure 16d ago edited 16d ago
Summary 1st October (21:15)
•Nolan show (30/9) saw Jamie Bryson, Jon Burrows (UUP Leader & MLA), Jonathan Buckley (DUP MLA), Gerry Carroll (PBP MLA) and Dessie a resident of the Garvaghy Road attended for a discussion. Honourable mentions:
•Carla Lockhart attended the orange fund fair in Portadown last night (30/9) stating the OO were not going to accept the deal and claimed that the Chief Constable and SoSNI were risking pushing NI into an abyss.
•The Orange Order had another march to the police lines last night (30/9). Vengaboys - YouTube
•SoSNI left NI for another engagement in England, but has since returned this evening with talks expected with delegations tonight/tomorrow (1/10-2/10)
•The legal challenge to prevent the march by Garvaghy Road residents is postponed until Monday (5/10). Originally meant to be heard tomorrow (Fri 2/10), it was postponed to allow for further talks in Hillsborough.
•Gavin Robinson claims Sinn Féin have given up on devolution.
•Policing operation has cost £3m so far (meanwhile public services requiring funding)
•Chief Constable/Policing Board continue to investigate those attending the unlawful protest
•Chief Constable also claims Scarva was a different policing challenge when asked if it was unlawful
•Anglican and Catholic Archbishops call for people to pray St Francis of Assisi's peace prayer. (Feast Day October 4th)
•Mary Wallopers have attended Garvaghy Road for a concert, also took a photo with Gerry Adams.
•A protest in solidarity of the Garvaghy Road residents was held in West Belfast earlier, attended by Gerry Carroll (PBP) and Pat Sheehan (SF)
ETA - forgot to include the deal (according to Nolan this morning 1/10)
The Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition would accept the Orange Order had the legal right to walk the Garvaghy Road
The residents would publicly accept it was wrong to block the Orange Order from walking down the road
In return, that the Orange Order would choose not to walk the road