Orange parade passes through Ardoyne interface without incident

By Jonathan McCambridge, PA

An Orange Order parade has passed the interface Ardoyne shops area in north Belfast without incident.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) mounted a security operation after the Parades Commission granted permission for the homeward part of the Twelfth parade to take place on Sunday morning.

The area had been the location for violent confrontations linked to Orange marches in the past.

However, a deal was reached in 2016 which instigated a moratorium on return parades while engagement over future agreement between the Orange Order and a nationalist residents’ group was sought.

The return parade on Sunday – applied for under the name “The Ligoneil Combine” – involved one band and 50 members, with only hymn music permitted on its way past through the area.

There was no protest staged by residents as the march passed through.

Father Gary Donegan, director of the Passionist Peace and Reconciliation Office, said there had been “trepidation” in the Ardoyne community about the parade.

He said: “We had eight years of an agreement which facilitated morning parades with no return.

“Things started to break down in that agreement two years ago.

“Ultimately, yesterday passed by peacefully with no issues, but the return was always the issue.

“When it was determined this would actually happen there was a lot of sense of trepidation within the community, a lot of sense of tension.

“People were just hoping it would pass by, which it did.

“Now we can get on with the Sunday Masses and services as normal.”

Fr Donegan said there had been a “conscious decision” by the community not to hold a physical protest against the march.

He said: “Because of the sense of the tension in the lead-up to this, the less attention drawn to it the better.

“It passed through there, it is over and now we can start to go back to normality again.”

Fr Donegan said future return Orange parades through the area are now in the “hands of the Parades Commission”.

He said: “There was an agreement that took a lot of negotiating at the time.

“Now that that seems to be no longer in existence, it is going to be each and every time the issues that pertain to this are going to be on the table each time this happens.”

The parade followed traditional Twelfth of July celebrations on Saturday which brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets across Northern Ireland.

The festivities marked the 334th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, when the Protestant King William of Orange triumphed over the Catholic King James II.

Meanwhile, the traditional July 13th events organised by the Royal Black Preceptory in the village of Scarva, Co Armagh, will take place on Monday.

The event includes a parade as well as a sham fight between actors playing rival monarchs William and James.

The Twelfth celebrations came after the burning of bonfires at an estimated 300 locations in loyalist neighbourhoods across the region on Thursday and Friday nights.